INTERCESSION - Can we discover its nature. Is it a Gift or a Calling?
Chapter
5 -
Examples from the Twentieth Century
It
is important to look at a few more recent servants of the Lord to show that
the same qualities and values are expected in Christians today.
In particular the need to surrender to God, and partake in the
relationship as He ordains. I
am selecting three who have inspired me but there are others whom I will
acknowledge in the bibliography.
Rees
Howells [i]
1879-1950
Rees Howells grew up in a Welsh mining village, he is probably best known as
the founder of the Bible College of Wales.
He left school at the age of twelve and worked in the pits.
He learned to love the Lord in a way that moved all who met him. He was recognised as one who could move the Lord
to act in power. He spent
long hours on his knees and fasted beyond the measure of most men in order
to "gain a victory" for a particular need.
After perhaps months interceding for a person, during which time he
was prepared to die for that person he came through and miraculous healings
were seen.
Such
a life is a calling but I believe a calling to all who are willing!
This was indeed the living out of Galations 2 :20.
There was a great cost for every victory, he surrendered all.
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Thomas
Merton 1915-1968
Thomas Merton was a Trappist[ii]
monk who was allowed a
hermitage, a camera and a typewriter.
He was encouraged by his order to write on the spiritual life so as
to encourage and teach others. He
speaks of contemplative prayer and a searching within as the early religious
but it is for his understanding of love that I quote him.
He sees us as linked together in Christ, "
It is the needle by which we
draw the thread of charity through our neighbour's soul and our own soul and
sew ourselves together in one Christ"[iii]
Prayer
and writing became inseparable for him, it was how he “expressed
himself” but he was to desire solitude and
“to disappear into God.” For
him it was not running away from the world but rather
to seek his place within it. He
was given his hermitage after twenty-four years.
He also travelled as a speaker but he said that we were not so much
to speak of Christ, as to let Him live in us.
His life was very much a journey into Christ, a growing which showed
the creative action of love and grace, a life of surrender. His message was of the primacy of love and he saw it as
a definition of monastic life.
Although
writing from the security of the monastery Thomas Merton wrote for all who
would travel on this interior journey to find God and love.
Much that I have read of his work echoes my own thoughts, the life of
Christ suffering for us in self-sacrificing love and compassion so that we
might be forgiven and receive eternal life.
We can all participate in this prayer of love, for it is a prayer of
growth, ever changing but we can learn from his expression of it.
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Christopher
Bryant 1905-1986
Here
we have a teacher from the Cowley Fathers[iv]
an Anglican Order. He writes so
beautifully and explains the spiritual life in a modern understandable way
that all who read his work will be blessed and encouraged.
Perhaps
we do not know him as an Intercessor but his understanding and explanations
of all types of prayer is useful here.
In particular he says much of Petitionary Prayer and of the need to
come with a child-like trust and he reminds us that this was the prayer that
Jesus taught.
In
The River Within[v],
he uses psychology to shed light on the human elements in our
experience of God whilst admitting that it has no part in the explaining the
divine aspects. He speaks
of the importance of symbols and images in our faith, suggesting that
psychology is a useful tool to help our understanding of them.
He looks at St Paul’s understanding of the Christian life as one
of ”identification with the
crucified and risen Messiah” and
so we need to understand what this identification with Christ means.
This leads to considering our life-long journey into self, to the
centre where we will find God.
The
Journey to the Centre[vi].
He saw the spiritual journey as being “like
a voyage across the unknown sea of the future to a destination outside this
world, the country of the blest, the promised land of peace and joy and
fulfilment” But “more realistically as a growing into an ever closer unity of
heart and mind and will with God.”
He
reminds us that the work of prayer
is much more the work of the heart than of the head and speaks of the
difficulties that the twentieth century poses. He stresses that feeling is important, “for in prayer we enter into a personal relationship, and
relationships with others depend more on our feeling for them than on our
thoughts about them.”
He
gives plenty of practical advice on coming into the presence of God and
dealing with barriers in our progress, he also relates to some of the mystics
mentioned in Chapter 4.
But
he writes of intercession in his chapter on Friendship with God.
He describes it as “a special
form of the prayer of self-surrender.”
Speaking of Christ’s own self-offering he recalls His prayer, ‘For their sakes I consecrate myself.’ and says, that “is what genuine
intercession is.”
The demands
that are made are for “real commitment
to God and his reign;” and real
concern and compassion for those for whom we pray”.
But it is an asking for God to bring about his will, and to establish
his reign in those for whom we pray.
He
also speaks of contemplative prayer and the deep yearning for God that only
the Spirit of God can awaken in us. Referring
to “those who are called and enabled to pray in this way”
he would seem to imply both a gift and a calling and it is this form of
prayer that leads to “a transforming effect upon our lives. It is as though all our desires and wants are being
reorganized around the deep yearning to be at one with God.” This I believe is where we really intercede: being at one
with The Intercessor. But
this reordering is a painful process as we are stripped of the “hindrances to the growth of heavenly love”.
He says much to encourage us giving an assurance that if there is this genuine longing for such unity it will come and he adds, ”such people become wonderfully gentle and compassionate towards the faults and weaknesses of others. because their own trials make them identify in sympathy with all weakness and temptation. They become wise with the directness and simplicity of those who have been set free from considerations of self-interest, and they can view people and affairs objectively” This surely is the maturing of the gift of the Holy Spirit allowing us to receive a gift of intercession.
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[i]
see “Rees Howells Intercessor” by Norman Grubb (Lutterworth Press
1952 also reprints) and “ The
Intercession Of Rees
Howells” by Doris M.Ruscoe (Lutterworth Press, Cambridge 1983, reprint
1997)
[iii]
quoted from A Seven Day Journey with Thomas Merton by Esther de
Waal (Eagle, Inter Publishing
Service Ltd.)