Do you pray? Do you pray often, or only occasionally? Is prayer important to you?
I ask you these questions because prayer and praying are essential for your life of faith. Like breath to the human body, prayer makes the spirit live. Without it, faith dies. A person who prays grows in spirit and life.
Prayer is a gift of God. "Gift" is a good word to describe prayer, because praying is not something we can do of ourselves. " We do not know how to pray as we ought," scripture says. Prayer is a gift God must give.
And God gives that gift generously, without consideration of our worthiness or our unworthiness. People of every religious tradition receive the gift. In fact, every human being is able to pray.
That's not to say we can't refuse to pray or we can't neglect it. Like any gift, prayer must be received. "If you knew the gift of God," Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well. A gift was there before her eyes, but she was blind to it.
Why does God give the gift of prayer? The main reason is because of love for us. God looks for intimacy with us. How strange that sounds! God all-sufficient, all-powerful, all-knowing, wishes to draw close, to communicate, to speak to us, to seek our response, to hear our prayer. It may seem unbelievable, but it is true.
At the same time, by praying we fulfill the desire we have as human beings to know God. After all, we are made in God's image. Something in our being thirsts for intimacy with God. That thirst is described in the psalms, "O God, you are my God, for you I long. For you my soul is thirsting. Like a dry weary land without water... so my soul longs for you, my God." Something in us cannot be satisfied unless we are draw near to God. "Our hearts are restless," St. Augustine says, "until they rest in you." By praying, we rest in God.
And God does give this beautiful gift. In prayer God comes and helps; God invites us into the divine presence where we can open our lips and our hearts. There God welcomes our slightest word or cry, our smallest effort. We can take everything to God: from the smallest parts of our daily life to our greatest worries and concerns.
Delighting to give us the gift of prayer, God wishes that we come near to share our hearts and minds, our very life with One who loves us. Prayer is God's precious gift; cherish it always.
We Christians learn to pray through Jesus Christ, who not only teaches us to pray, but prayed himself. The Gospels are filled with examples of His prayer. Did Jesus himself have to learn to pray?
Yes, he did. True, he was the Son of God who knew all things. But as one like us, he had to learn to pray while growing up. In the village of Nazareth Mary and Joseph guided His first steps in prayer. At home, in the synagogue at Nazareth, in the temple of Jerusalem He learned the rhythms and words of Jewish prayer.
Yet even in His earliest years, Jesus prayed to God with a distinct intimacy. God was His Father and He was God's son. There was a childlike quality to His prayer.
Jesus prayed regularly, His first disciples recalled. He prayed before decisive moments, beginning with His baptism and as He faced His passion and death. He prayed in times of human weakness, as He did at the grave of Lazarus. He frequently prayed to give thanks. His prayer was steady, thankful, and confident that God's will was for His good.
They were prayers that came from the heart. The prayers reveal that Jesus was tender towards those He loved and forgiving to those who wronged Him; He is human in weakness and strong in faith. Never did a human heart reach out to God more eloquently than when Jesus prayed on the cross.
And Jesus' prayer was heard. God raised him up. We Christians believe the prayer of Jesus teaches that prayer is always heard. In His prayer is our hope.
What can we learn from the prayer of Jesus?
First, that true prayer should come from the heart. He prayed from within, not with just words or gestures. His prayer was not based only on feelings or passing emotions. Prayer comes from within, beyond level of feelings, from ourselves. " Go into the inner room, " Jesus says, " and there pray to your Father, who hears you." Sometimes prayer from the heart, from the "inner room" takes the form of words, at other times it may be like Jesus' own wordless cry.
Secondly, prayer is fed by faith. Jesus prayed with an unwavering faith in His heavenly Father, a faith that lasted till His death. He taught us to pray also with childlike faith in God, believing that our prayers are heard by One who loves us.
Thirdly, prayer should be steady and persevering as His prayer was, even when no answer comes or when no relief is in sight. "Watch and pray," he says, "Seek and knock," till the door that reveals God's holy will be opened.
His disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray. He did, and He teaches us too. Yet Jesus is more than a teacher. As Christians we believe that Jesus prays for us; he is our intercessor before God. As Savior he gathers our prayers, our needs, the cries of our hearts to make them His own and offers them to God who hears our prayers in the prayer of His Son.
That is why we complete our prayers so often with the beautiful phrase: "Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen." Jesus is our teacher and He is our Savior, who takes our prayers and makes them His own.
I hope you have a wonderful new week.
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