Intercession

A man of such joy in the midst of such sufferings

as he endured is a treasure for us all. Let us ask him

for what we need.

To intercede is to stand in someone's place to take their punishment upon themselves so that the person is free of condemnation. Jesus is the ultimate Intercessor who stands in the place of ourselves to receive their punishment instead of them.

Jesus took upon Himself the death we incurred by sin so we may walk free of the sin and the punishment incurred by us for our sin,

So, one is really asking a lot when they come up to someone and ask them to intercede for somone so as to take on their illness, misfortune or suffering. If you know someone who would do so immediately and without question, you have met a prescious person worth your life.

To be so close to Jesus as to be permitted to ask to take someone's sickness or suffering to themselves as if it were their right to ask speaks of an intimacy of unspeakable quality. 

The usual situtation is that a person asks Jesus to heal someone for whom they were asked to pray. To ask someone to intercede is to ask them to receive the  suffering or pain with the expectation that the afflicted person will be free of whatever disease or suffering for which they were asked to pray.

It is not the usual case that we are talking about, when we speak of intercession. Such a condition might be that a person suffers some pain or misery for a time in exchange for a recovery from some illness or condition of deprivation. 

One intercessor who comes to mind is Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, the Capuchin frier who received the Stigmata so he could suffer in Christ's place for them to receive well-being and good fortune. He did this without asking anything for the favor. Padre Pio suffered the passion of Jesus every day for fifty years before the stimata were removed, and he died afterward. Being a priest, he participated in the passion of Jesus which the Mass commemorates, and during his Mass, he endured the passion of Jesus to the point of not only bleeding as if freshly crucified, but to the point of suffering all of the pain that accompanied the passion. He obtained the forgiveness of people's sins through his confessional. The  person sometimes was accompanied by actual healing of the problem. 

When we ask someone to intercede, we need to keep in mind what we are asking. The condition of the soul of Padre Pio was such that he was entrusted with particpation in the passion by suffering the wounds inflicted on Jesus by crucifixion after he had asked to suffer the stigmata invisibly, and the Lord entrusted His passion to Padre Pio in such a way that the stigmata were imposed visibly, which is to say, he got more than he bargained for.

Padre Pio could see the suffering of Jesus on the cross so that he endured the suffering of Jesus rejected and unloved in addition to the agony of nails having been driven in with a hammer in his hands, feet and side, so that he bled daily. 

Having suffered thus for fifty years, Padre Pio died. His miracles still occur for people who have asked for healing or rhe remediation of troubles and problems.

It hurts to be ignored and abandoned. The elderly suffer it each day, all day, their sufferings interrupted only by sleep, which comes grudgingly and the loneliness remains unabated as long as they are awake.

It need not be loneliness that afflicts a man, but the opportunity exists to obtain favors from the Lord as we suffer our old age. The pains may be intermittent so that one thing or another may cause pain that is interrupted hour by hour and day by day. An old person who smiles is giving you a gift of pure love, and when someone does ask you to intercede for them, you might offer to suffer for the elderly in their daily pains. Often, having suffered invisibly, they are afflicted with greater sufferings, and finally death itself.

In the case of Jesus, as like Padre Pio, His suffering on the cross ended and He returned to His Father, receiving His only Son and His obedient endurance of the unendurable for the sake of love alone. This should inspire confidencee in Jesus during the day when all sorts of afflctions visit us and we find ourselves in a continuing confition of miserable suffering.

Jesus was innocent, having never committed a sin. When Padre Pio offered himself to suffer the passion invisibly, he was offering his virginity and holiness as well, his whole self. Stigmatised. he offered his whole self, submitting his all to Jesus in thanksgiving for the innocent and sinless sacrifice of his stigmata for the needs of the world of human beings he might never meet. He gifted himself to Jesus and Jesus accepted the relief of some of His pain, that He was able to receive by Padre Pio's selfless act of itnercession.

He may have seen what people wondered about in an age when terrors and horrors present themselves in exchange for the adulation of unrepentant sinners, who fail to see the goodness of Christ and the love of Jesus.

If we ahve sinned, we need to ask Jesus to forgive us so we will be able to particiapte in His salvation and intercession. The exposure of the holiness committed by so many daily is a source of light and comfort in a world of terror and sorrow.