Intercessors of the Lamb inc.

Excerpt from Battle Power: Agape Intercession

Talk given by M. Nadine

“And the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us” (Jn 1:14) 

We’re being called to come into transforming union with Jesus – for our bodies to carry Him around so the Word can become enfleshed again within us. We see that this is the deepest desire in the Heart of Jesus in His last priestly prayer where He said to the Father, “I pray, Father, that they may be one as You and I are one” (cf. Jn 17:11). Jesus has a very specific condition of how He wants this union: He wants us to have the same union that He has with the Father.   He wants us to have that beautiful relationship that the two of Them have. Then He prayed, “That they may be one in Us” (Jn 17:21). That’s unity; that’s family; that’s community; that’s Church. When we all can come into that spiritual marriage, that phenomenal spiritual union with Jesus, then we can be one with Him and have the same relationship with the Father that He has with the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Our battle weapon is prayer, but it’s prayer in union with Jesus. We see this many times in Scripture. One time in particular was when Peter’s mother-in-law was ill with a fever. Jesus went to her, and Scripture says that Peter and those who were there interceded with Jesus (cf. Lk 4:38). That’s the power – when we intercede with Jesus. We never pray on our own – we always pray with Jesus. When we pray, we may sometimes wonder, “Is anybody listening? Is God at home?” We need to go into the Heart of Jesus. We need to pray with Jesus, and Jesus will take us to the Father, which will produce the kind of fruit that we want. Union with Jesus is absolutely key. It’s the heart of the Church, and it’s the very heart of prayer.

“And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age." (Mt 28:20)

Excerpt on Solitude from Hearing God’s Voice

Talk given by M. Nadine

"But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.”   (Mt 6:6)  

One of the four pillars of contemplative prayer is the Pillar of Solitude. There are many definitions of solitude. No doubt you have your own concept of solitude. The definition that I am going to use is the one I like best; that is, “Solitude is the furnace of transformation”(Henri J.M. Nouwen: The Way of the Heart).

There are primarily two things that happen in solitude. Since it is a furnace, fire is there. Of course, there is only one fire. That is the fire of God’s Love, the fire of the Holy Spirit. It is the fire that fell upon the 120 at Pentecost. It is the fire that led the chosen ones through the desert by night. It is a purifying fire that will purify and burn away all that is within us that is not God. And, when the purification process has taken place and borne the fruit that God desires, then that same fire will still burn within us, but it will be sweet. It will be pure love. It will be union.

In Scripture we read about Jesus arising early in the morning. Long before dawn He would leave the house and go off to a lonely place to pray. Jesus taught us by His actions and when He prayed, He went into lonely places. Sometimes the Scriptures will say, “He withdrew.” We read about that in Matthew 14:13. When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist, it says, “He withdrew by boat to a deserted place by Himself.” Again, in Mark 1:45 we hear, “He stayed in desert places. He preferred desert places.”

Why does He prefer desert places? Perhaps we discover the answer to that question in another passage. In John 4, the passage of the woman at the well, when His disciples came back and found Him there, Jesus tells them, “I am never alone.” Is Jesus by His action and words giving us the reason for the lonely place, the solitary place? He is telling us that there is Someone to encounter. In the lonely places we too are never alone…we encounter God who is Love.

“And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age." (Mt 28:20)