Intercessory Prayer Gifts - Standing in the Gap

We are all called to intercede for our brothers and sisters in this world, however, for some, the Lord has given the gift of intercessory prayer in a special way. Not because the person is "special" (we are all equally loved by God) but simply because it is a particular "mission" that God wants them to focus on and to do for Him. Each person is unique and has certain gifts that stand out more than other gifts and it's good to be able to discern what particular gifts the Lord has given to us so that we can better understand how to use them to help others.

In these times the Lord is calling for intercessory prayer in a powerful way. Differentiating between our duty as Christians to intercede for others and the charism of intercession can help one understand whether they are called in a special way in this area...and many are. I believe this is one of the more common gifts. The question is:

How do we know we are called to this type of prayer in a special way?

Also, are there signs that the Lord is calling us into deeper intercessory prayer? How are we to respond?

First, I'd like to clearly state that we each have spiritual gifts and we all share in the gifts of others. They are used to build the Mystical Body of Christ, of which we are each a part. Some have healing gifts (Father DiOrio comes to mind here), others have supernatural gifts of wisdom (such as Blessed Mother Teresa), words of knowledge, prophecy, teaching gifts, discernment of spirits - the list goes on and on.  These gifts are extremely useful today because of the spiritual burden we are under due to the increase of sin in the world.  One that the Lord seems to be giving in abundance is the gift of intercessory prayer.

I'll start with the first question. How do we know we are called to intercessory prayer in a deeper way?

Those who have the gift of intercessory prayer tend to have deeply compassionate hearts. It may seem to others that they are overly sensitive but this is a necessary aspect of the gift. Without this sensitivity of the spirit to both God and others the gift cannot develop to the degree God would like it to. Others may consider intercessors to be "overly emotional" and impractical people. They may have mood swings (I will explain this further in another post) and they may seem to "suffer" more than the average person.

Intercessors tend to have a strong "pull" to pray for others. It may even feel like a strong pressure upon the soul. Passages in the Bible such as Moses intercession for for the Israelites during the battle with Amelek stand out for them. "As long as Moses kept his hands raised up, Israel had the better of the fight, but when he let his hands rest, Amelek had the better of the fight." (See Ex. 17:8-13).  The passage where Abraham intercedes for intercedes for Sodom tugs at their hearts (See  Gn. 18: 16-33) as well as other passages in Scripture such as Jesus' weeping, His Agony in the Garden, His pleading with the Father on the Cross, " Father, forgive them, they know not what they do."  Passages such as these burn like a fire in their hearts. They are being called to "stand in the gap" for others.

As for the second question, are there signs that the Lord is calling us to this in a deeper way? Yes, I believe there are. This was recently confirmed to me through a book I was reading. Here are some of the signs:

~ Your heart feels heavily burdened despite the fact that things in your life are running smoothly and there seems to be no valid reason for the burden such as mortal sin.  It makes no sense...you confess your sins, love God, pray, and yet your heart is heavy. That is a very common sign of a "prayer burden".

~ You seem to suffer more than the average person and yet there seems to be no logical cause.

~ You have pain in the pit of your stomach that comes and leaves after heavy-duty prayer

~ You get bodily symptoms that make no sense. They come and go (here we are stepping into "words of knowledge" and this can be useful in discerning what you are called to pray for.

~  Names and faces come to your mind over and over again.

~ You have unusual dreams about people or dreams in which you are battling forces of evil.

~ You feel a burning sensation in your body and an inexplicable yearning to pray comes over you.

~ A sense of emergency (like a spiritual 911 call) comes over you. It doesn't let up except through prayer, and you long for "alone time" with God to pray.

~ Offering up Masses and going to Adoration relieves the "spiritual burden" as these are powerful sources of obtaining grace for others.

~ At times it feels as if "the veil of heaven" has parted and you are standing before The Mercy Seat.

~ Tears for no obvious reason.

