But this is not all that the Scriptures tell us about intercessory prayer. They not only declare its wonderful power, but they make known to us that the efficacy of intercessory prayer depends on the goodness and merit before God of the one who offers it. I do not mean that no one should pray for another unless he is very holy. By no means. No matter how great a sinner a man may be, it is a good thing for him to pray for others, and the mercy and compassion of God, I am sure, never turn away from such a petition. But then, in such a case, it is mercy and compassion which moves God to hear the prayer. In the case of a good man praying for another, there is a sort of claim that he should be heard. Not an absolute claim, by which he can demand any thing for another, as of right, but a claim of fitness, a claim as if between friend and friend, a claim on God's bounty and generosity, which will not allow Him to turn a deaf ear to one who is faithfully striving to serve Him. The passages of inspiration which express this are very clear and very strong. "The continual prayer of a just man availeth much." [Footnote 135] There it is the prayer of a righteous man that has this efficacy. And to this agree the words of our Lord: "If ye remain in me, and my words remain in you, ye shall ask whatever ye will, and it shall be done unto you." [Footnote 136] Could words express more clearly that the power of intercessory prayer is in direct proportion to the closeness of the union which we maintain with God? And St. John reiterates the same principle when he says: "Whatsoever we shall ask we shall receive of Him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight." [Footnote 137]
[Footnote 135: St. James v. 15.]
[Footnote 136: John xv. 7.]
[Footnote 137: I. St. John iii. 22.]
God's dealings, as recorded in the Bible, are in exact accordance with this rule. At the prayer of Abraham, God desisted from His purpose of destroying Sodom, because Abraham was God's friend. When the three friends of Job had displeased God by their wrong judgments and unjust suspicions, God commanded them to go to His servant Job, and he would pray for them, and him He would accept. And in the prophet Ezechiel, when the Almighty would express, in the strongest possible manner, the fact that His anger was enkindled against a people and a city; that nothing, however strong, should stay its effects, He says: "And if these three men, Noe, Daniel and Job, shall be in it, they shall deliver their own souls only by their justice." [Footnote 138]
[Footnote 138: Ezechiel xiv. 14.]
As if to say: "Notwithstanding the intercession and merit of these great saints, even though they were all combined in favor of that one city, they should not avail to make Me spare such wickedness. What must be the wickedness that can force Me to withstand the power of such an appeal?"
Here, then, we have two things clearly taught in Holy Scripture. One is that intercessory prayer is an ordinance of God of great power and utility. The other is, that the degree of power this prayer has in any particular case depends on the merit of him who offers it. Who, then, shall be the favored child of man, the favored saint, who shall exercise this power in the fullest degree? Of whom it can be said literally, "Whatever thou askest of Me I will do it," because the condition of union with God is perfectly fulfilled? Who shall this be whom Holy Scripture thus clothes with this tremendous power, if it be not the Blessed Virgin Mary? My brethren, our belief in the surpassing sanctity of the Blessed Virgin is no fancy of later times. It goes back to the very beginning of Christianity. St. Ambrose wrote her praises as he had learned them from those who had received them from apostolic men. Grave, austere men, as far as possible removed from any thing like fancy religion or sentimentality, men who had suffered for the name of Christ, and even faced death in its defence, employed their art and care to coin words which might express the virtue and purity and exceeding sanctity of the Virgin Mary, as they had learned it from their forefathers. And in the most ancient writings of the Church, in the Canon of the Mass, when the priest recalls by name the glorious army of Christian heroes who had gone before, always in the first place she is mentioned, the all-glorious, undefiled, immaculate Mary, Mother of God, and ever Virgin. This being so, is not her power of intercession fixed beyond dispute? Does not Scripture itself fashion out for her the glorious throne on which the Catholic Church places her? Did any remain in Christ as she did? Did His words ever so abide in any heart as in hers? Suppose a Christian who lived in the times of the Apostles, before the Blessed Virgin had gone to her rest, when she was just dying; suppose such a one sorely tried and tempted within and without; suppose him anxious about his salvation, distrustful of his own petitions, fearful of the coming storms of persecution; and suppose him in this state of mind to have read that passage of St. James, "The continual prayer of a just man availeth much," what more natural than that he should have said to himself, "I will go to ask the prayers of the dear Mother of Christ. I will ask her to use her power and influence with her Divine Son in