Intercession

Thursday, January 19, 2017

I was dozing in my recliner (an activity which takes place more and more often these days), and when my eyes opened I found myself gazing on icons that were hanging on my wall: one of Christ the Teacher, one of Saint Benedict and one of the great archangel Michael. Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.

All I could think of was the many, many people I needed to pray for, and I began running through a mental list and gathering them up and presenting them to the Lord and to the saints for prayer, and the more people I thought of, the more who came to mind, and it was an endless procession of needs and of wonderful, good people who were hurting terribly and suffering, sometimes without even knowing it. And I looked over my past life, the life I lived before I had come to know the Lord and realized that I was one of those people who were suffering without even being aware of it, and how so many people had held me up in prayer when I couldn’t pray for myself, and how good it is to be on the other side of that misery and to be able to continue the endless chain of prayer that continues throughout the ages.

And then I looked to today’s Gospel and read about how many people were pressing in on Jesus to touch Him because they were suffering so much, and how he arranged for a boat to be prepared in case he needed to escape the crowd. (Mark 3:7-12) And I was mindful of the crowd of people I was bringing to the Lord in my own prayer, and how Jesus needed to back off a bit so that He could reach out to the multitude without touching every single person with His hands. And then I thought of our situation today, where Jesus is not with us physically, but is seated at the right hand of the Father to intercede for us, and I looked to the first line of the first reading for today’s Mass (Hebrews 7:25): Jesus is always able to save those who approach God through him, since he lives forever to make intercession for them.

And I resolved to continue to bring people to God through Him, especially those who don’t know Him yet. I know it works; it happened to me.

God bless you this day!

PS: And I remembered that I was told in school that it was not proper to begin a sentence with the word “and.” Nonetheless, it is part of my style, I guess.