Fathers

James 5

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Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming on you. Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be for a testimony against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up your treasure in the last days. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Armies. You have lived in luxury on the earth, and taken your pleasure. You have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and you have murdered the righteous one. He doesn’t resist you. Be patient therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it, until it receives the early and late rain. You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Don’t grumble, brothers, against one another, so that you won’t be judged. Behold, the judge stands at the door. Take, brothers, for an example of suffering and of perseverance, the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we call them blessed who endured. You have heard of the perseverance of Job, and have seen the Lord in the outcome, and how the Lord is full of compassion and mercy. But above all things, my brothers, don’t swear— not by heaven, or by the earth, or by any other oath; but let your “yes” be “yes”, and your “no”, “no”, so that you don’t fall into hypocrisy. Is any among you suffering? Let him pray. Is any cheerful? Let him sing praises. Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the assembly, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith will heal him who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your offenses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The insistent prayer of a righteous person is powerfully effective. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it didn’t rain on the earth for three years and six months. He prayed again, and the sky gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit. Brothers, if any among you wanders from the truth and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

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What the Fathers say

James 5:16

Eastern Fathers

Theophylact of Ohrid

The prayer of the righteous man has great power when the one for whom he prays also assists his prayer with spiritual sorrow, for if when others pray for us we ourselves spend our time in luxury, indulgence, and intemperance, then by this we weaken the power of the prayer of the one laboring on our behalf, and the word of blessed Peter is fulfilled in us: "When one builds and another tears down, what do they gain but toil?" (Sir. 34:23).

Commentary on James ↗

Oecumenius

Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man is very effective. "The effective prayer." The prayer of a righteous person is effective when he who prays helps the one for whom he prays with spiritual affliction. …

Commentary on James ↗

Desert Fathers

Cassian said, 'Moses the Hermit told us, "It is good not to hide our thoughts; we ought to disclose them to discreet and devout elders; but not to those who are old merely in years, for many have found final despair instead of comfort by confessing to those whom they saw to be old, but who were in fact inexperienced." '

The Desert Fathers, Sayings of the Early Christian Monks ↗

Western Saints

Augustine of Hippo

Let us listen to the Apostle James, who states this precept with the greatest clearness when he says, "Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another." For of this also the Lord gave us the example. For if He who neither has, nor had, nor will have any sin, prays for our sins, how much more ought we to pray for one another's in turn! And if He forgives us, whom we have nothing to forgive; how much more ought we, who are unable to live here without sin, to forgive one another!

Tractates 58.2 ↗

Gregory the Dialogist

Sometimes in sacred speech preachers are understood by dogs. For the tongue of a dog, when it licks a wound, heals it, because holy teachers too, when they instruct us in the confession of our sin, touch as it were the wound of the mind through their tongue; and because by speaking they rescue us from sins, by touching wounds as it were they restore us to health. …

Forty Gospel Homilies, Homily 40 ↗

Bede

For the prayer of a righteous person has great power, etc. He adds a fitting example of how much the continual prayer of the righteous avails, when Elijah with one prayer by praying for such a long time withheld the heavens, turned away rain from the lands, denied fruits to mortals, and again when he willed, when he perceived the time was appropriate, when he saw the heart of the proud king and the idolatrous nation bent to repentance by the long plague of famine, with only one prayer prayed, and restored to the lands the fruits and …

Commentary on the Catholic Epistles ↗