Intercessory Prayer

[PhuturePriest]

What is the point of intercessory prayer? Why is asking many people to pray for you better than just a few? Same for the Saints? Does having more people compel God more? Why pray in the first place if he already knows what we want/need?

Inquiring minds would like to know. I've tried answering the question, but so far the person is still stuck on the issue.

For the record, the argument that God simply likes hearing from us about this stuff is not satisfactory, in my opinion, so I'm not going to use that one. Firstly, that makes no sense. Secondly, if that answer is true, that means intercessory prayer makes no sense, because why ask other people to pray about a matter for me if the entire purpose is God wanting to hear from me on it, even though ultimately me telling him is pointless in the first place?

[HisChildForever]

This reminds me of the parable of the man knocking on his neighbor's door in the middle of the night for bread. That persistence will eventually coax the neighbor out of bed. I guess if a person seeks numbers in prayer it's a testimony to his (or her) faith and trust in God. It also is a way of encouraging others to grow closer to God. When it comes to asking the saints in Heaven for prayer, again I see it as friendship in Christ, as well as a way of further uniting the Church Militant and Church Triumphant.

[Credo in Deum]

45 minutes ago, PhuturePriest said:

What is the point of intercessory prayer? Why is asking many people to pray for you better than just a few? Same for the Saints? Does having more people compel God more? Why pray in the first place if he already knows what we want/need?

Inquiring minds would like to know. I've tried answering the question, but so far the person is still stuck on the issue.

For the record, the argument that God simply likes hearing from us about this stuff is not satisfactory, in my opinion, so I'm not going to use that one. Firstly, that makes no sense. Secondly, if that answer is true, that means intercessory prayer makes no sense, because why ask other people to pray about a matter for me if the entire purpose is God wanting to hear from me on it, even though ultimately me telling him is pointless in the first place?

God knows what we need, but we do not always know what we need.  Praying helps us find God's will and helps us be disposed to follow His will when He reveals it to us.  This is why all prayer should start with your request and end with "not my will, but Thy will be done".  By praying we communicate with God and thus have a relationship with Him.   By asking the saints to intercede for us we are asking our brothers and sisters in Christ who are close to God to pray that we find God's will and follow His will with all of our heart, all our mind, and all of our soul as they did which is why they're saints.  

Whenever we pray for other peoples needs we, likewise, offer intercessory prayer.  The main thing though we should be praying for is that our friends, family, enemies find God's will, love it, and follow it. 

Edited November 28, 2015 by Credo in Deum

[PhuturePriest]

22 minutes ago, HisChildForever said:

This reminds me of the parable of the man knocking on his neighbor's door in the middle of the night for bread. That persistence will eventually coax the neighbor out of bed. I guess if a person seeks numbers in prayer it's a testimony to his (or her) faith and trust in God. It also is a way of encouraging others to grow closer to God. When it comes to asking the saints in Heaven for prayer, again I see it as friendship in Christ, as well as a way of further uniting the Church Militant and Church Triumphant.

So if we pester God repeatedly he'll finally relent and give us what we want? If we keep knocking (praying,) the neighbor (God) will eventually get out of bed and give us what we're asking for?

6 minutes ago, Credo in Deum said:

God knows what we need, but we do not always know what we need.  Praying helps us find God's will and helps us be disposed to follow His will when He reveals it to us.  This is why all prayer should start with your request and end with "not my will, but Thy will be done".  By praying we communicate with God and thus have a relationship with Him.   By asking the saints to intercede for us we are asking our brothers and sisters in Christ who are close to God to pray that we find God's will and follow His will with all of our heart, all our mind, and all of our soul.  

Irrelevant, she says. Why ask the Saints in the first place when we could do it ourselves? Why have them pray for us? Does it help in any way? If so, why? Doesn't that imply a mobs rule, where the more people you get behind a petition, the more likely it is that God will relent?

In essence: Why is intercession efficacious?

Edited November 28, 2015 by PhuturePriest

[Credo in Deum]

3 minutes ago, PhuturePriest said:

So if we pester God repeatedly he'll finally relent and give us what we want? If we keep knocking (praying,) the neighbor (God) will eventually get out of bed and give us what we're asking for?

Irrelevant, she says. Why ask the Saints in the first place when we could do it ourselves? Why have them pray for us? Does it help in any way? If so, why? Doesn't that imply a mobs rule, where the more people you get behind a petition, the more likely it is that God will relent?

In essence: Why is intercession efficacious?

Intercession is efficacious because it is the acknowledgment of the reality that you cannot do anything of yourself. You are depended on God and the help of others.  God willed it to be this way because He wanted a family, and family takes care of family.  We are called to be a family, so we are called to ask for help and to also help others. Ask her to run a functional family where one of the people treats the others as useless.  Good luck.  Ask her then to have a functioning life without a family. Good luck. In short it is not about mob rule, it's family rule. 

[CatherineM]

Every job I've ever gotten was because someone who knew the boss put in a good word for me. 

[Luigi]

This is an interesting question, one I've thought about a lot on my own. 

1. It's a practice of charity. "Charity" meaning 'seeing our connectedness to each other' and 'we're all children of God, so we're all sisters and brothers,' and as Credo says - family help each other, which makes us less self-centered, which is kind of an ongoing part of conversion, etc. etc. etc.  

2. This concept of "God will give me what I want if I get enough people to pray with/for me" is wrong-headed. I don't think we're supposed to view God as the vending-machine-of-miracles and I just need to scrounge up enough spiritual coins to pay for what I want. A cancer cure costs 30 Masses and 30 rosaries? A healthy baby costs 10 Masses and two novenas? I think not. That's so American and so capitalist.There's got to be more to it than that. 

When somebody asks me to pray for her, I usually convert that in my own mind to pray about her and her problem/situation/intention. Who am I to ask God to solve my problems the way I want them solved? I'm usually the one who got myself into the mess in the first place, so my solutions aren't necessarily to be trusted. So I try to remember to hold the person in my heart, and whatever grace I get from praying spills down onto that person too, and I pray that the person be open to God's guidance and so forth. 

3. When I ask the saints to pray for me, it's for one of two reasons: I'm afraid to approach God directly about this topic on my own, so I ask some saints to "accompany me," or because I don't have time to pray continuously on my own - I gotta get back to work. When I've got a big problem or something serious I really need to deal with, I can throw an Our Father, three Hail Mary's, and a Glory Be at it, but I don't expect that to do the trick, so I ask the saints to continue praying for me. Because they're our sisters and brothers in heaven, and family help each other out. 

4. As HIsChild says, there are some pretty clear directions, in the Bible, from Jesus himself, directing us to pray and keep praying. Maybe your friend has more brass than I do, but I don't have enough brass to disregard that kind of direct teaching. 

5. Lastly, Jesus Christ himself - the Son of Mary, the Son of God, the Word Incarnate, Christ the King for Pete's sake! - asked the apostles to pray for him in Gethsemani. While he was praying, too. You don't think his prayers alone were enough to move his Father? I should think they'd be enough on their own, but Jesus asked the apostles to pray for him. If Jesus needed the prayers of that motley crew, then we all need prayers. 

I just can't explain - in absolutely logical detail - why.