In the second of a series of articles on catecheses by the German pope, we study the topic of intercessory prayer, following the example of Abraham.
In his general audience on May 18, 2011, Benedict XVI delivered an essential teaching on prayer: We should count tirelessly on God’s mercy. To support his statement, the Pope drew on the story of Abraham’s intercession on behalf of the city of Sodom, told in Chapter 18 of the Book of Genesis.
In this famous story, God, who has made Abraham his friend, tells him that he is going to destroy Sodom because of the evil committed by its inhabitants. The father of believers responds with this shocking question:
“Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”
Abraham’s boldness shows us that prayer is also a matter of bold closeness with the Lord, who never gets angry when His children call out to Him for just causes!
Becoming familiar with the merciful God
True prayer banishes fear by relying on God’s mercy, which believers have already experienced in their own lives. It is on this basis that they can be sure that God will not rebuke them when they ask for help for others.
God is compassionate. If he were a hard master, Abraham would never have had the courage to address him as he did about Sodom. To pray is to have internalized God’s tenderness. This lesson is more essential than ever in these times, when so many fanatics disfigure the face of divinity into that of a bloodthirsty idol.
Benedict XVI notes that Abraham does not limit himself to asking for salvation for the innocent, but for the whole city. And, he does so by appealing to God’s justice. Indeed, he says to the Lord: “Will you not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it?”
In so doing, Abraham’s intercessory prayer brings into play a new idea of justice. It’s not one that limits itself to punishing the guilty, as human justice does. It’s rather a different, divine justice that seeks the good and creates it through forgiveness, which transforms sinners, converts them, and ultimately saves them.
Benedict XVI explains that only forgiveness interrupts the spiral of evil. The patriarch Abraham, by his example, teaches us to pray to God to ask for the salvation of the world, and not just for the strict application of justice (in which case few would be saved!).
Our intercessory prayer on behalf of others
Abraham is so confident of God’s mercy that he reduces the number of innocent people needed to save Sodom to ten! What an example of trusting in God’s mercy in prayer! Centuries later, the prophet Jeremiah went even further, saying in God’s name that it would only take one righteous man to save Jerusalem: “Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look around and take note! Search its squares and see if you can find one person who acts justly and seeks truth — so that I may pardon Jerusalem.” (Jer 5:1).
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The example of Abraham and Sodom can be transposed to our own lives. When we pray to God on behalf of someone living in disorder, we can intercede for them by reminding God of their good deeds (are people ever purely good or evil?). Like the father of believers, we then ask the merciful Lord not to count his sins against him because of his acts of kindness, in the same way that Abraham tried to save Sodom by the ten righteous people it might have contained.
In both cases, the principle is the same: to ask for salvation by arguing for the good that is done by the person or by his fellow human beings — the good counterbalancing the evil. Above all, this intercessory prayer is based on a justice superior to that of human beings: the justice that God owes to Himself as a supremely merciful Being!
Grafting our prayer onto that of Jesus
Finally, Benedict XVI notes that Jesus is the Righteous One whom Jeremiah called upon to save an entire city. On the cross, like Abraham, he will intercede on our behalf: “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Lk 23:34). So, by grafting our prayer onto that of Jesus, we’ll be able to effectively plead the cause of our brothers and sisters before God. The examples of Abraham and Jesus show us that there is no activity on earth more important than intercessory prayer.
And today we celebrate...