Chapter IV. Intercessory Prayer
Let us see what goes to the saving of a soul, and what is involved in its being saved. In the first place, it was absolutely necessary that God should become man, in order that that soul should be saved, according to the dispensation of God. It was absolutely necessary that Jesus should be born, teach, act, pray, merit, satisfy, suffer, bleed, die, for the saving of that single soul. It was necessary that there should be a Catholic church, faith, sacraments, saints, the Pope, and the sacrifice of the Mass, for that one soul. It was necessary that there should be a supernatural substance or quality, a marvellous participation of the Divine Nature, called sanctifying grace, and that on this should be accumulated loving acts and impulses of the Divine Will, in the shape of manifold actual graces, preventing, accompanying, following, and efficacious, else that soul cannot be saved. Martyrs must die, doctors must write, Popes and councils must expose and condemn heresy, missionaries travel, priests be ordained, for the safety of that single soul. When all these preparations are completed, and by an act of merciful omnipotence that soul is created out of nothing, then there must be a guardian angel appointed over it; all through its life Jesus must be occupied about it; Mary must have a great deal to do with it; all the angels and saints must pray and interest themselves about it. To every good thought, pious word, and devout action, and, of course, they soon come to be innumerable, a participation of the Divine nature, grace must concur. Unseen evil spirits have to be warded off from it, and foiled in their attempts upon it. Hourly temptations have to cause more or less emotion among its advocates in heaven. Every attribute of God vouchsafes to legislate for its advantage, so that it plays upon them all like one who fingers the keys of a musical instrument. The Precious Blood has to be communicated to it through extraordinary sacraments, which are full of mystery, and were invented both as to form and matter by our Lord Himself. All sorts of things, water, oil, candles, ashes, beads, medals, scapulars, have to be filled with a strange undefinable power by ecclesiastical benedictions in its behalf. The Body, Soul, and Divinity of the Incarnate Word have to be communicated to it over and over again till it becomes quite a common occurrence, though each time it is in reality a more stupendous action than the creation of the world. It can speak up to heaven, and be heard and obeyed there. It can spend the satisfactions of Jesus as if they were its own, and can undo bolts and bars in purgatory, and choose by its own determinate will whom it will liberate and whom it will pass over. And all the time it is so near to God, and its heart is a place so sacred and so privileged, that none but God Himself can communicate grace to it, not even the angels, nor the Mother of God herself, blessed throughout all ages.
All this goes to the salvation of a soul. To be saved it has to be God's child, God's brother, and to participate in God's nature. Now see what is involved in its being saved. Look at that soul yonder that has just been judged; Jesus has this instant spoken; the sound of His sweet words has hardly died away; they that mourn have scarcely yet closed the eyes of the deserted body. Yet the judgment has come and gone; all is over; it was swift but merciful; more than merciful; there is no word to say what it was. It must be imagined. One day, please God! we shall experience it. That soul must be very strong to bear what it is feeling now. God must support it, or it will fall back into nothingness. Life is over. How short it has all been. Death is done with. How easy was its passing sharpness. How little the trials look, how puny the sorrows, how childish the afflictions! And now something has happened to it, which is to be for evermore. Jesus has said it. There can be no doubt about it. What is that something? Eye has not seen, nor ear heard. It sees God. There is stretched before it an illimitable eternity. Darkness has melted from before it. Weakness has fallen off from it. Time has vanished, that cramped it so. There is no ignorance. It sees God. Its understanding is inundated with unspeakable delights; it is strengthened by unimaginable glory; it abounds in that Vision to which earthly science is an illiterate stupidity. The will is flooded with love; excessive happiness thrills through every affection. As a sponge 8 is filled with the sea, so it is filled with light, beauty, bliss, ravishment, immortality, God. These are foolish words, lighter than feathers, weaker than water. They are not a shadow of what it feels. Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, heart has not conceived. There it is on the threshold of it all; the same soul that but a moment ago was sobbing in pain, feeble as an unmanly child. There can be no mistake about it.
But not only so. There is not the slightest risk of its being forfeited. All is sure. All is its own, its very own, inalienable, and for ever. Sin can never come nigh it. Imperfection cannot breathe upon it. It knows no change, though its variety is infinite. It knows no inequality, though its joys are multitudinous and its delights innumerable. It is crowned king, and for ever. And the empire of all this magnificence, how cheaply has it been purchased! Those transient toils and cares of life, which grace turned into contentments, and love to real pleasures! Andnow, here is this come, the light of glory, and the beauty of the Everlasting Vision! It would appear but a dream; only that the marvellous calm of the soul tells of the power and the depth of its new life. Its ability to bear its own consciousness is the gage of its freshness and its immortality. And all this is involved in the saving of a soul! How wonderful is the world if we remember how many of its inhabitants die every moment of the day and night; and there is probably never a moment in which there is not some soul in this predicament, just judged, its sentence favorable, and its eyes opened on the incommunicable beauty and goodness of God. O dull and weary, weary and dull! This is all we can say, when we turn our thoughts back to our own petty cares, teasing temptations, vexatious self-love, annoying littleness, ungenerous shabbiness with God! He has gone, is judged, it is well with him! Oh how well! And we still here. Our great risk yet to be run! O dull and weary, weary and dull!
Yet a few minutes ago, and that soul was not secure. There was a desperate contest going on, a pitched battle between heaven and hell, and heaven seemed at a disadvantage. The sufferer was patient enough to merit any thing that could be merited. But God put the last gift, the ultimate grace, final perseverance, beyond the reach of merit; and so seemed almost to throw the victory into the hands of the enemy. It was a terrific moment. All was at stake. All that had gone to the saving of that soul, from eternity up to that hour, was on the point of being lost and frustrated for ever; it is lost, it is frustrated, and for ever, almost every minute, perhaps quite every minute, all the world over. All, too, that was to be involved in the saving of that soul just then ran the risk of never being attained. Can risk, even in idea, go beyond this risk? And Jesus stood by, watching the turnings of the battle, how it would go. The beatings of His Sacred Heart might have been heard in the silence of the moment. He had suspended His own sweet and easy law, whereby, because of His merits, we can merit also. Although He Himself had merited for us the gift of final perseverance, and whosoever receives that grace receives it for the sole merits of our Lord, yet it seemed as if
He had given that moment up to the sheer sovereignty of the Divine Majesty. It was thrown, so it appeared, on the great, overpowering, limitless might of the mercy of the Undivided Trinity. One law alone is left unfettered. It is on purpose. The law of prayer, intercessory prayer. You are of kith and kin to that dying man, or you are his enemy; you are his priest, or his nurse, or his benefactor; you are his neighbor, or you are a thousand miles away; you know him well, or you never heard of his existence, or dreamed of his agony. It matters not. The victory has been left to you. The matter is in your hands. His soul hangs on your prayers. Jesus has decreed that you, not He, (if I may say so untrue a thing,) are to save that soul. You are to put the crown on all that has gone to his salvation. You are to put the crown on all that is involved in his salvation. You may never know it, or at least not till you are judged yourself. Yet, in the communion of saints, and in the unity of Jesus, you are to be the saviour of that uncertain soul, the victory of that unsettled strife!
