Welcome to answers from an apostolic faith.
In name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen.
First, we are very pleased that we have received many questions from our online audience, including today's. God willing, with your prayers, we will attempt to answer as many questions as we possibly can in the next few weeks. So, today's question is: What is the role of intercession? If God loves me, why does someone else need to pray for me? Does God love a specific saint more than He loves me?
To answer the question, we have to understand first the mystery of the Church. So, we have to understand that God is a Holy Trinity; God is a community. So, there's two different types of worship today: the individualistic type of worship, meaning God and myself alone, and the true Christianity, which is a communal worship.
So, since God is community and we are created in His image, we also are relational beings. We need and ought to be a community. That's why God asks many of us to get married or He asks the monks and nuns to live in a community. And when we get married, I am responsible for my spouse's salvation and also for my children. He even sent the apostles two by two, etc.
So, we have to understand that I'm not alone with God. All of us, the Church, the millions and billions of people that form the Church, all of us together are the bride of Christ. And it's based on this that we understand when God says, in James 5:16: pray for one another. Because, he says also, St. Paul, in Ephesians 4:16, that we are joined and knit together. We are truly the body of Christ, His spouse. So, you have to understand that way.
So when I sin, my sin affects you. My prayers also affects you and vice versa. We are all together in that one body and that's why we ought always to pray for each other. And that is why God taught us to pray Our Father who art in heaven. It is not My Father, although I'm alone in my room. And if I have the book of prayers, the Agpeya, I say let us give thanks, but I'm alone. But I'm not alone truly, because I am joined and knit together in the mystery of the Church to the remainder of the people, all of us together being the bride of Christ.
So, St. Basil, in the liturgy, taught us the following and we pray it every liturgy. In the beginning of the litanies, we say:
''Make us all worthy, O our Master, to partake of Your Holies [so, partake of the Eucharist], unto the purification of our souls, bodies, and spirits, [so, first thing, I get purified through the Eucharist] that we may become one body...'' (Liturgy of St. Basil)
So St. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 17, he says that we are one body, all of us together, when we partake of that one bread, the Eucharist; so, we are one body.
''...and one spirit, and may have a share and inheritance with all the saints who have pleased You since the beginning.'' (Liturgy of St. Basil)
So us, on earth, the Church, we have a share and inheritance with the people that made it with God already. All of us together, the heavenly and the earthly, are one Church. So, we pray for each other and we are responsible for each other's salvation. Again, this is the mystery of the Church. It's not about me alone, but it's about us, the spouse, the bride of Christ with the bridegroom enjoying eternal life.
Now, it is with this understanding that we ought to approach the concept of intercession. But now the question begs itself: Does God love this or that saint more than He loves me? We have to understand that God loves everyone equally, but it takes two people to make a relationship.
So, God wants to spend the entire time in the entire world with all of us. So, this is symbolic of God's rule with humanity and it's equivalent for everyone. However, like I said, it takes two people to make a relationship, so when I put my hand in God's hand, so to speak, this is the human rule. Now this varies between one human and the other.
So, what is different with a saint? The saint has responded to God's call to a life of prayer, to reading the Scriptures, to living a liturgical life, to partake of the Eucharist. The saint responded to that and that's why the saint became an active member of the body of Christ. He's different. His relationship is deep. His communication channel is effective, because he's praying or she is praying. And that's why although I can ask people on earth to pray for me, and we still do obviously, we still ask the ones in heaven. And that's why in the hymn of the intercessions or the heathens, we ask this or that saint to pray to God that God may forgive us our sins, because, again, we are all responsible for each other's salvation.
Now, these people are very much alive. They're not dead. So, in Matthew 22, verse 32, God proclaims that He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and He says: I am the God of the living, not the God of the dead. So, two thousand years later, God is claiming that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are still alive. And in Matthew 17, in the transfiguration of Christ, who appears? Moses and Elijah! They are very much alive and they are active members of the body. And that's why we ask for their prayers.
Remember:
Know your faith, live your faith, and teach your faith. And glory be to God forever. Amen.