Spiritual Battle & Intercession
You cannot always depend on prayers to be answered the way you want them answered but you can always depend on God. God, the loving Father often denies us those things which in the end would prove harmful to us. Every boy wants a revolver at age four, and no father yet has ever granted that request. Why should we think God is less wise? Someday we will thank God not only for what He gave us, but also for that which He refused. — Fulton Sheen’s Wartime Prayer Book
The theological importance of prayer & intercession
The first year after I was received into the Catholic Church one of my professors at Franciscan University of Steubenville asked me to join the RCIA team. He impressed upon us the importance of each of us having an intercessor who would pray for us every day for our work in RCIA. We had to find someone for this role and turn in their name. It wasn’t something that I took very seriously and I never got around to asking anyone.
About half way through the academic year another team member and I noticed that we were both having violently demonic dreams. I would wake up in a cold sweat often because my wife would shake me awake. She could tell that I was trying to scream in my sleep and that I was having a nightmare of some kind. Waking up didn’t alleviate the feelings of fear or of an evil presence. I went to a holy priest and told him about what was happening. This priest prayed over me for deliverance and, through this prayer of intercession, the dreams stopped. Still, what was the influence that caused the problem in the first place?
That year I became the sponsor for someone that was invited to RCIA from town, meaning that he was not a college student. As a non-traditional transfer student I was older than most students so it was a natural fit. We got along well and met occasionally outside of class. After the dreams had taken place, and after another RCIA session I had walked him out to his car. That is when I noticed a bumper sticker on the back of his car for freemasonry. It turns out that he was a high-level freemason with a family history of his father and his grandfather in the masons. Masonry is incompatible with the Catholic faith and is a traditional enemy of the Church. One cannot be Catholic and a freemason. After I explained the problems with freemasonry and answered all of his questions, he decided to quit RCIA. He chose freemasonry over his relationship with Jesus.
We discerned that the dreams I experienced were rooted in my candidate’s undisclosed relationship with the Masons. Had I taken intercessory prayer more seriously, it is likely that I wouldn’t have experienced the same attacks to the same extent and additional protection would have been provided.
Jesus tells us to pray with the conversion of heart, with faith, with watchfulness, and with filial boldness. “Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you receive it, and you will” (Mark 11:24). As Catholics we have bought into a practical relativism which has led us to pray less and believe in prayer less. It has caused us to forget our identity as Christians as the purpose for our life. We let our doubts that prayer is effective overcome our desire to live as disciples and we fall into sin because we believe that our passions, not God, will ultimately fulfill us. Our ability to fall into sin is a result of our lack of prayer and our lack of faith in God to fulfill our every desire. The Church speaks very beautifully and seriously about the role of intercessory prayer in our lives:
Since Abraham, intercession — asking on behalf of another — has been characteristic of a heart attuned to God’s mercy. In the age of the Church, Christian intercession participates in Christ’s, as an expression of the communion of saints. In intercession, he who prays looks “not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others,” even to the point of praying for those who do him harm.
The first Christian communities lived this form of fellowship intensely. Thus the Apostle Paul gives them a share in his ministry of preaching the Gospel but also intercedes for them. The intercession of Christians recognizes no boundaries: “for all men, for kings and all who are in high positions,” for persecutors, for the salvation of those who reject the Gospel.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2635-2636
Do not underestimate the need for intercessors for you, your team, and your small group, and to cultivate a strong prayer life among your team.
Recruiting Intercessors
We run workshops throughout the country and train people to become better evangelists through our St. Paul Street Evangelization apostolate. When we run a live workshop we like to invite people to come out with us for one hour and evangelize with one of our teams. A normal response goes something like this: “Sure, I’d love to come out and evangelize as long as I do not have to say anything or do anything.” There is usually some kind of fear about going out for the first time. I’ll always say, “No problem, come out and pray for us while we are evangelizing.” Prayer seems easy compared to talking to someone about our faith. Intercessory prayer is a particular call. Often times those people that join us on the street end up quickly getting over their fear and they start evangelizing to those on the street. We remind our teams that every group of two or three evangelists needs an intercessor. While one person is talking and engaging someone, the other person is praying for both of them.
Your team needs at least two intercessors to pray for you while you are meeting. They need to be physically present at the location where you are meeting. They should pray with your team before the small group meeting, in the chapel during the meeting, and come back for a debriefing after the meeting. Intercessors should be chosen because they have a gift for intercessory prayer, not just because they are afraid to be a part of the small group team or because they do not want to talk.
You can also recruit other intercessors that are not able to be physically present. You can write to cloistered religious orders asking them to pray for you as well as the homebound. Grow your intercessor list and keep them informed through regular updates. They are also a source for making invitations to people they know.