But what is prayer? The mystery of prayer? We have need to ask the question if it involves so great a responsibility, and can do so great a work, and if it be in truth a precept that we must pray for others as well as for ourselves. There are many things which go to make up a true account of prayer. First, we must consider who we are who pray. None could have a more ignoble origin. We were created out of nothing, and we came into the world with the guilt and shame of sin already on our souls, and the burden of a hideous penalty which eternal lamentation never could remit. To this our original disgrace we have added all manner of guilt and shame, of treason and rebellion, of irritability and disrespect, of our own. There are no words which would exaggerate our malice, no description which would convey a fair idea of our helpless ignorance. Every thing about us was little to begin with, and we have made it immeasurably less. It is hard to conceive ourselves worse than we are; so much so that it is necessary to make it a duty to be patient and forbearing with ourselves quite as much as with others. Then, next we must consider who it is to whom we pray. The infinitely blessed Majesty of God, than which nothing can be conceived more good, more holy, more pure, more august, more adorable, more compassionate, more incomprehensible, or more unutterable. The very thought of God takes away our breath. He is Three living Persons. We live, and move, and breathe in Him. He can do what He wills with us. He is no further bound to us than He has graciously and piteously chosen to bind Himself. He knows every thing without our telling Him or asking Him. Yet it is to Him we pray. Next, let us think where it is we pray. Whether it be a co*nsecrated place or not. It is in God Himself. We are in the midst of Him, as fishes are in the sea. His immensity is our temple. His ear lies close upon our lips. It touches them. We do not feel it; if we did we should die. It is always listening. Thoughts speak to it as loudly as words; sufferings even louder than words. His ear is never taken away. We sigh into it even while we sleep and dream.
Next, let us ask, whence comes the value of our prayers? They are fleeting words; fugitive petitions. There is nought in us to give ground for a hearing, except the very excess of our unworthiness, and, therefore the extremity of our need. Else, why should our prayers be in the Creator's ear more than the roaring of a lion, or the querulous complaining of the plover, or the cry of the suffering beast run down by the hunters? Their value comes principally from this — that God Himself has vouchsafed to become a man, has lain out upon the inclement mountains, and spent the night in prayer. He mixes us up with Himself; makes our cause His, His interests ours, and we become one with Him. So by a mysterious communion the work of His prayers runs into our prayers, the wealth of His enriches the poverty of ours, the infinity of His touches, raises, and magnifies the wretchedness of ours. So that when we pray, it is not we who pray, but He who prays. We speak into our Heavenly Father's ear, and it is not our voice, but the voice of Jesus, like His Mother's voice, that God vouchsafes to hear. Or rather, the Eternal vouchsafes to be like Isaac in his blind, old age. His younger son kneels before Him for His blessing, with license to play his elder brother's part. " The voice indeed is the voice of Jacob," and it is not he whom I will bless, " but the hands are the hands of Esau," roughened with the toil of the world's redemption. And he says with Isaac: " Come near Me, and give Me a kiss, My Son." And immediately, as He smells the fragrant smell of His garments, for it is of a truth the stole of Christ, blessing him, he says: " Behold the smell of My son is as the smell of a plentiful field; " and so He filleth him with blessings. Neither is this an end of the inventions of his paternal love. For, we must next inquire with whom it is we pray. Never alone; of this we are sure, whenever we rightly pray. There is One dwelling in us who is co-equal, co-eternal God, proceeding from the Father and the Son. He forms the word in our hearts, and then puts music in our cry, when we exclaim, " Abba, Father! " He is our "access to the Father." He "strengthens us with might unto the inward man." He makes us "speak to ourselves in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual canticles, singing and making melody in our hearts to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things, in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to God and the Father; " He is the Spirit in whom " we pray at all times, by all prayer and supplication, and watch in the same, with all instance and supplication for all the Saints." He is the Spirit " who helpeth our infirmities; for we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit Himself asketh for us with unspeakable groanings: and He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what the Spirit desireth." Oh then does not the mystery of prayer deepen and deepen upon us?
Next, look at the incredible ease of prayer. Every time, place, posture, is fitting; for there is no time, place, or posture, in and by which we cannot reverently confess the Presence of God. Talent is not needed. Eloquence is out of place. Dignity is no recommendation. Our want is our eloquence, our misery our recommendation. Thought is quick as lightning, and quick as lightning can it multiply effectual prayer. Actions can pray; sufferings can pray. There need no ceremonies; there are no rubrics to keep. The whole function is expressed in a word; it is simply this, — the child at his father's knee, his words stumbling over each other from very earnestness, and his wistful face pleading better than his hardly intelligible prayer.
Then consider the efficacy of prayer. We have only to pray for lawful things, to pray for them often and perseveringly, and to believe we shall receive them, and receive them too, not according to the poverty of our foolish intentions, but according to the riches, and wisdom, and munificence of God; and it is an infallible truth that we shall receive them. God is at our disposal. He allows us this almost unbounded influence over Him, not once or twice, not merely on feasts or great occasions, but all our lives long. Are there any of the mysteries of grace sweeter than this? We read of one of the saints, that so availing were her prayers supposed to be, people came from all quarters to beg her to recommend their necessities to God. She, meanwhile, heard them and forgot them. She was immersed in contemplation, saw only the Divine Attributes, and had no thought but for the Lover of her soul. She was amazed, then, when crowds came continually to thank her for the answers that had come to her prayers on their behalf, and in an ecstasy she spoke her wonder in the ear of Jesus. "Daughter," replied our dearest Lord, "your will is always and only to do My will, and I will never let you vanquish Me in love; and, therefore, My will is to do your will, even when you have forgotten that you ever willed it." See what manner of Lord He is with whom we have to do!
