I have chronic pain in some parts of my body as I cannot get surgery as there is no one to care for me in that situation. Therefore, I assign pain to my seminarians and deacons for whom I pray--simple: foot pain for Deacon....., sciatic for ....., shoulder injury pain for ....and knee pain for.....and so on. But, this is not intercessory prayer. It is reparation for the failings, sins, imperfections so that those men may become holy.
Other types of suffering can be matched to a sin or failing. I suffer from poverty, and so I can pray for a specific person who is wealthy and closed to God, for example. If I am suffering from anxiety, I can work on my need to rely completely on Divine Providence, while offering up anxiety for someone who is asleep about the times in which we live and so on....
Reparation can become an entire way of life, a daily habit. Years ago, I was in extreme pain from an injury and had to walk up six flights of steps daily to get to my apartment. I offered each step for someone to be healed of something, and my climbing those stairs several times a day reminded me to pray for this person. But, this was not intercessory prayer for healing of illness, but healing related to sin and a sinful life.
Remember that Christ forgave the paralytic's sin first before He healed that man's body. Why? Because sin causes illness, Original sin, our sin, the sins against us create an atmosphere of illness and dejection. So, in forgiving the sins of the man, Christ healed the entire person.
Reparation asks God to heal sin, heal rebellion, heal apostasy. Reparation joins in the suffering of Christ on the Cross not to make a person feel good but to save that person's soul, including one's own.
In this is an irony, if one is called to a life of Reparation, this is who one saves one's own soul.
And so on...do not waste any opportunity to pray, to do reparation. Again, I think that most reparation is for our own sins and predominant faults until we are in the Illuminative State, but I am willing to be corrected on that matter. It takes a real purity of heart to offer up sacrificial love for someone else, and that indicates that one should be in the state of Illumination.
If a person is called to a life of Reparation, God will give discernment accordingly. One must not assume that and this type of thinking needs the input of a spiritual director.
With a spiritual director years ago, I offered up any merit I obtain for the souls in purgatory. They are my special group I pray for daily.
to be continued...
