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Summary
- Intercession is prayer on someone else’s behalf; Paul asked that “intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men” (1 Timothy 2:1).
- The Catholic Prayer of the Faithful (German Fürbitten, Dutch voorbeden) usually prays for the Church, public authorities and the world, those in difficulty, and the local community (General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 70).
- Traditional intercessions are quoted from the Orthodox Great Litany (Hapgood, 1906), the 1928 Book of Common Prayer’s “Prayer for all Conditions of Men” and the 1888 Catholic Manual of Prayers.
- Short prayers cover the sick, the grieving, the exhausted, money trouble, family conflict, hard decisions, unbelief, enemies, leaders, church unity and lost hope.
- Abraham, Moses, Samuel, Job, Jesus and Paul all prayed for others; Catholics and Orthodox also ask the saints to intercede, while most Protestants pray to God alone.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotations are from the King James Version (1611), text of Project Gutenberg eBook no. 10 (Genesis 18:32; Exodus 32:32; 1 Samuel 12:23; Job 42:10; Psalm 34:18; 46:1; 50:15; 86:1; Matthew 5:44; 11:28; Luke 22:32; 23:34; John 17:20–21; Romans 8:26; Colossians 1:9; 1 Timothy 2:1–2, 5; Hebrews 7:25; James 1:5; 5:16). https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10
- General Instruction of the Roman Missal, paragraphs 69–71, “The Universal Prayer.” United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. https://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/the-mass/general-instruction-of-the-roman-missal/girm-chapter-2
- Hapgood, Isabel Florence, trans. Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic (Greco-Russian) Church. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1906. Great Vespers, The Great Litany, pp. 5–6. https://www.ponomar.net/data/hapgood.pdf
- The Book of Common Prayer (Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S.A.), Standard Book of 1928. Morning Prayer, “A Prayer for all Conditions of Men,” pp. 18–19. PDF facsimile: https://www.artisticdailyprayers.org/uploads/3/0/1/6/30164961/bcp1928std.pdf
- A Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Catholic Laity, prepared and published by order of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore. New York: Catholic Publication Society, 1888. Devotions for Holy Communion, p. 315. https://archive.org/details/AManualOfPrayers1888