No doubt there are other signs but the ones I listed above are very common. I asked the Holy Spirit to help me write this post and I hope it is helpful to others. If these things happen to you then you can be assured that God is calling you strongly as an intercessor. The answer is to pray, pray, pray. I'm working on another post on this subject about prayer warriors and how to use this gift.

I pray this post is helpful to others. Thank you, Lord, for these words. May they bless others as they have blessed me (long story).


(This post has been updated - Intercessory Prayer link.)

Prophetic Words

The gift of prophecy is one of the charisms that the Lord gives to some people. Different people have different gifts and each gift fits into the "bigger picture" as a piece would fit into a puzzle. Prophecy is not always about the future, though it can be. Many prophetic words speak about the present time and may even draw on words from the past to "teach" or "warn" about the future. This is why sometimes you see an Old Testament passage given as a prophetic word for the present day. These are warnings and are meant to be taken seriously. Here is a link about the charism of prophesy - Prophetic Words.

Everyone who reads this blog knows that I believe we live in serious times. To make the "words" I (or at times others) have been given more easily accessible I have added a new feature to my sidebar with most of the links to the prophetic words given on my blogs. The links are all under the title "Words" for Our Times. These words are from 2009 and 2010 and they are more important now than ever. I will be adding to this list over time and linking to certain posts of other bloggers that I believe have this gift also.

Please remember that while reading these words that the reason God gives them to people is to help us not to frighten us. They are words from a loving God who sees his people walking blindly into grave danger spiritually and He is calling us to back to himself. 

"God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him."      1 John 4:16

Spiritual gifts that are much needed today

It's no great secret to those of you who read my blog posts that I believe we live in "spiritually" critical times. I also believe that each and every one of us, though some may be as yet unaware of them, have special gifts from the Lord that can be a great help today in leading people back to the Lord and these gifts include charisms. Over the years, I have heard it said that these "charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit" are no longer necessary - that they were only for the early Church in order to better spread the Good News of Jesus Christ and add to the community of believers...but this is absolutely untrue. Not only is it untrue but this false statement is detrimental to Christianity in this day and age.

The Holy Spirit is working harder than ever to bring people to Christ. Some of the reasons that we don't see the more obvious manifestations of these gifts of the Holy Spirit today and why some believe they haven't received any of these gifts may be due to:
- a lack of faith
- blockages in the spirit (this may be because we may need to forgive others...or even ourselves)
- unconfessed sin
- sinful patterns of living
- a lack of understanding the immense power of God
- a reliance on human understanding
- a lack of charity
- a refusal (can be an "unconscious" refusal) of the gifts due to false humility or because of inner    wounds that need healing

In order to be open to the Holy Spirit's work in and through us we have to rid ourselves of the overly scientific views that have been impressed upon us in today's secular society. We are spiritual as well as physical beings and science rarely, if ever, touches upon this aspect of human nature. There is nothing wrong with science itself  but it is prudent to remember that without God there would be no science and science should be put in its proper place. There are many incredibly brilliant scientists out there who are utterly lacking in "spiritual intelligence". Not all, of course, but quite a few.

God is beyond science. God is beyond human intelligence.

God is the great I AM.

When praying for the gifts of the Holy Spirit - wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord, we should also be asking Him to stir up the charisms (meaning gratuitous gift or favor) He has given us. In other words, these charisms are freely given to those who love the Lord. We don't merit these gifts...they are given out of the pure goodness of God.

Above, I stated some reasons why the Charisms of the Holy Spirit may not seem to "work" in some people. In actuality, they "work" very well indeed but there may be something blocking their full manifestation. One of the obstacles is a lack of faith. Disbelief. Even though Jesus states in the gospels that His followers would do even greater deeds than what He did, some people don't believe it. Faith is not so much believing in God, but rather, believing God. And that, my friends, makes all the difference. St. Paul tells us in 1 Cor 12:7-11:

"To each individual, the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit. To one is given through the Spirit the expression of wisdom; to another the expression of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit; to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit; to another mighty deeds; to another prophecy; to another discernment of spirits; to another variety of tongues; to another interpretation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit produces all of these, distributing them individually to each person as he wishes."

