This icon is titled ~ Mother of God Who Loves All Equally. O that we could love like that as well. These folks symbolize all of human kind tucked under the protective maphorian of the Mother of God. Ladies on the left; gentlemen on the right. Someone has kindly ushered the little children up front with the poor sick fellow on his mat.There are some clerics and maybe a king or czar in the front row too. I hope they're there to speak up for the multitudes who are timid or for one reason or another are unable to speak up for themselves. The voiceless ones.
Anyway, there's a lot of prayer going on here. I'd suggest most of that prayer is interceding out of one's own burdened life or prayer on behalf of others. We can join in.
Going way back to 2013, I've offered a Prayer of the Faithful each Thursday that people write to say they pray before Sunday Mass - even opening up the page in the pew in the minutes before the processional hymn. Others use the intercessions as part of their own night prayer. I'm glad for that, hoping these intercession-posts help us to be the Lord's prayerful people.
The French author Georges Bernanos has written: "Nothing about modern civilization can be understood unless you recognize that it is a universal conspiracy against any kind of interior life." The Sunday Intercessions are a little answer to that sad statement.
The intercessions help us to imagine godly possibilities. We dream with God. We lay bare our hearts, full of concerns in ever widening circles that embrace the whole world. The intercessions don't set out to change or somehow manage God but to change ourselves - coming before God in humility, tenderized to the needs of others beyond our own small orbit. In the Gospels we see Jesus repeatedly reaching beyond the boundaries. And Saint Paul writes to the Philippians (4:6) and to us:
"Don't worry over anything whatever; whenever you pray tell God every detail of your needs in thankful prayer, and the peace of God, which surpasses human understanding, will keep constant guard over your hearts and minds as they rest in Christ Jesus."
"Don't worry over anything whatever; whenever you pray tell God every detail of your needs in thankful prayer, and the peace of God, which surpasses human understanding, will keep constant guard over your hearts and minds as they rest in Christ Jesus."
