Prayerful Intercession
From the desk of the Shrine’s Censor Librorum, of sorts

Recently at the Shrine questions have arisen regarding the nature and efficacy of prayer. Of particular concern was the question as to whether or not prayer has any purpose that extends beyond conditioning ourselves to accept God’s will; specifically, does prayer change the world, or just those who pray?

The position has been put forth that our intercessions before God serve simply to prepare us to accept God’s will. This was particularly captured in the opinion that St. Monica’s tears did not really effect the conversion of St. Augustine, for example. However, I would like to address this belief by raising a few points for consideration. If there are any deficiencies in this little reflection, however, I am quite sure our readers will quickly bring them to light ;).

In the 1967 Apostolic Constitution Indulgentiarum Doctrina, Paul VI clarifies that the members of Christ’s body efficaciously pray for one another. By “efficaciously,” I mean that God acts in part because of the prayer of these Christians, and would not have acted without their prayers.

“5. For after [Christians] have been received into their heavenly home and are present to the Lord (11 Cor 5:8), through Him and with Him and in Him, they do not cease to intervene with the Father for us, showing forth the merits which they have won on earth through the one Mediator between God and Man, Jesus Christ (1 Tim 2:5), by serving God in all things and filling up in their flesh those things which are lacking of the sufferings of Christ for His body which is the Church (Col 1:24). Thus by their brotherly interest, our weakness is greatly strengthened…"

"6. The Church… appl[ies] the fruits of the Lord’s redemption to the individual faithful… leading them to cooperate in the salvation of their brothers. The Apostles themselves exhorted their disciples to pray for the salvation of sinners,” clearly, from the full context of the document, with the belief that these prayers would actually call down the graces of conversion.

Thus the Council of Trent was able to declare, in its twenty-fifth session, “it is good and beneficial to invoke [the saints] and to have recourse to their prayers, assistance and suport in order to obtain favors from God through His Son…”

Drawing on Pope Paul’s words, I would propose the following model to understand the nature of intercessory prayer in the Church. In the thread to which I am responding, there was universal agreement that prayer does not change the will of God. Nonetheless, there is a grand difference between the will of God and the state of the world; God can will the world to be one way when in fact the world as it actually exists is very different. I assume that God wants the entire world to be perfected in holiness, but I can tell you that I am not. Because of our free will, God permits the world to exist in a state which He does not desire it to exist. For this reason Our Lord instructed us to pray, “Thy will be done on earth.”

Respecting the dignity of our free will, God waits to execute His will until He can do so through His servants. This is, in a sense, the incarnational nature of Catholicism -- God works through Man, through Christ and His Body the Church. Therefore, it is the work of Christ (His paschal mystery, His passion and death) which makes the will of God real on fallen earth.

For example, before Christ came no one entered heaven. After Christ came, people could enter heaven. God’s will did not change; He always desired to save Creation. But it was not until after the work of Christ that redemption could take place. Before Christ‘s work, God wanted for forgive all humankind; after Christ, God wanted to forgive all humankind. His will did not change, but the reality did. It was only with Christ’s work that God’s will was MADE REAL.

Both Paul VI and John Paul II have in recent years reiterated the classic position that the work of Christ (which is the manner in which God’s will is made real on earth) is carried on and completed by the Church, which is the Body of Christ (cf. Col 1:23-24). As part of the Body of Christ, Christians continue the redemptive work which makes God’s will real on earth. This work consists in work and prayer, so that the works and prayers we offer to God are truly efficacious in making God’s will present. Without the work of the Church (that is, without the work of Christ in His mystical Body the Church), God’s will would not be made real. (Marialis Cultus, 19: “the Virgin-Church becomes herself a mother.... For by her preaching and by baptism she brings forth to a new and immortal life children who are conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of God.) Therefore, by the prayers and works of the Church, God’s will is realized, and we can truly say that our prayers effect the Kingdom of God and call down real grace and favors, rather than simply preparing us to receive these graces and favors.

In this way, for example, the tears and prayers of St. Monica did, as the Missal tells us, call down the mercy and grace of God.

God of mercy,
comfort of those in sorrow,
the tears of Saint Monica moved you
to convert her son Saint Augustine to the faith of Christ.
By their prayers, help us to turn from our sins
and to find your loving forgiveness.

St. Monica, baptized into the universal priesthood of Christ, served the mediator of Divine Will by her participation in the Body of Christ. It was immutably God’s will to save and bless Augustine, we might say, but it was the work of Christ, through the person of St. Monica (her prayer and tears), which made the will realized on earth. If Monica had not been open to serve as an instrument of Divine Will, can we really say that Augustine would ever have become a Saint? Because of her baptized participation in the redemptive work of God, saying that her tears moved God to convert Augustine is little different than saying that the Passion of Our Lord moved the Father to convert Augustine. Certainly it was always the Father’s will that Augustine be saved, but it was by the work of Christ (and the work of Christ in Monica and as applied by the Church of which Monica is part) that Augustine WAS converted.

A closing thought. At all times, but especially when speaking lofty principles such as immutability and Pauline co-redemption (Col 1:23) we must be careful not to surrender belief in a God who loves us as “abba,” as “daddy,” who really does delight in blessing his children in ways great and small, spiritual and physical. Off the top of my head I can recall two miracles mentioned by St. Therese in her “Story of a Soul.” The first was a Marian vision. The second, however, was a miracle she cherished far more: that God made snow fall on the day of her profession. And why shouldn’t it be the will of God that he loves to indulge even the smallest longings of his beloveds? To suggest otherwise may well approach Deism, which dismissed the active, material affect of God's intervention and intercession in the world as "un-rational."

“We pay God a great compliment when we ask great favors of him.”

PS - I look forward to any comments and criticisms of this post. However, due to the complex nature of the topic, all significant points made in the comment box MUST be backed up by a direct citation from Scripture, Church documents, or the Doctors of the Church. Any post which makes a significant claim without a specific citation risks deletion.