The origin of intercessory prayer

[kalt]

Does anyone here know the origin of intercessory prayer? Especially intercessory prayer in Catholicism?

If you are a non-Catholic, what is your opinion on the reason people use intercessory prayer?

 

[kalt]

I was going to ask this question in another thread, but it is so closely related to the first that I’m going to add it here.

People talk about the “early Church”, meaning “before the Catholic Church”, which I think they define as before the 4th century, when Constantine, they believe, formed the Catholic Church by calling a council.

The same people usually object to intercessory prayer to Mary as a Catholic invention. They say that intercessory prayer to Mary wasn’t done in the early Church, and that when they reject this practice, they are getting back to a truer, purer Christianity.

I found this prayer on another board.

"We fly to thy patronage, O holy Mother of God;
Despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers,
O glorious and blessed Virgin. Amen. "

This is the earliest written example of intercessory prayer to Mary.

I think many will be surprised that it doesn’t post-date the council, but is from the 3rd century,

If you are a non-Catholic, what do you think of this prayer?

edited to correct errors in dates

 

[Lancer]

I was going to ask this question in another thread, but it is so closely related to the first that I’m going to add it here.

People talk about the “early Church”, meaning “before the Catholic Church”, which I think they define as before the 4th century, when Constantine, they believe, **formed the Catholic Church by calling a council. **

I am probably not understanding or misreading the context of your statement highlighted above, but the “early Church” and “Catholic Church” were one and the same from [for sure} Ignatius of Antioch (born @50AD - died @ 98-117AD)…well before Constantine (born 272- AD - died337 AD; reign began 307 AD)…maybe even before Ignatius of Antioch first uses the term Catholic. **Simply, Constantine did not form or invent or call a council to begin the Catholic Church.

Please note the two quotes below (esp. highlighted part at the end) taken from New Advent website.

Pax Christi

Ignatius was the second successor of St. Peter in the See of Antioch

The Church, the “Catholic” Church, as** Ignatius** [Antioch] for the first time calls it (Smyrnæans 8), takes the place of the chosen people; is the mystical body of Christ, the faithful being the members thereof, united by oneness of faith and hope, and by a charity which prompts to mutual assistance.

newadvent.org/cathen/01637a.htm

**Catholic **

The word Catholic (katholikos from katholou – throughout the whole, i.e., universal) occurs in the Greek classics, e.g., in Aristotle and Polybius, and was freely used by the earlier Christian writers in what we may call its primitive and non-ecclesiastical sense. Thus we meet such phrases as the “the catholic resurrection” (Justin Martyr), “the catholic goodness of God” (Tertullian), “the four catholic winds” (Irenaeus), where we should now speak of “the general resurrection”, “the absolute or universal goodness of God”, “the four principal winds”, etc. The word seems in this usage to be opposed to merikos (partial) or idios (particular), and one familiar example of this conception still survives in the ancient phrase “Catholic Epistles” as applied to those ofSt. Peter, St. Jude, etc., which were so called as being addressed not to particular local communities, but to the Church at large.
The combination “the Catholic Church” (he katholike ekklesia) is found for the first time in the letter of St. Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans, written about the year 110. The words run: “Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be, even as where Jesus may be, there is the universal katholike] Church.”

newadvent.org/cathen/03449a.htm

 

[kalt]

I am probably not understanding or misreading the context of your statement highlighted above, but the “early Church” and “Catholic Church” were one and the same from [for sure} Ignatius of Antioch (born @50AD - died @ 98-117AD)…well before Constantine (born 272- AD - died337 AD; reign began 307 AD)…maybe even before Ignatius of Antioch first uses the term Catholic. **Simply, Constantine did not form or invent or call a council to begin the Catholic Church.

Please note the two quotes below (esp. highlighted part at the end) taken from New Advent website.

Pax Christi

newadvent.org/cathen/01637a.htm

newadvent.org/cathen/03449a.htm

You came close.

You only missed 4 words.

"People talk about the “early Church”, meaning “before the Catholic Church”, which I think they define as before the 4th century, when Constantine, they believe, formed the Catholic Church by calling a council. "

I was asking about that because intercessory prayers obviously predate what they think was the beginning of the Catholic Church which was, they think, when the real church went on hiatus and the CC reigned until the Reformation restored true, pure Christianity. But again, these aren’t my ideas. These are the ideas that others have posted on the board.

We agree that the Catholic Church is the church founded by Jesus.

 

[MelanieAnne]

If you ask a friend to pray for you, that’s also a form of intercessory prayer. Most people that claim that they do not believe in intercessory prayer also have no qualms about asking a friend to pray for them, so, in fact, they DO believe in intercessory prayer even while they claim they do not.

I submit it’s just an anti-Catholic thing dressed up as a doctrinal difference when no substantive difference actually exists.

 

[fatcats2]

Intercessory prayer is an extremely old and accepted form of prayer. As Christians or Jews, we need only remember how our Patriarch Moses interceded for the Israelites in the desert praying, “Let your blazing wrath die down: relent in punishing your people.” And how Abraham interceded for Sodom and Gomorrah; also how Ezekial made bold and stood in the gap to pray as the Lord asked of him.