On Splashing the Blood of Christ: a paradigm for Intercessory Prayer

by Fr Peter Sanders
Between the exchange of peace and singing, “Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us,” I inadvertently splashed an entire chalice of the Eucharistic Blood of Christ over the stone altar from Jerusalem in the Holy Spirit Chapel and over my priestly vestments. It was the solemn intercessory Eucharist on the Vigil of Pentecost. It turned out to be more than an accident; God was to teach us about his grace and pour his life out to us as we solidified our covenant of intercession.

Pentecost 2010

Our annual event at the Holy Spirit Chapel was producing strong intercession for the seven prayer watches covering the regions of the earth. People had been coming and going all day to their respective watches and now there were 60 intercessors crowded into the Chapel for the Eucharist. A great feeling that we were accomplishing the desires of God’s heart came over us as we entered the Vigil Mass of the Solemnity of Pentecost. Led by the Spirit of God, we had already delved deeply in prayer into the problems, peoples and projects of many areas of the earth, often dealing with sin, brokenness, war – everything we know that manifests the broken roots of the human race. NPCM celebrates Pentecost every year as a major intercessory event and as an expression of who we are in our roots – a ministry organization designed to build up the Body of Christ by working in evangelization, worship, teaching, healing and prayer.

During the Vigil Mass we were praying specifically for the Holy Land and Jerusalem – a key point of spiritual reference for peace, reconciliation and healing among the nations. I had preached on the covenant of intercession that members of NPCM had made in Jerusalem in 2004 ; how we had blended the indicated essences and blessed oil in the desert where Jesus was tested and anointed each other to seal the covenant. In that place we anointed an altar we made of stones gathered from the many nations and places the group was representing. At the Holy Spirit Chapel – the Oratory Church of Monterey – we have an altar fashioned from the stone quarries around Jerusalem.

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