Then, last of all, it is not for ourselves alone He lets us pray, but for others also. Nay, He expressly commands us to make intercessory prayer. Through His apostle He speaks with that positive and unusual form, " I desire first of all that supplications, prayers, • ntercessions, and thanksgivings, be made by men."* And in the passage quoted above from the eighth chapter of the epistle to the Romans, when the apostle says, " He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what the Spirit desireth; " he adds, " because He asketh for the Saints according to God." Thus the inestimable privilege, the mysterious gift of prayer, is given to us not merely for our own necessities, but that we may use it for the temporal and spiritual good of others. How strict an account shall we have to render for so great a favor, and how careful we should be that this power should not be intrusted to us in vain! Whatever other talents God may not have given to us, this one, without doubt, He has given to us. There is no distinction of persons. Young and old, rich and poor, learned and simple, priest and lay, religious and secular, we are all of us bound to the practice of intercessory prayer. Wo unto us if we hide our talent, or venture to return it to our Judge at the last unfruitful! Let each one examine himself, and see what time he has given hitherto to this devotion, and
• 1 Tim. ii. 1.
whether the past is in this respect altogether what he would have it be. To pray always is a hard precept and one we can only come to by time and habit, as well as by gift and grace. But the thing is to find that the older we grow the more we pray, and the more we pray the more our prayer takes the line of intercession for the souls of others.
Perhaps, never while we are on earth shall we realize the heavenly might of prayer, nor the exceeding riches of that treasure, which now, alas! we make so light of, seeing not how thereby God's glory is so much within our power. Oh, what might we not do by prayer! What might we not do in every remotest corner of the earth, in the cells of purgatory, and in the open courts of heaven! Yet the times are against prayer; the spirit of the age is against it; the habits of our countrymen are against it. Oh, for faith in prayer! for only faith in prayer! for faith in simple prayer! and the interests of Jesus shall spread like a beneficent conquest all over the world, and the glory of God shall beautifully cover the earth as the abounding waters cover the bed of the sea, and the choirs of redeemed souls shall multiply and multiply, till the Good Shepherd should be, were it any other than He, overladen with the sheaves of His prolific Passion! Heaven opens sometimes, and gives us a glimpse of this potency of prayer. See how it opened on St. Gertrude.* She was divinely instructed that as often as the angelic salutation is devoutly recited by the faithful on earth, three efficacious streamlets proceed from the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,
*Rev. 1. iv. c. Ki most sweetly penetrating the Blessed Virgin's heart. Then from her heart again with efficacious impetuosity, they seek their fountains, and break at the foot of God's throne, as a sunny wave breaks upon a rock, leaving her most powerful after the Father, most wise after the Son, and most benignant after the Holy Spirit. These streams, while the Ave Maria is being said, flow around the Blessed Virgin superabundantly, and with potent impetus, and on the other hand flow back again upon her most holy heart. So with marvellous delectation, I am using St. Gertrude's words, they seek their fountain first, and then rebounding back, bright drops of joy, and bliss, and eternal salvation, are sprinkled over all the persons of the saints and angels, nay, more, over those who on earth are then commemorating that same salutation, whereby is renewed in every one all the good which he has ever up to this time received through the most salutary Incarnation. Yet, what more easy than to say a devout Hail Mary? And if this be true of the Ave, what also of the Pater, and the Credo, and the Missal prayers, and ejaculations from the Gospel? Do we know what we are doing, and where we are living, and what is all around us, and how far our influence goes, and where our responsibilities end? And have we measured our privileges, and taken the height of our dignity, and fathomed the depths of grace? We are beset by our own greatness. We work miracles, and know it not. We move the heavens, yet we ourselves are in thoughtless rest on earth. The mystery is too much for us; the problem too hard; the supernatural quite oppressive. But the comfort is, we shall do all things well, use all powers, satisfy all duties, be equal to all dignities, exhaust all blessings, if only we will serve Jesus with pure intention and out of love. Once go forth upon the earth, and live, and move, and breathe, speak, act, and think, joy and sorrow, toil and rest, welcome and suffer, all for Jesus; and we need have no other thought, no other rule. No atom of what we are, or of what we have received, or of what we can effect, will then be lost; all things conscious will be for Jesus; all things unconscious for Jesus too; all things possible for Jesus; and if there were aught impossible for one in Christ, the very impossible would be all for Jesus too!
But let us apply our three instincts of the devout life to the practice of intercessory prayer. If we love our Heavenly Father, there is a gentle constraint upon us to hunger for His glory: and souls are His honor, and sin His dishonor. Now we may not be able to preach, or to write books, or to traverse distant lands as missioners, or to give money to send others there. It may be little indeed that of ourselves and by our actions we can do for God's glory or the conversion of souls. But intercession reaches everywhere. Neither time nor place bound it. Ignorance cannot keep it out, nor superstition silence it, nor sin refuse to stay within its influence. Wherever grace can come, prayer can reach, and that is wheresoever God's omnipotence extends, save and except that one place whence hope has been commanded to withdraw. Not that God is not glorified there also; but it is a glory we worship with silence, fear, and a trembling hush of heart. It is not that glory of His which we are His fellow-work - ers in promoting. We hear of some land where God's glory is endangered. There is some country, perhaps, where the civil power is at variance with the Holy See, than which nothing is more adverse to God's glory, more injurious to the interests of Jesus, or more fatal to the cause of souls. Or, again, we read with burning eyes and heart of the spiritual destitution of the slaves or the aborigines in certain countries. Or of the persecutions and tiring vexations of the Catholic clergy under heretical dominion, or of the impenetrable provinces of China and Japan, or of Catholic cities of scandalous profligacj^, or of the wily plots of an antiecclesiastical diplomacy, or of the depression of the religious orders, or of idle, extravagant bishops, or of jealousy of missions and retreats, or of disedifying controversies and foolish parties and silly questions. There is no sa3'ing to what an extent God's glory is compromised by any one of these things. We may be the weakest and most obscure among the Church's children; yet we can reach all this by intercession, and reach it too with efficacy and power. We may work for it without interruption; our ordinary actions may go to it; we may do more than all the ambassadors and legates that ever were, and yet not for an hour be distracted from our profession or our trade. We shall never know, till it meets us at the judgment, a goodly show, a beautiful vision, how much glory we have thus gained for God, without cost, without toil, almost without advertence, yet with such infinite and eternal recompense.
