When the same Hebrew people were banished from their native country and carried into exile in Babylon, so great was their confidence in the prayers of their brethren in Jerusalem that they sent them the following message, together with a sum of money, that sacrifice might be offered up for them in the holy city: “Pray ye for us to the Lord our God, for we have sinned against the Lord our God.”(200) When the friends of Job had excited the indignation of the Almighty in consequence of their vain speech, God, instead of directly granting them the pardon which they sought, commanded them to invoke the intercession of Job: “Go,” He says, “to My servant Job and offer for yourselves a holocaust, and My servant Job will pray for you and his face will I accept.”(201) Nor did they appeal to Job in vain; for, “the Lord was turned at the penance of Job when he prayed for his friends.”(202) In this instance we not only see the value of intercessory prayer, but we find God sanctioning it by His own authority. But of all the sacred writers there is none that reposes greater confidence in the prayers of his brethren than St. Paul, although no one had a better knowledge than he of the infinite merits of our Savior’s Passion, and no one could have more endeared himself to God by his personal labors. In his Epistles St. Paul repeatedly asks for himself the prayers of his disciples. If he wishes to be delivered from the hands of the unbelievers of Judea, and his ministry to be successful in Jerusalem, he asks the Romans to obtain these favors for him. If he desires the grace of preaching with profit the Gospel to the Gentiles, he invokes the intercession of the Ephesians. Nay, is it not a common practice among ourselves, and even among our dissenting brethren, to ask the prayers of one another? When a father is about to leave his house on a long journey the instinct of piety prompts him to say to his wife and children: “Remember me in your prayers.” Now I ask you, if our friends, though sinners, can aid us by their prayers, why cannot our friends, the saints of God, be able to assist us also? If Abraham and Moses and Job exercised so much influence with the Almighty while they lived in the flesh, is their power with God diminished now that they reign with Him in heaven? We are moved by the children of Israel sending their pious petitions to their brethren in Jerusalem. They recalled to mind, no doubt, what the Lord said to Solomon after he had completed the temple: “My eyes shall be open and My ears attentive to the prayer of him that shall pray in this place.”(203) If the supplications of those that prayed in the earthly Jerusalem were so efficacious, what will God refuse to those who pray to Him face to face in the heavenly Jerusalem?