Intercessory Prayer

Intercessory prayer is defined below by Robert Longman as follows:

"Intercessory prayer is not the same as prayers for yourself, or for 'enlightenment', or for spiritual gifts, or for guidance, or any personal matter, or any glittering generality. Intercession is not just praying for someone else's needs. Intercession is praying with the real hope and real intent that God would step in and act for the positive advancement of some specific other person(s) or other entity.  It is trusting God to act, even if it's not in the manner or timing we seek." [1]

The intercessor must have absolute  faith in God.  Absolute faith is faith with zero  doubt.  The intercessor must also have genuine  love for others.  Genuine love is love with zero self interest.  An intercessory prayer is said without the recipient beneficiary(ies)'s knowledge.  The appeal(s) can be made directly to God or the Son of God and indirectly to Them through the Mother of God.

One might ask why should one go through the Blessed Virgin Mary if the appeal(s) can be made directly to God or the Son of God?  This is not a question that necessary has an answer but if an answer must be had, it is this: the Blessed Virgin Mary is the  constant Intercessor in Heaven.  Having Her assistance in interceding is much more effective than without it.  After all, as the Immaculate Conception and Queen of Heaven and Earth, and in Her dual role as God's Spouse and the Mother of Jesus, is it not reasonable to assume that the Blessed Virgin Mary will have the ears of God and Her Son sooner and more directly than just someone calling out to Heaven for help?  Is it also not reasonable to assume that They would act quicker on Her appeals than any of the petitions coming from sinners on earth?

Furthermore, there is no rule that limits an intercessory appeal (or any prayer for that matter) to either God, the Son of God or the Blessed Virgin Mary.  If there are rules, either stated or unstated, they ought to be: pray to all of Them, and pray often; intercede when compelled to and as needed for people one knows and for strangers as well.

Sometimes one is compelled to intercede for another out of pure love on the one hand and pure turmoil on the other. Whatever force that is driving one to say intercessory prayers are forces of good.  Robert Longman put it this way: "If God's love is at work in you, you will care about others, and your love for them will lead you to take it to the ultimate Source of strength, healing, and love." [2]

Robert Longman also made this interesting observation which is beyond this blogger's other-worldly experiences: "It is best to always be aware that you never really pray alone. For when the honest love in you for other people causes you to ask God to act to strengthen, heal, defend, change, or bless them, there is someone else praying with you: the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit is leading you to pray." [3]  Perhaps the feeling of  turmoil is one of the forces of the Holy Spirit that compels one to act for the benefit of the one compelled, in the quelling of the turmoil, and for the benefit of the recipient of the intercessory prayers, in bringing a healing to the soul, the body and the mind, the result of which is a new person who is more like the Christ than before the suffering.

                                                                                                                

[1] http://www.spirithome.com/intercessory-prayer.html
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.