Let me explain intercessory prayer in the simplest way possible, using just logic, without notes or references to anything.
Start with this question: does it do any good, at all, for ME to pray for someone else, or for someone else to pray for me? Protestants pray for others, and ask others to pray for them, right? So, theologically, do you think the prayer for another does any good at all, or is it just a little formalistic show that really doesn't DO anything?
(I apologize if that question sounds aggressive. It is not meant to be aggressive. It is meant to focus the mind and force a real, considered answer to the question: does prayer for another DO anything at all, or is it completely meaningless?)
Catholics, the Orthodox, and all the Protestant denominations of which I am aware all answer uniformly that praying for someone else does good, and being prayed for does good. So, step one is admitting without argument that prayer for another is a good thing, beneficial in some way to his or her spiritual health.
The second thing to do is to remember that the dead have not ceased to exist. Terri Schiavo still IS. Her body is dead, but her spirit is alive. The same is true of all of the dead, including Mary, the mother of God, etc. The dead are still people. Not living people, but people. The blessed among them are in the presence of God. We said above that a person can pray for another person, and that this is a good thing. One does not cease being a person at death. The dead are only physically dead. Spiritually, they are very much alive, and the good are in the presence of God. They can pray just the same as any living person can pray.
The difference, of course, is that the dead who are saved and in the presence of God are, well, in the presence of God much more directly than any living person. So, if you ask your neighbor to pray for you, his prayers can be a good thing. But suppose your neighbor is Ted Bundy the axe murderer. We suspect that the prayers of a demon-possessed murderer are probably not the most helpful sort of prayer around. If a man is violently opposed to God, we cannot expect that his prayers - if he will pray at all - are going to be as beneficial to us as, say, the prayers of the Pope if we are in his presence.
Now let's think about the dead. We don't know the true state of most people's souls, do we? But we DO know the state of SOME souls. We know that God was particularly close to some people, that they had his favor. Mary, Peter and Paul and the apostles and prophets all leap to mind. Catholics call those who clearly had the blessing of God upon them manifest in their lives "saints".
We cannot say whether Tom, Dick or Harry from down the street is in Heaven when he dies. We don't know. But we can say with great comfort and certitude that Mary is, and Peter and Paul and other great saintly men. Does anyone suspect for even an instant that John Paul II is not heaven-bound when he dies?
Alright, now put this together. It is good to ask people to pray for us, and their prayers somehow benefit us. The dead are still people, and the dead in the presence of God are more directly in communion with God than any of us are.
We don't know all the dead in Heaven, but we do know that certain saintly figures are in Heaven. Most certain of all is that Mary, the mother of God, whom the angels called "Full of Grace", is in the presence of God.
So, if you're going to ask ANYBODY to pray for you at all, because you think the prayers of others are good, who is it best to ask? Ted Bundy the axe murderer? The guy up the street you barely know? Some dead person whose state of blessing of which you cannot be sure? Or a person who you are sure still lives in Heaven, and is sure was and is blessed? Mary is the most certain of all people other than Jesus himself.
Now, we pray to Jesus as God.
Mary isn't God. She is a person who lives in heaven.
We ask our friends to pray for us on earth, and believe that is good for us, whether we be Catholics or Protestants.
How much more wonderful, then, to ask the mother of God, who is already in heaven and directly in the presence of God, to pray for us?
THAT is what "intercessory prayer" really is: asking the holiest of the holy dead, those people from the past in whose salvation we have great certitude (Mary, above all, but also Peter, John, Paul, etc.) to be our friends and pray for us just as we ask our earthly friends to pray for us.
And that's all it is: asking people we know to be the holiest to remember us in their prayers. We ask our friends and family, poor sinners all, to pray for us because that is good. Catholics also ask the dead to pray for them, and have great confidence in the prayers of the sainted dead. Again a simple question: if you could kneel in prayer with one other person right now, and ask him or her to pray for you, and believed that the prayers of others for you were somehow good, and you had the choice between three people: your nextdoor neighbor, your best friend, or Mary, the Mother of God, who would you prefer to ask to kneel and pray for you? In whose prayers would you have the greatest confidence that, whatever benefic effect prayer has at all, the prayers of that other would most likely be found favorable to God?
Of all of the people in history other than Jesus, no-one was closer to God than Mary. She was God's mom. She actually bossed God around as a kid, washed him, and changed his diapers. She gave God a swat on the behind when he got out of line as an infant, if he ever did. At Cana, she twisted God's arm and caused him to perform a miracle in spite of his protestations. God never once let any other human being get THAT close to him, and never let himself be dependent on any other person for his literal existence. He loved and trusted Mary enough to choose HER, that specific soul, to be his mother and guardian.
And that is why Catholics think that the prayers of Mary to God are the most powerful of all. When I pray to God, I know I am a sinner and don't deserve anything, really. I know that my friends and family are sinners too. I appreciate their prayers, but it is the blind groping for the blind.
But we all know Mary is in Heaven. We all know that Mary was God's favorite, with a unique bond God has never shared with any other human being ever. We all ask many people to pray for us. The dead are still people. They can still pray for us too. And there is no person whose prayers could possibly be more wonderful than the Mother of God.
That is what intercessory prayer is, and that is why it is.
It isn't any different than asking your friend to pray for you, except that the people you ask to pray for you are in heaven, freed of their sins, and in the presence of God, and we know them by name because they were so beloved of God.
The most beloved person of God in all of history was his Mother. And that is why Catholics especially ask HER to pray for them. Sure, the prayers of an axe murderer might actually have some beneficial affect...who knows? But if the prayers of others have ANY effect at all, it follows simply from logic that the prayers of the most holy would be of the greatest favor to God.
That's what intercessory prayer is, that's why, and that's as complete and non-dogmatic an explanation as I am capable of giving.
Read that way, I think that even a Protestant will acknowledge that there is a strong logic to it. The only real quibble one can have with it is the doubt that the dead HEAR our requests for prayer that we send them. In other words, of course Mary's prayers would be powerful, but perhaps Mary doesn't hear us at all, and neither does any other saint.
Catholics believe that they do. And given that belief, it makes sense to ask them, especially, to pray for us.
Hope that makes it all clear. Intercessory prayer is NOT worship of the sainted dead. It acknowledges the obvious grace of God that was within them when they lived, and asks them to be our friends in heaven, and to pray for us sinners just as we'd ask our living friends to pray for us.
Looked at this way, at worst one can say it's hokey.
But when properly understood through the perspective of Catholic eyes, it's really not blasphemous at all, even to a Protestant. It might be completely inefficacious and a waste of time, if the dead cannot hear or know that we are asking them to pray for us. But that simply renders it stupid, not evil.
Wow. That was absolutely the best explanation I've ever read on prayer to the saints, Mary, etc.
Thank you so much for posting.
Excellent explanation, I'm not Catholic and haven't been to any church in years and even I understood it ;) .
Thanks!
LQ
Respect your opinion and appreciate your insight. Let me also offer this point of view (not altogether different):
Protestants actually do believe in intercessory prayer in terms of one another praying for each other..the thing we have in common is that we are all praying TO God. Protestants don't feel that it is necessary to ask a "saint" to intercede on our behalf, but that we have the "priesthood of every believer".
That's why I said we have more in common than differences...
absolutely brilliant. Thanks for posting that