In like manner also shall we by intercession advance the interests of Jesus. There is something very touching to our affections to see how our dear Lord has vouchsafed, if I may say it, to leave His work unfinished in order that our love of Him may have the joy of finishing it. St. Paul might well say1 that he rejoiced in his sufferings for the Colossians, because thus he " filled up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in his flesh for the Lord's Body, which is His Church." It is a great artifice of our Saviour's love that He has chosen to be so dependent upon us for the harvest of His Cross and Passion; and we must have cold hearts indeed if it does not move us. Take any one temptation from which you suffer yourself. How wearisomely it dogs you, how miserably it entraps you; how it is always wakeful, always fixing itself on every good work, devotion, penance, prayer! How tired you get of resisting, how often you unhappily consent, how still more often you are teased and disquieted because 3rou cannot make out whether you have consented or not! Yet every moment of resistance is a supernatural act, a victory of grace, an interest of Jesus. Nay, so also is every sigh of sorrow over a fall, eveiy ejaculation sent up, arrowlike, to heaven, every naming of Jesus or Mary on the confines and in the risk of sin. Now, how many thousands are there all the world over who are wearily fighting with the same temptation, and possibly under more disadvantageous circumstances than yourself? See then how many interests of Jesus you can reach by intercession in this single respect: and I am purposely selecting a very trifling matter, trifling, that is, in comparison of other things where our Blessed
Lord is yet more concerned. Do at least as much as this; intercede for those who are being tempted with the same temptation as yourself. Intercession can shut up casinos, take away licenses of taverns, discountenance races, make it rain in Easter or in Whitsun-week, draw betting-offices down to bankruptcy, and ruin unspeakable haunts of sin. If we can do such an immense work for Jesus, with scarcely any trouble to ourselves, can we think we love Him if we are not doing it? The flesh may tremble at the knots of the scourge, and the temper chafe at the prickling of the hair-shirt, and the tired and imprisoned limbs rebel even against our sleeping a night in our clothes; all this is intelligible; there may be love of Jesus with it all; it is only the old story of Peter's drowsiness: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. But how we can love Jesus, and not practise intercession, is unintelligible. The wonder is how, prayer being what it is, those who really believe, can ever leave off praying, can ever do any thing else but pray. This is the real wonder, if we only come to think of it. This is a greater mystery than prayer itself.
Then, again, if we have the saving of souls at heart, how can we be lukewarm in intercession? Here too so much can be done, done infallibly, and all with so much ease. How few preachers are holy men, and yet without unction what will their sermons be worth? And if the world is, as St. Paul says, to be brought into subjection to Christ by the foolishness of preaching, what is to be done, if by intercession we do not impetrate either earnestness for the preacher, or an unction with his words for the hearer's sake? Eloquence, a plague upon the word when we are talking of Jesus and of souls! has no gift or benediction. Its harvest is but the preacher's praise and the wasted time of the silly, gaping audience. God's blessing is the thing. Do you remember the story of that religious, a Jesuit I think, who was a famous preacher, and whose sermons converted men by scores? And it was revealed to him that not one of the conversions was owing to his talents or eloquence, but all to the prayers of an illiterate lay -brother who sat on the pulpit steps saying Hail Maries all the time for the success of the sermon. There is another story, a very strange one, I will not vouch for its being true, but I will quote it for the sake of the wise teaching it contains. A certain religious, a very popular preacher, was expected one day in a convent of his order, where he was a stranger. In the afternoon he arrived, or rather an evil spirit who personated him arrived, to see what mischief he could do. It so happened that there was to be a sermon on hell preached that day by one of the monks; but he was ill, and unable to preach. So they asked this devil to preach on hell, which he did; and as may be supposed from his experience, a most wonderful sermon it was. However, on the arrival of the real preacher, the evil one was discovered, and was obliged by the sign of the cross to disclose himself and his malicious designs. Among other things he was asked, how it was not against his interests to preach such a frightening sermon about hell, as it would keep people from sin. " Not at all! " he re-plied; " there was no unction with it, so it could do no harm." Here again preaching is but one way by which intercession can reach souls. I merely give it as a sample. In many a convent, among porters and lay-brothers, there may turn out, when Jesus makes all things straight at the last, to have been many a Francis Xavier, many a Father Claver, many a St. Charles for reforming the clergy, a St. Thomas for writing books, and a St. Vincent of Paul for working the interests of Jesus in the towns and amid the country poor.