behalf of a frail wanderer like me." And when he came into her presence and knelt before her, and kissed her hand and made his plea, and looked up to her and saw that sweet grave smile, and heard her say, "Yes, my child, when I stand in the presence of my Royal Son, and He holds out to me the golden sceptre, and says to me, what wilt thou? what is thy request? then I will remember thee!" Oh! how light his heart! Oh, how strong his soul! what a charm against sadness! what a fortress in temptation! Mary prays for me in heaven to Christ her Son! And is there any thing in this joy and confidence which reason or Christianity would condemn? If so, it must be either that intercessory prayer is not the power the Scriptures say it is, or that Mary is not the saint the Church considers her. Why, even Protestants have gone as far as this. Protestants who have made the primitive form of Christianity their study and profess to accept it as their rule, as, for example, High-Church Episcopalians, have distinctly acknowledged in the seventeenth century, and in our own day, that the saints in heaven do intercede for us, and that this was the primitive doctrine of Christianity. Why, then, find fault with us for invoking the saints, and say we ought only to ask God to hear their prayers for us, as if invocation on our part were not the correlative of intercession on theirs; as if it could be right to ask a saint to pray for us the moment before he died, and wrong the moment after; as if there could be any moral difference before God between a direct and an indirect supplication for the benefit of their prayers in heaven?
Such, my brethren, is our idea when we address the Blessed Virgin for aid. It is not that we cannot go directly to God. It is not that God is not the nearest to us, and at all times accessible. It is not that, sinful as we are, we may not go with our miseries into the very presence of the Almighty. It is not that prayer to God is not the best of all prayers. It is not that we put the Blessed Virgin in the place of God. O cruel charge! It is not that we derogate from the merits of Christ. O strange misconception! But it is this—we believe in intercessory prayer. We believe that man may help his brother. We believe that Christianity is a human and a social relation; we believe that heaven is very near this earth—oh, how much nearer than ever we believed! and that in Christ we are in communion with an innumerable company of angels, and the Church of the First-born. We believe that there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over the good deeds done on earth, and that the litanies of the saints ascend over one sinner and his deeds. And we believe that this power of intercessory prayer culminates in the Blessed Virgin. We believe that she is the "one undefiled," whose way has been always in the law of the Lord. We believe that before the foundations of the earth were laid, or ever the earth and the sea were made, she was foreknown by the Almighty, spotless in purity, matchless in virtue. We believe that she was the flower of humanity, the fairest type of Christianity—-and we believe, therefore, that God is as good as His word, and whatever she asks of Him, He gives it to her. This is the doctrine on which we found our devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Take our strongest language. It means no more than this: "Pray for me." You may amplify as you will, but from the necessity of the case every thing we say comes to that. Put prayer for the Blessed Virgin, suppose prayer personified in her, and you have the key to the Catholic doctrine on this subject. Strong things are said of the power of the Blessed Virgin, but so are strong things said in Holy Scripture and by holy men of the power of prayer. Whatever can be said of prayer, can be said of her. Cease, then, to misunderstand us. Acknowledge that we are but obeying Christ in praying to the Blessed Virgin. And if you will still find fault, find fault, not with us, but with God, who has instituted intercessory prayer and given such power to men.
And for you, my brethren, let these thoughts strengthen you in your confidence in the powerful intercession of the Mother of God. Our work is too severe, our difficulties are too great, for us to neglect any help God has offered us. There are many adversaries. The world, with all its seductions, passes in array before us. Why should we shut our eyes to the hosts of heaven that march unseen by our side? Why should we stay outside when we are invited to the marriage supper, and Jesus and His disciples are there, and Mary, pleader for heavy hearts, saying, "They have no wine;" and at her prayer Jesus gives them that wine that maketh glad the heart of man with the abundance of His grace and love? I have been glad to see you these bright May mornings around the altar. Persevere more and more. Your labor of love is not in vain. God's words cannot fail. His gifts are without repentance. Mary's power of intercession is as fresh this day as it was when her prayer made the miraculous wine to gush forth at the wedding feast; and until some one shall arise more blessed, more holy, nearer to Christ than she, it will remain as it is now, the highest and the most efficacious of all forms of prayer in heaven or on earth.