Sermon XVIII.
The Intercession Of The Blessed Virgin
The Highest Power Of Prayer.
(Sunday Within the Octave of the Ascension.)
"If you remain in me,
and my words remain in you,
ye shall ask whatever you will,
and it shall be done to you."
—John xv. 7.
There is perhaps no Catholic doctrine which meets with more objection among those outside the Church, than our devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Expressions of love to her, of hope in her intercession, which seem to us perfectly natural, which come from our hearts spontaneously, when they are most under the influence of Christian and holy principles, seem to them altogether at variance with Christianity. I do not believe that this comes always from prejudice, and a spirit of opposition on their part. It comes often, I am persuaded, from not understanding us. There is a link in our minds which connects this practice with other Christian doctrines, and this link is wanting in theirs; and therefore acts of devotion of this kind seem to them arbitrary and useless, an excrescence on Christianity, and even alien to its spirit. If this is the case, it cannot but be a duty and charity for us to explain, as far as possible, what is in the mind of a Catholic when he prays to the Blessed Virgin; and I shall accordingly attempt to do so this morning. Perhaps while we are thus removing a stumbling-block out of some erring brother's way, we shall be at the same time rendering our own ideas on this doctrine clearer, and its practice more intelligent.
The Blessed Virgin Mary, then, to a Catholic, represents the power of intercessory prayer in its highest form and degree.
I believe there are very few persons, indeed, who realize at all the power which is attributed to intercessory prayer in the Bible and in Christianity. The Apostles frequently exhort the Christians to whom they are writing to pray for them. They enjoined it upon them as a duty to pray for one another. What does this mean? Had not St. Paul and St. Peter influence enough with Heaven to carry their wants directly to the throne of grace? Was not the way of access to God open and easy for every one? Did God require to be reminded of the woes and wants of any child of man, by the sympathizing cries of his fellow-creatures? Was not God's own heart as large as theirs? Could any thing He had made escape His knowledge, or any sorrow fail to awaken His compassion? Or, if it did, was the intercession of Christ insufficient that any other had to be called in to supplicate? No, certainly. None of these suppositions are true. God's goodness and knowledge are infinite. He needs not to be told what is in man. He loves the work of His hands. The meanest and the poorest are in the light of His Providence. Christ's merits are infinite and universal. But after all, there stands the fact. Intercessory prayer is an ordinance of God. It is a duty to pray for others, and it is useful to have others pray for us. You may call it a mystery if you like. To me, it does not seem so very wonderful. No man lives to himself. We are not the only Christians. Many others walk alongside of us on the road to Heaven. Many are ahead of us. Many have already reached their term. Shall there be no sympathy between us? Is that principle so deeply seated in our nature to have no play in Christianity? Are we to have no interest, no feeling for each other? Or, is that sympathy to be a barren sentiment, and to have no results? God, in religion, makes use of and commands this kindness and sympathy. He makes use of it to bind all men together in a bond of love. In order to [do] this, He makes it a law that we shall pray for one another, and suspends His gifts upon its execution. It is, then, to meet that nature that He has framed—it is to exalt that nature craving for sympathy—it is to give rein to charity—it is to make us always sensible and mindful of that great human family to which we belong—it is for these reasons, I conceive, that God has instituted the ordinance of intercessory prayer. But, explain it as you will, the fact cannot be denied. It is an appointment of God, and an appointment of great efficacy. It plays a large part in the history of the Bible. Elias was a man subject to like passions with us, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it rained not for three years and six months; and he prayed again, and the heavens gave rain. Abraham prayed for Abimelech, and God healed him. When Moses prayed for the Israelites suffering under the fire with which God had visited them for their sins, the fire was quenched. In the prophet Ezechiel, God speaks as if he could not act without this intercession—as if it were really a necessary condition for the bestowal of His graces. "I sought among them for a man," he says, "that might stand in the gap before me, in favor of the land, that I might not destroy it, and I found none." [Footnote 133] St. James even seems to make salvation depend on intercessory prayer. "Pray for one another," is his language, "that ye may be saved." [Footnote 134]
[Footnote 133: Ezechiel xxii. 30.]
[Footnote 134: St. James v. 16.]
These are but a sample of the many Scriptural proofs that might be brought to show that intercessory prayer is an ordinance of God. It is one of the forms in which the goodness of God and the merits of Christ flow over upon us. By it we obtain graces from God much more easily than we could without it. And we obtain by it special graces, which we would not be likely to obtain at all without it. In this sense, perhaps, St. James meant to imply that it was necessary to our salvation. Not that it was a matter of precept to ask the prayers of this or that particular person, but that their intercession might be the condition of our obtaining graces without which our salvation would be a work of great difficulty.