One of the most divine and striking characteristics of the Catholic religion is the communion of saints, the way in which, every thing belongs to everybody., and nobody has any spiritual property of his own.. The merits and satisfactions of our dear Lord, the joys and woes of Mary, the patience of the martyrs, the perseverance of confessors, and the purity of virgins, they all belong to all of us. Just as the blood circulates from and to the heart all over the body, so in the Church there is no division or separation. Heaven, purgatory, and earth, it is all one body. We interchange our merits, we circulate our prayers, we pars on our joys, we infect with our troubles, we use each other's satisfactions as they come to hand. We have all sorts of relations with heaven, and we know exactly how to manage them. As to purgatory, we have a regular science, and endless practical methods for it, and we are quite at home in them. And on earth kith and kin, blood and country, Jew, Greek, Scythian, bond and free, it is all one. This is what strikes heretics as so very portentous about us; there is no other word than portentous tor it. We talk of the other 9 world, as if it was a city we were familiar with from long residence; just as we might talk of Paris, Brussels, or Berlin. We are not stopped by death. Sight is nothing to us; we go beyond it as calmly as possible. We are not separated from our dead. We know the saints a great deal better than if we had lived with them upon earth. We talk to the angels in their different choirs, as if they were, as they are, our brothers in Christ. We use beads, medals, crucifixes, holy water, indulgences, sacraments, sacrifices, for all this, as naturally as pen, ink, and paper, or axe and saw, or spade and rake, for our earthly work. We have no sort of distrust about the matter. We are all one household, and there is an end of it. The blessed Lord God is our Father; His dear Majesty is our affair; our Elder Brother created us, and has our own nature; Mary is our mother; the angels and the saints are all the kindest and most familiar of brothers; so we go up and down stairs, in and out, and to each other's rooms, just as it ma}* be; there is no constraint about it at all; the air of the place is simply an intense filial love of the Father whom we all adore; so that our reverence is a children's reverence, and our fear a children's fear. How can they understand this, who live outside the household? Must it not necessarily seem to them a system of human mysteries, an unscriptural fabrication? They are " strangers and foreigners; " how can they divine the ways, the feelings, the sympathies of the " fellow-citizens of the saints and the domestics of God? " They can read the words, but they can know nothing of the heat and life, the strength and the perception, the health and love which are in "them: so that a vail is over their hearts, truly their hearts rather than their understandings, when Paul is read; for they who would understand the edifying of the body of Christ, must first " all meet into the unity of faith," and so needful is this right faith, that it is the " truth" that we "must do in charity in order that we may in all things grow up in Him who is the head, even Christ; from whom the whole body, being compactly and fitly joined together, by what every joint supplieth, according to the operation of the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body, unto the edifying of itself in charity." * Thus it is that intercessory prayer, practised as a system, persevered in and resorted to by a kind of instinct, has always been almost a note of the true Church, and is even charged upon her by her opponents as part and parcel of pharisaical proselytism. Notre Dame des Victoires of Paris is at least a phenomenon which the history of heresy and schism has not up to this time exhibited. They who do not possess Christ cannot master the idea of the vicarious function of His Church. Where there is no Sacrifice, there will hardly be much intercession. This is another motive for our diligent and affectionate exercise of this immeasurable privilege of love.
Orlandini says of Father Peter Faber, that he embraced in the bosom of his charity the whole human race, without any exception, and had his hands full of business for everybody with God. The more lost and profligate a man was, the more his pity kindled toward him. And that he might put greater vehemence
*Ephes. iv.
into his prayers, he excited and elevated them with the deepest reflections. When he prayed for people, he put them before himself, as redeemed with the Precious Blood of Christ, as Christ's heirs, as Christ's kingdom, so that he stirred up his own affectionate zeal by thus realizing their dignity and price, while at the same time he offered to God the merits of Christ and His Saints the more nobly and feelingly; until at length by this simple practice he accustomed himself to entertain quite a magnificent opinion (opinionem magnificam) of everybody. St. Catherine of Siena tells us that God said to her, " You ought with the utmost anxiety to pour forth prayers for all rational creatures, and for the mystical Body of Holy Mother Church, and for those whom I have given over to you to love with a singular affection." St. Gertrude also was told, " Whosoever says at least one Pater and Ave, or any collect or psalm, on behalf, and in the name of, the universal Church, the Son of God presently accepts it with the deepest gratitude as the fruit of His most perfect Humanity and giving thanks to God the Father for it, He blesses it, and multiplied by that benediction He distributes it to the Universal Church, for her profit to eternal salvation."
But let us now see for whom especially these intercessions should be offered. Spiritual writers give us different recommendations: I shall follow here, as so often before, the Jesuit Lancisius.2
- For those who are in mortal sin, or out of the true Church. Thus the Eternal Father said to St. Catherine of Siena, " I affectionately entreat you to
INTERCESSORY PRAYER. 13S pray assiduously for the salvation of sinners, for whom I ask of you wrestlings and tearful prayers, that I may satisfy My longing to show them grace and mercy." When she heard these words she was greatly inflamed with Divine Love, and being as it were intoxicated and unable to contain herself, she cried out, "O Divine Mercy and Eternal Goodness! it is no wonder to me that Thou sayest to converted sinners returning unto Thee, ' I will remember no more the injuries you have done unto me; ' but that Thou shouldest say so to the stiff-necked who persecute Thee daily with their iniquities, that Thou shouldest say, 'I will that you should affectionately pray for them, I long to show them mercy,' this is indeed a wonder." Again, God said to her, " You shall delight in the Cross, eating there, and ruminating by yourself the food of souls, to the glory and praise of My Holy Name, continually moaning with anxious heart over the death of the human race, because you see it brought down to such misery as your tongue cannot express. For it is by this moaning and wailing of my friends that I make dispositions for showing mercy to the world. And this is what I am continually asking of you, and of My other friends; and this will be the sign that you love Me truly and I on My side promise never to neglect your holy desires." Again, God complained to her thus: " See, My daughter, with what sins they strike Me, especially with self-love, whence every evil pj?oceeds. Self-love has infected the world, as if it had drunk poison; it comes from pride, and holds every sort of evil in itself. Do you, therefore, My servants, prepare yourselves with mercy, supplications, and anxious desires, grieving over the offences committed against me, and also over the damnation of the sinners themselves, and so you will mitigate the wrath of My Divine judgment." Here you see is another practice hinted to us, prayer against self-love in all souls throughout the world. If you suffer from it yourself, pray for the deliverance of others from it. This is an artifice of the spiritual life which never fails.
We read in the life of St. Clare of Monte Falco, that she once prayed for a certain person who was laden with the guilt of great crimes, and had delayed his conversion now to the last years of his life. Once and again, when she began to pray, she felt herself repelled from prayer Ixy a hidden violence, and she heard an interior voice telling her not to pray for that wretch, as she would not be heard. She returned, however, a third time to her prayer, and obtained his conversion in the following manner. She placed herself before Christ the Judge, as if she herself were laden with all this man's sins, and, as so laden, she obliged herself to make satisfaction for him, and to bear all the punishment which the order of Divine Justice should desire and exact, until the Divine Goodness should deign to convert that soul. This act so pleased our Lord, that the obstinate sinner was suddenly converted, and led a good life from that time forth. St. Theresa gives this as a reason for founding her convents, that, as there are so many who offend God, nuns ought to pray for their conversion, and with especial assiduity for the defenders of the Church, and particularly for preachers, and other learned men who maintain its truth. Yepes tells us in his life of her, that she spent whole nights praying and weeping for the conversion of souls, especially those infected with heresy, and that she would have given a thousand lives to convert one soul. The whole forty years, during which she thus exercised herself in prayer, she asked nothing so much of God as the spread of His glory, and the augmentation of the Church; and she was willing to remain ever so long in purgatory, if only she could make God better known and loved by men. In a like spirit St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi earnestly recommended her nuns to pray ardently for the salvation of souls and the conversion of sinners; and she said this exercise was very pleasing to God, as well as profitable to their own salvation. And when our Blessed Lady sent St. Ignatius to the same St. Mary Magdalene to instruct her in the practice of humility, he ended his instruction with these words: "As the Incarnate Word constituted His apostles fishers of men, so has He appointed His spouses, that is, nuns, to make a prey of souls." We learn also from the case of Father Giulio Mancinelli, the Jesuit, that God will have no narrowness in this matter; for, when he was accustomed to pray very often for the conversion of heathen and heretics, he had a vision of angels, wherein he learned that God would have him pray also for the conversion of the Jews.