I deliberately bolded "each individual" to point out that the gifts are for all, though they differ from person to person. St. Paul never wrote "to some individuals" but to "each". If the father of a family gathers his children around him one day and says that he has a gift for each of his children...he means all of them. Granted, the gifts may differ but they are still precious nonetheless and even more they "fit" the person receiving them.

You may be wondering why I mention faith first in regard to charisms and this is because a lack of faith is one of the largest stumbling blocks. How many times in the Bible does Jesus sigh over the lack of faith of his followers (see Mt 17:14-20, Mk 6:1-6 and Mk 4:35-40)? Many. He also often praises those who have great faith (see Mt 15:28 and Mk 5:34). This is just a small number of the scriptural passages which refer to faith or lack of it.

We could call the age we live in the "Age of Doubters". Many of us forget that God's laws supersede the "natural law". God's power supersedes man's power and man forgets this. This grieves God. We have lost our childlike awe of the mighty works of God. My prayer is that an outpouring of the Holy Spirit may come upon all believers.

There is a certain type of  "spiritual snobbery" that exists today, sometimes seen among Catholics (but not limited to) and a number of people believe that they don't need these special gifts from the Spirit. Some even despise them and think that people today are "above" such things but the truth is that these charisms are meant to walk hand in hand with the other gifts and virtues God gives his children.

Why?

 They are an enormous help in bringing others to Christ and they build up the Church. This in itself is the greatest reason of all.

 I'll leave you with this quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church :
"There are furthermore special graces, also called charisms after the Greek term used by St. Paul and meaning 'favor,' 'gratuitous gift,' 'benefit'. Whatever their character - sometimes it is extraordinary, such as the gift of miracles or tongues - charisms are oriented toward sanctifying grace and are intended for the common good of the Church. They are at the service of charity which builds up the Church."

"If anybody tries to lay their hands on me, I'm outta there!"

In my last post I spoke about the dreams I began having after my conversion. The nights were great, but during the day I wanted to talk to people about God, but ,with the exception of my mom, nobody wanted to talk about Him. I thought about God day and night and started getting depressed due to the lack of people willing to talk about Him. "Lord, you don't have many friends here", I would tell Him. This wasn't true... I just couldn't find them! One day, after Mass, I saw a pamphlet in the back of the Church that described a seminar called Life in the Spirit. Having had bad [horrendous really] experiences with the Charismatic Movement as a child I was very wary about attending but I was desperate to learn and talk to anybody about God. I understood, by that time, that what I had undergone as a child was a form of "toxic religion" and didn't really mean that every charismatic christian group was like this [after a period of counseling, I had mostly come to terms with this part of my past]. It was on Tuesday night from 7:00 - 9:00 and my husband was asleep at this time since he worked third shift back then. After some prayer, I decided to go. I figured that I could stop attending if I didn't like it.

The first meeting was great, everyone talked about God, prayed, and someone gave a talk on the Holy Spirit. The people were kind and you could tell that they really loved God. "This is cool", I thought to myself, "I can handle this."  The second meeting was a little different; after speaking about God, people started praying in tongues. "Here we go", I said to the Lord, "The bizzare stuff is coming next." I didn't know how to speak in tongues, but I had known people who had this gift and the thought didn't thrill me.  " Lord, if I did that I would probably accidentally blaspheme you or something. You probably shouldn't give me this gift."

