Imprecatory Prayer

[Sirach14]

Does anyone know what "Imprecatory prayer is? Author of article wages that most Protestants and Catholics have never heard of the term. I plead guilty.
Imprecatory prayers are the prayers that Christians should petition God, for our country in face of militant Islam. Author states that Christians are to passive, and should get their heads out of the sand , in face of the threat of Islam.

townhall.com/columnists/douggiles/dg20040703.shtml

 

[Story]

Hey Sirach, I did a quick google search just to see what it was…and wow…I guess you can call it a curse prayer…

here is one link, and I don’t believe it is Catholic, but the first paragraph explains what kind of prayer it is:

dickinsonchurchofchrist.org/ps35imprec.htm

I will have to keep looking to read more on it.

Story

 

[Melchior]

Sirach14:

Does anyone know what "Imprecatory prayer is? Author of article wages that most Protestants and Catholics have never heard of the term. I plead guilty.
Imprecatory prayers are the prayers that Christians should petition God, for our country in face of militant Islam. Author states that Christians are to passive, and should get their heads out of the sand , in face of the threat of Islam.

townhall.com/columnists/douggiles/dg20040703.shtml

Hi Sirach,

Imprecatory prayers are those prayers that we find all throughout the Psalms. They are called, of course, Imprecatory Psalms. They are the ones where David prays for the destruction or defeat of his enemies. It is basically a prayer against someone, something or a group of people. For example " Lord, please destroy our muslim enemies before they can harm anymore children".

Mel

 

[Shoshana]

This is not my understanding of imprecatory prayer (within the Catholic realm anyway). I understand it to be this: a lay person would command Satan or his minions to do something, although only in the name of Jesus of course. Exorcists, with the authority of the whole Church, have this power behind them. Brother Ignatius explains this quite well on his site and this site is papally endorsed.

We as lay people are supposed to intercede to Jesus to command any evil spirit away. Like the prayer to St Michael the Archangeal. I am not at home now but maybe if you go on Google you will find his site. I think it is called St Michael’s Supersite. When I get home tonight I will look it up.

Blessings,
Shoshana

 

[Shoshana]

This is the Church’s stand on imprecatory prayer. This came from St. Michael’s Supersite.

When we use imprecatory language, even in Jesus name, we are speaking DIRECTLY to the demons, and commanding them DIRECTLY.

This is dangerous.

Because of abuses in this practice the Church in her wisdom has promulgated that for the time being the Faithful should not DIRECTLY speak to demons. It is too dangerous, especially when one does not really know what they are doing. The Church has a pastoral mandate from God to protect the flock. They are protecting the flock with this directive.

Besides, which is really more prudent 1) we butting heads with demons personally by commanding them in Jesus name? or 2) in Jesus name asking God to command them and butt heads with them?

Anyone who prefers to butt heads with demons personally rather than having God do it, is a fool.

I realize that those who are not aware of this ruling may use the “I” language without pride. However, some do get very prideful about it. In fact, the Bible itself, shows us this.

Remember the story of how the disciple came back to Jesus all excited because the demons obeyed them when they commanded them in Jesus name? Jesus did not say, “great going”. He chastised them and said, “Do not rejoice that the demons obey your commands, rejoice only that your names are written in the Book of Life.”

There is always a danger of pride in this area. This is a rather dramatic thing to command demons. Many fall into pride – we only need to look to many Protestant “exorcist” who do a show-biz exorcism to see a prideful way of doing this. And there have been Catholics too, who have taken this show-biz approach or have otherwise been very prideful.

One proof of this pride is when I reveal to a person who doesn’t know about the ruling from the Church and the person refuses to obey but calls me names, slanders me, gossips about me, defames me merely because I informed them of what the Church teaches on this subject.

Bottomline: the first definition of humility is OBEDIENCE.

The Church says NO to this, thus it is NO. period.

Rather, I will follow St. Michael the Archangel’s lead as we read in Jude 9 to use deprecatory language. I will never personally and directly butt heads with the devil again if I can help it.

I hope this helps…

Blessings,
Shoshana