For those who are in lukewarm ness and tepidity. For these are on the very verge of great sins, and yet they are in a state of grace at present. Their necessity is great; and so they claim our charity. Their renewal to favor, if they fall, is very difficult, more so than the conversion of sinners, and so it is a great glory of God. Jesus has given them the first grace; He has converted them, and now He is on the point of losing them; His interests are in danger. As God has been pleased to reveal to us His special distaste for the lukewarm, so would it be very acceptable to Him if we made prayer and penance for the lukewarm one of our special devotions. Next to the devotion for the souls in purgatory, I should almost venture to rank this devotion for the renewal of the lukewarm. Our dear Lord! how He seems to suffer in them! And, if they be lost, what graces will have been in vain, what sacraments wasted, what a triumph for our Lord's enemy! I beg of you to think of this, and when you think of it, to think of me. It is a devotion of much love, and of many graces. And perhaps you may not have thought of it before.
The multiplication of saints and their final perseverance. The glory of God, the good of souls, and the interests of Jesus, are all implicated here; and that in so many and in such great ways, that I need hardly stop to point them out, they are so. obvious. One saint is worth a million of common Catholics. Our Lord said even a stronger thing to St. Theresa, — that one soul, not a saint, but seeking perfection, was more precious to Him than thousands living common lives. It is astonishing how unsupernatural we are, even in our devotions: and how we let natural principles and natural activity carry us away even in spiritual things, and when we are doing God's work. I remember a good religious telling me some years ago that in a town in the east of England, he and his peo«
INTERCESSORY PRAYER. 18f pie had picked out certain influential Protestants, of public notoriety, and prayed to God most earnestly for their conversion. Of course this was all right. However, no answer came. At last it struck him that there might be a little too much forcing of man's will upon God in the matter. He proposed, therefore, that they should change their prayers, and pray for those whom God saw fittest for grace: and all at once the blessed epidemic broke out in their own very town, and it was our Lord's sweet will to swell the mission there, where it had least been looked for. Thus, who can doubt that the keen commiseration for England, which some feel, is from God? And if the general and wide object of their intercession, and the unlikely look of the ugly mass of heresy, immorality, and superstition, tempt them to weary in their charity, why not pray God to send England or Ireland a saint, a real saint, and then the battle would be more than half won? What I mean is, that prayers often seem to get their answer quickest when they embody some supernatural principle. It looks as if God, here and now, set especial store by such acts of unworldliness and faith.
For all those the world over who are in various necessities and tribulations, whether spiritual or temporal. Hear what Orlandini says of Father Peter Fa-ber, whom St. Francis Xavier used to put into the litany of the Saints, and St. Francis of Sales to revere as if he were canonized. It increased the grief and sorrow of this tender-hearted man that the majority of people do not know how to refer their affairs and miseries to God, but rely upon human helps while they neglect divine ones. This vehemently stimulated his compassion, so that he himself laid before God the cares and calamities of all men, and became a suppliant for them in al: their straits, doubles, misfortunes, and necessities^ tiU at last he passionately desired, like another Moses, to have his hands always lifted up on high, to carry help and consolation to so many who were bat tling with suffering and sorrow, whether dead or living: he had pictured to himself the various vexations., calamities, diseases, pains, hunger, despair, want, and all the countless evils to which men are subject, and as a good and sedulous priest, to borrow the simile of St. Chrysostom, he pleaded all their causes with God, as if he had been appointed in some special way the common father of the whole world. It is quite incredible with what zeal he burned to be the minister of our dear Redeemer, and by Him to aid every one in all his griefs; nay, if it may be said, he yearned, in spite of his humility, to do miracles to relieve those evils the cure of which is beyond the bounds of nature.
For the necessities of our benefactors, among whom are to be reckoned our enemies, because they give us occasions of merit, and help us on the road to heaven. St. Agnes said to St. Bridget, " Nothing is more lovely, or more acceptable with God, than to love those who injure us, and to pray for our persecutors." St. Chrysostom, speaking of David and Saul, tells us that " it is reckoned to us as martyrdom, if we count our enemy our benefactor, and do not cease to pray for him." It was revealed to Father Giulio Mancinelli, who was especially devoted to intercessory prayer, that he was one of seven, then (about 1603 A. D.) in the
Church Militant, who above others, so as to be thus distinguished in the sight of God, prayed for all men. It was once given him in a vision to see the glory of St. Lawrence the martyr, and among other lights which he then received this was one, — that we ought earnestly to pray for our benefactors, not only because of the gifts and temporal goods conferred upon us, but because of the affection of charity with which they were given, and which is of greater esteem than the gifts themselves. Both are to be repaid, the gifts by labor and assiduity in prayer, the affection of charity by loving our benefactors and getting them grace from God. We must also in our gratitude respond to their intention for the Divine honor and love, for our benefactors bestowed their favors upon us with a view to God. So we in like manner, to recompense this their reverence, love, and tenderness toward God in the giving of alms, must wish well to them, and beg of God that they may be promoted to serve God more and more by works of charity.