I skipped the next week. The following week I felt the strong urge to go. "Okay, Lord, but if anybody tries to lay their hands on me I'm outta there!" I went and no one laid a hand on me but the meetings were getting stranger and stranger. At one point a bunch of people got up and started singing to the Lord, all in different languages! The harmonies were spectacular!  "Wow!", I said to God, "that's pretty awesome."  After the singing, people started standing up and giving " Words of Knowledge". These were all passages from the Bible. I remember praying very hard and saying, "Please, Lord, don't give me one of these words. I'm too shy and afraid to stand up in front of all these people." At that moment, someone stood up and said, "My strength is made perfect in weakness."  I giggled... I knew this one was for me, I could feel it. Luckily, the Lord never called on me and I relaxed and enjoyed the seminars in the weeks that followed. Until, that is, the final week. When they explained that teams would be praying over all the newcomers I got really nervous and started to panic. Though I knew this group wasn't like the ones from my childhood, by the time it was my turn I had a panic attack. My body was drenched with sweat from head to toe and my hands were icy cold. I tried taking steady breaths and tried to relax. The team started praying over me and.....nothing. Nothing bad happened. I didn't know what I was expecting, but the only experience that I had ever had with charismatic groups in the past were the kind who thought there were demons behind every cough and sneeze and the devil's minions were lurking about in every corner ready to pounce on us if we were not good. By the time I was 16,  I had stopped going to church because I was terrified of God the Father - He didn't seem very loving to me, or to my brothers and sisters. We all left the church, though our pain had nothing to do with Catholicism. Luckily, we were all confirmed, but that was about it. But I am digressing [or maybe I should say: regressing ], nothing bad happened while I was being prayed over and it was fine. One of the ladies even had a vision of me in heaven at the Lord's table and he was anointing me with oil .
Did I ever have vivid dreams that night! With the exception of this seminar I have had no involvement in the Charismatic Movement [except for the childhood stuff]  but I do know a few people who have charisms. I am not sure why I didn't join this group. I think part of it is that I love peace and quiet. The Church that I attend is very traditional and beautiful, this Christmas we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 1st Mass celebrated here! The architecture is incredible and Catholic to the bone: I love it here. And it was here, in this quiet, old, church that I first started receiving "Words of Knowledge".

I can speak in tongues, now, but I rarely do so. Only in emergencies :)

Confirmations in the spirit and holy dreams

http://www.markmallett.com/blog/?p=1480

Some may wonder why I often leave links to Mark Mallett's site. There are a number of reasons. The first is that I believe that he has a true prophetic gift. Second, the "words" he receives come to him in a similar manner as mine do and when I read certain writings of his I get a witness in the spirit. A witness in the spirit usually comes to me when the Lord wants to confirm another person's words to show me the truth in them. This doesn't only happen to me on Mark Mallett's site, the Lord often uses it whenever He wants to draw my attention to something in particular. The Holy Spirit floods me and it feels as like a mixture of heat and electricity, waves of it. He does this when He is giving me "words", also. If the word is particularly strong my body sometimes shakes. It has just been in this past year that the shaking has started and I was concerned at first until I heard that this is not uncommon. Another reason that I believe that his charisms are real is that some of his "words" and dreams have been the same as mine.

I often use the terms "word of knowledge" and "prophetic word" interchangeably but they are actually two different things. There is also "word of wisdom" which is slightly different. I will attempt over the next couple weeks to explain what I know about these charisms, as well as prophetic dreams, as simply as I can. Many people only believe what they can see with their eyes and forget that there is a spiritual world, also, and we are not simply matter but spiritual beings. There is a certain snobbery that exists today that says charisms are no longer needed; we are too enlightened for that. I say:
They are needed now as never before in history. The Holy Spirit didn't stop giving these gifts, many people simply don't want them or are unaware of them. Some of the Christian sites that I have read will not have anything to do with charisms or private revelations, apparitions and miracles. I cannot understand why. The Spirit gives these gifts to build the Church, they didn't suddenly stop existing. People don't trust them, but they can be extremely helpful. At least that is what I have found in my own life.  Almost every personal prophetic word the Lord has given me has come true including the birth of my baby which came with a time.  Well, except for one, which was just given to me and a few that will take some time to fully play out, but I have faith that God's word is good.

It is very hard to get information in books or over the internet about charisms, especially among Catholics, so I am just going to try to explain in my own words what little I have learned about some of them. I do not have all the charisms so those might be a little harder to explain.

