Have you ever wondered?
Everywhere he went, Pope Francis always asked, “Please pray for me.”
At the back of my naughty mind, I wanted to say, “Jeepers. You’re the Pope. Aren’t you super close to the Guy upstairs? Aren’t you the right hand man of God Almighty? Why ask us to pray for you? Can’t you just tell God directly?
And following this train of thought—if you can pray directly to God, why do we bother asking prayers from anybody? Why do we bother asking our mother to pray for us, our priest to pray for us, our friends to pray for us… Why don’t we just go directly to God as well?
Today, I’d like to answer that question.
Today, I’d like to talk about why we desperately need to pray for others and why we desperately need to ask prayer from others. Today, I’d like to talk about the mystery and the miracle called intercession.
There are two myths about intercession I’d like to bust.
First Myth:
I have this crazy fantasy.
I wish someone else could exercise for me. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
Let me be honest with you: I don’t like to exercise. If you love to exercise, I don’t like you very much. You make me look bad. (Just kidding. I admire you. Even if I think you’re an alien.) Obet, my fellow preacher who leads the Feast in Valle Verde, is an alien. He loves to exercise. He loves to push up, pull ups, and crunch. And I love the guy to bits but I avoid standing beside him. He’s got muscles in every square inch of his body. Me? I have muscles in my tongue.
A friend asked my wife, “When you saw Bo many years ago, what made you fall in love with him? What is it his money or his body?” My wife said, “Neither. When I met Bo, he didn’t have money and he didn’t have a body. He just had a skeleton with a little bit of skin pasted on it.”
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to go to the Obets of the world and say, “My doctor says I need exercise. Can I hire you to do some jogging for me? I’ll pay you. Run around the oval for 20 times (while I sit here and play Plants vs. Zombies 2) and when you’re done, put your hands over my head and spiritually download all the benefits of exercise into my body.”
Fact: You can’t ask someone to exercise for you. You’ve got to exercise too. In the same way, you can’t ask people to pray for you without you praying to God directly.
But let me share something magical with you…
Imagine Obet visiting me everyday and shouting outside my bedroom window, “Bo, good morning! Let’s do some push-ups together!” Of course, I’ll probably say, “Shoo, get away from me. I’m not home!” But knowing Obet, he’d insist and say, “Come on Bo, let’s do some crunches together.” I’ll respond by saying, “The only crunch I want is ice cream chocolate crunch.”
But if Obet exercises with me every day, I know something will happen to my body. Sooner or later, I’ll get into it too and—in one year—I’ll start having six abs as well. (Which makes me think that perhaps it won’t be a good idea. Too many chasing girls.)
I know my analogy is very crude and has many loopholes, but hear me out: Intercession is like that. If you pray together and if we pray for one another, something miraculous happens.
There’s another myth I want to bust…
Myth Two:
Some people think that God is moved by a spiritual signature campaign. That the longer the list of signatures behind a petition, the more likely He’ll answer a prayer. Some people think that God is moved by a placard-carrying, mammoth rally in front of Him. That the more people who show up at His doorstep, the more God will likely answer their demands.
Friend, God is not manipulated by the number of people who make the appeal. (Some people think He requires at least 23 people to appeal—and if there are only 22 people making the appeal—He’ll turn it down.)
Some people think that God is manipulated just because some big-name Saint in Heaven is backing you up. That’s lunacy. That’s like saying God isn’t listening to you until St. Padre Pio or St. Therese of Lisieux pleaded for your case. If that’s true, it appears that these Saints are more merciful than God.
God doesn’t operate this way.
Here’s a truth: Prayer isn’t about changing God’s mind. Prayer is about changing your mind. Intercession doesn’t increase the generosity of the Giver; Intercession increases the receptivity of the Receiver.
The generosity of God is NOT the problem. God is generous already. In fact, I believe that every blessing you need is already available to you. It’s there for the taking. God has placed at your disposal every provision you need.
When you pray, you don’t work on His willingness to give. You work on your willingness to receive.
May your dreams come true,
Bo Sanchez