- For all those who are seriously occupied in the pursuit of Christian perfection, and for whatever they desire in order to that end, though it may involve pain and suffering. For this is the common appetite of the Saints, and it is lawful to ask it for them if they are rightly asking it for themselves; because it is good for God's glory, for the interests of Jesus, and for the bringing to penance multitudes of souls. Thus St. Francis Xavier, when St. Jerome showed him in a vision at Bologna all he was to suffer, cried out," More, O Lord, more! " Thus St. Theresa said, " Either to suffer or to die; " and St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi,
" Neither to suffer as now, nor yet to die, but to suffer more." Thus David exclaimed,- " Prove me, O Lord, and try me; burn my reins and my heart: " and Jeremiasf prays with natural shrinking, yet with supernatural trust, " Correct me, O Lord, but yet with judgment, and not in Thy fury, lest Thou bring me to nothing: " and Saint Paul, J " I please myself in my infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ." And how unapproachably beautiful is that of Job,§ " Can an unsavory thing be eaten that is not seasoned with salt? or can a man taste that which when tasted bringeth death? The things which before my soul would not touch, now, through anguish, are my meats. Who will grant that my request may come, and that God may give me what I look for? And that He that hath begun may destroy me, that He may let loose His hand and cut me off? And that this may be my comfort, that, afflicting me with sorrow, He spare not, nor I contradict the words of the Holy One. In what is my strength that I can hold out? or what is my end that I should keep patience? My strength is not the strength of stones, nor is my flesh of brass."
- It may be added here that some writers recommend prayer for the increase of the accidental glory of the blessed in heaven. For instance, when a religious prays that those of his order may live holily, or that some of them may come to be canonized, the founder (seeing it in God, or God making it known to him) gains an increase of accidental glory; it is in this sense priests pray in the Mass, that the sacrifice may
• Ps. xxv. 2. t x. 24. t 2 Cor. xii. 10. § vi. 6.
profit the Saints to their honor. Thus Innocent III.3 says, " Many, or rather most, think it not unworthy that the glory of the Saints should be capable of increase up to the day of judgment, and, therefore, that the Churcri may lawfully desire for them this increase of their glorification." Bellarmine, Suarez, Vasquez, and John Sanchez teach the same. Sotus gives the joy of the angels in heaven over the sinner doing penance as an instance of it. Our Lady is said to have revealed to St. Thomas of Canterbury that her glory is always receiving new increments in heaven, that is, from the good works of her clients. So also men may pray for the increase of devotion to particular saints; and it was revealed to St. Gertrude that the blessed receive fresh accidental glory every time Communion is received on earth. I merely mention this practice to show how far the power and prerogatives of intercessory prayer extend.
- There is another intercessory devotion of such great beauty, that the simple statement of it will be its sufficient recommendation. This is to be found in the life of Marie-Denise de Martignat, one of the first religious of the Visitation. She spent almost the first fifty years of her life in the courts of France and Savoy, but the spirit of the world never passed upon her heart, any more than the smell of fire upon the garments of the three children in the fiery furnace. The way in which she fenced off the spirit of the world was as follows: she took a text of Scripture for each of the seven days of the week, in order to occupy her mind continually with the words of truth.
Her choice of texts was remarkable. On Sunday she took the words, — I am come into the world to bring light, that he who believeth in Me may not abide in the darkness. On Monday: — He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. On Tuesday: — It is as hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven, as to pass a cable through the eye of a needle; nothing, however, is impossible with God. On Wednesday: — My kingdom is not of this world, and the devil is called by Jesus the prince of this world. On Thursday: — I pray not for the world, but for those whom Thou hast given Me. On Friday: — Now is the judgment of the world; and I, if I am lifted up, shall draw all things unto Me. On Saturday: — If you love Me, My father will give you another Paraclete, to abide with you eternally, the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him. From these seven fountains of truth, her soul was visited by such abundant lights as to the misery of this world, and the unsatisfactoriness of its honors and pleasures, that she had continually in her mouth the words of Solomon: — Vanity of vanities, all things under the sun are vanity! She used to say, that if a hermit had uttered these words, they would have been taken for the exaggeration of a contemplative; but that God having put them into the mouth of one of the greatest, richest, and most peaceable of kings, they caused in her such a profound compassion for great people, because of the risk of their salvation, that she took the rich, highborn, and prosperous as the matter for a special devotion, and desired to communicate the same devotion to every one she met. "Ah!" she exclaimed, "they are hemmed round with no common misery: they go down to hell without thinking of it, because their staircase thither is of gold and porphyry. Great in this world, they let themselves have no leisure to reflect that soon they will be very little; having the habit of commanding others, they presume upon themselves, and live as if God, heaven, and the angels were under their obedience, as well as earth and men. How will they be disenchanted, when, in a moment, they shall discover themselves to have been, and now to be for ever, slaves of the devil; or if God shows rthein mercy, what a surprise to them to find themselves in the kingdom of heaven far below the poor and vile whom on earth they would not allow to come near them! "
Hence, during her whole life, she possessed this enlightened compassion for the rich, and made special intercession for them. She said it was a greater charity to pray for them than for those who were languishing in hospitals and prisons. She celebrated the feasts of the canonized kings, queens, princes, and princesses, with a particular reverence, and an unusual devotion. She declared that nothing ought at once to humble and encourage Christians more than the heroic sanctity of great people who have kept humility in the midst of glory, and have used this world as though they used it not. She was accustomed to fast on the vigils of these feasts, and all her prayers on those days were for the salvation of great people. I do not know if it will seem so to others, but to me there is something extremely touching in this devotion, so truly spiritual, considerate, and heavenly.
It is in harmony with this her special devotion that we read toward the conclusion of her life, that one day when the Superioress asked her if it was worth while to ask a certain favor of a person of very high rank, she replied: " Yes! my dear mother, do it. I assure you it is a very great charity to princes and great people to make them do good works. The world, the flesh, and the devil make them do so many bad ones, that they will one day return more thanks to us who have been the cause of their giving alms, than we gave them for the alms we procured from them." Another time, when she saw the Superioress writing to a princess, she said: " My dear mother, please always put something in your letters to great people about the holy fear of God, or the sovereignty of the Divine Majesty, or the greatness of eternity, and the shortness of this life. For there are always so many flattering these poor great ones, and a day will come when they will wish it had not been so." When she heard of the death of Louis XIII., she said: '" Alas! I saw that monarch born, I saw him baptized, I saw him crowned, I saw him married, I saw him reigning, and now he is no more! " Somebody asked her if she would pray much for him; she said: " Yes! more than people would believe; for, however well he lived, and however well he died, he may possibly have something still to satisfy for to the equitable justice of the King of kings. He is gone into a kingdom which is only conquered by the humble of heart. No one goes in there sceptre in hand." She also said the Office of the dead every Monday for the souls of princes and princesses; and every Friday for the knights of Malta, and those who died in battle for the Church; and she often recited the Gradual Psalms for those in the army, lest they should acquire habits of vice in that which is not the best of schools for holy living, though it is far from having been unfruitful of saints.