I'll start with the gift of dreams since this was the first charism that I noticed outside of prayer charisms. The dreams started almost immediately after the Lord brought my soul into the presence of His Mercy http://openingthefloodgatesofmercy.blogspot.com/2009/06/heart-of-jesus-infinite-in-mercy.html . I called them "Holy Spirit dreams" for lack of a better word. I didn't know much about the spiritual life at this point; I was like a baby cradled in the arms of God, one who couldn't even walk yet. The first dreams consisted of knowledge being poured into my head while I slept. I was aware that this was going on, I would "catch" the Lord at it many times. In the morning I would wake up knowing things about God that I had previously not known. One day I woke up with the words "indoctrination of the Holy Spirit on my lips", other times I would be given things. In one dream Jesus put an old coin in my hand [ I wrote about this one on one of my blogs], in another, I was in a room reading beautiful ancient scrolls in another language. These dreams continued in this fashion for a period of time, it was as if the Lord was preparing me for something. Meanwhile, I started attending daily Mass and became a daily communicant [after a long confession, of course]. I also started reading the bible, praying the rosary and reading about the saints. I was bowled over when I heard about St. Faustina and the Divine Mercy. The first time I saw the Divine Mercy picture, I said, " Lord! That picture reminds me of what happened to me, the rays which pierced my soul, the mercy and love emanating from your Heart. That's what You did to me!"  I  bought her diary not too long after that and was fascinated with it. I started praying the Mercy Chaplet and this is when I started waking up every single night at 3:33. It was strange. I would go to sleep and would get woken up at 3:33, never 3:32 or 3:34 but always 3:33 on the nose. I took this as a call to prayer and started praying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy in the middle of the night. I later read somewhere that 333 was the number of the Trinity. Once, I got a word of knowledge that this was a call to the prayer warriors and God was waking up many Christians at this time to pray for the world. Some people get woken up at 3:00 instead and almost everyone that this happens to takes it as a call to prayer.

I have posted about some of my dreams on my blogs including one in which I was given a glimpse of hell. In some I was battling demons and losing until St. Michael came to help me. The minute St. Michael stepped into the picture they were done for. I think this one was to teach me to call on St. Michael whenever I needed help, so I started praying the St. Michael prayer. The dreams continued and still do. Some have been prophetic dreams, many have been spiritual battles and some are just conversations with the Lord. These dreams are unlike regular dreams, they are extremely vivid and filled with power.

I'll have to continue this in another post, I just realized how long it was getting :)

Intercessory Prayer

Intercessory prayer is "standing in the gap" or bringing others to God with your prayers. Anyone can and should intercede for others, especially those who are in trouble spiritually and cannot or will not pray for themselves. Everyone, as christians, are called to pray for their brothers and sisters in this world.

There is also the charism of intercessory prayer. The Holy Spirit gives the gift of powerful, intense prayer to the intercessor. It is a burning prayer, forceful, and impossible to ignore. Well...a person could ignore it I guess, but why would they want to? The Holy Spirit will bring the person that He is calling you to pray for to your heart and mind along with the overwhelming urge to pray for this person. It seems as if you are before the Mercy Seat and the Lord shares with you His love and mercy for the one you are praying for; it may often bring you to tears, as the Lord's mercy is a thing of incredible beauty. It is a deep all-encompassing prayer, it feels as if it is being pulled out of you. You are left feeling awestruck at the depths of God's mercy. This is completely the Holy Spirit's work; the person praying is simply the vehicle as a member of the body of Christ. This charism, as with any, grows stronger when the person cooperates with the Spirit.

Oddly enough, God may bring total strangers to you before drawing you into this prayer. The Holy Spirit moves the person's heart to open up to you and they will often pour out their life story even though they do not know you. It's actually kind of strange when this happens, as it is unexpected. Other times you may be just praying in general and the Holy Spirit draws you into the intercessory prayer. Sometimes it is out of the blue, but it is enough to understand that He is doing it for a good purpose and it can help others immensely.

One of the reasons that I think the charisms are important is because they do help build up the Body of Christ on earth. You can't take charisms with you when you die, but you can sure help others by accepting these gifts, that is their purpose.