A word on the time, place, and method of intercession. These may be left to every one's choice; the following are suggestions. 1. To have particular days in the week for particular objects, as 1. For the Pope. 2. For the Clergy and religious orders. 3. For all in mortal sin. 4. For all in their agony. 5. For the lukewarm. 6. For those in sorrow. 7. For those whom God wishes us specially to pray for. Or to have a scheme of thirty objects for the days of the month. 2. To note down objects in writing, and keep it in our missal or prayer-book, or on our priedieu. 3. To visit the Blessed Sacrament, and go through this paper, meditatively, exciting affections of zeal for the Divine honor, and of loving solicitude for the interests of Jesus. 4. To agree with our Lord to take some word, or ejaculation, or offering, which shall stand for all our objects, and use it at mass and communion, in our thanksgiving, before and after meditation, rosary, and examen, &c. 5. If we are sleepless at night, or from any cause have short intervals of unexpected leisure in our ordinary occupations, to have recourse to intercession. And so practices might be multiplied almost infinitely. The best will be those which are the most simple, come naturally, and rise 10 out of our usual devotional exercises: only remember that one of the objects for which we came into this world was to make intercessory prayer.
Oh the unfathomable sweetness of this mystery of prayer! Do let me say it again. One of the ends for which we came into the world was to make intercession. One of the ends for which our blessed Saviour shed His Precious Blood was that we might make acceptable and efficacious intercession. One of the things that God is waiting for us to do now is intercession. Yet how much time do we habitually spend in the delightful exercise of this great privilege! How we talk of popes and cardinals, of bishops, priests, and religious orders! How we overflow with the prattle of devotional or ecclesiastical gossip! We have a criticism for everybody's conduct in every thing. We could teach them better. We could show them the right way. We take higher views, and burn with hotter zeal. We get an easy character for piety by talking much and fluently about God, and b}T making ourselves very tiresome to others by our fidgets about ecclesiastical plans and the interests of Catholicism. Conversational fidgets, for the most part, and stopping there; we are not to the fore, when doing, tedious doing is required. Oh yes! we have all of us got a psalm, and a prophecy, and a doctrine; the Corinthians could not come near us in the variety of our wisdoms and our gifts; we could beat them down; we could surprise St. Paul; so exuberant, so oracular, so necessary to God, His pope, and His church, does our talk show us to be, or at least show that we think ourselves to be! Now I wonder how much we pray. I wonder what proportion our secret intercession bears to our open criticism. I should fear it was very little; for I cannot help fancying that if we prayed more we should feel that we prayed so little, that we should not dare, for shame's sake, to talk at all. 1 have a great notion of the spirit of concealment being something like two-thirds of practical Christianity. I will be bound our praying people lie hid among those who never tell us how deeply they are interested in Catholic affairs. The eye that is quick to see a fault, and the ear that loves to listen to criticism, and the tongue that brags, — these will be the signs of a praying soul, — when the rainbow comes to be the emblem of despair, and not before!
The whole duty of intercessory prayer, and our own discharge of it, may help us to one of those occasional revelations which are so profitable to our souls. Our spiritual life seems to be going on all safely and smoothly. We do not imagine ourselves to be saints. But we feel we are taking pains. We manage to keep ourselves in a state of grace. Nay, we have made distinct sacrifices for God, either in being converted to the faith, or in entering religion, or in embracing the ecclesiastical state, or in some way or other; and although we do not actually rest upon the meritoriousness of these sacrifices as though our predestination were finally and happily fulfilled by them, yet we never forget them, and the thought of them is a continual support to us. These are beginnings of something very bad. But our Lord comes to our rescue, and without any apparent cause a supernatural light is poured into our souls, illuminating every corner and hiding-place, and revealing to us, in a most startling way, how very little after all we have done for God. It is like the light of the Particular Judgment, which lays all our life with its actions and motives clearly before us in one moment, so that God may be justified, and we pass a fair sentence on ourselves. Oh, how blessed are these little revelations! For out of them comes humility, and freshness, and strength, and joy in Jesus, and abandonment of self in the arms of God. We could not believe we did so little for God, if this gracious light did not flash it upon us in such a way that we cannot refuse to see, or doubt that we have seen it. Think of intercession, and see whether it may not bring you now another of these affectionate revelations.
It is difficult to have the better of our Lord in the strife of liberality and love. Of all the fruits of the Holy Ghost, none seems more desirable, because none is less earthly or more heavenly, than joy; and it is just this fruit which our Blessed Lord bestows on such as devote themselves to intercession. This is very observable. There is a certain sunniness and lightheadedness about them for which there seems no ordinary cause, except that it is like the sweet lightening of the spirit which comes after a kind and unselfish action. This may partly be the reason. But there is another also. We see not the fruit of our intercession; the spirit of prayer escapes out upon the earth, and is everywhere like the hidden omnipresence of God. It is out of our sight. Nay, it is not like a series of distinguishable works. We hardly remember how much intercession we have made. Who can count the sighs he has sent up to God, or the wishes without words which the tongue of his heart has told into the ear of Jesus? And so from the fruit being hidden, vainglory attaches to it less than to almost any other devotion. However this may be, sweetness and consolation, submissively desired, are beyond all doubt great helps to holiness; and whosoever desires to joy in God, and to abound in all joy and consolation in the Lord, to be gay and prompt in serving Jesus, to be patient with life because of the desire of death, and to be equable in all things, which is not far from being holy in all things, let him throw away himself and his own ends, and wedding the dear interests of Jesus and of souls, betake himself to intercession, as if it were his trade, or he had as much to do with it as his guardian angel has to do with him. Joy is the especial recompense of intercession. It is part of His joy, who rejoices in the harvest of His Passion. What stirs in our hearts has come to us from His! It was first in His, before it was in ours, and an angel's presence would be less desirable than is that little taste of the Redeemer's joy.
Footnotes
Chapter 5 of 11