Introduction to Pillar Four Prayer

Introduction to Pillar Four Prayer Feb. 5, 2018 C. Smith I. Aims: A. To provide a transition from the other Pillars B. To identify some of the unique qualities of Christian prayer contained in the Introduction to Prayer C. To examine the prayer of some of the prominent figures of the Old Testament D. Formulate a goal(s) for your own prayer life II. Transition from Mod. III and Overview of Mod. IV A. The Pillars form an organic unity in the life of the faithful (CCC 2558) Creed Sacraments Life in Christ Christian Prayer B. Why pray? 1. Jesus, the Son of God, regularly prayed. 2. Bl. M. Teresa: How can we last even one day living our life without hearing Jesus say I love you impossible. Our soul needs that as much as the body needs to breathe the air (Langford, Mother Teresa s Secret Fire, 55) C. Organization of Prayer Pillar 1. Section One: Prayer in the Christian Life a. Intro: What is Prayer? b. Chapter 1:The Revelation of Prayer The Universal Call to Prayer Article 1: In the Old Testament Article 2: In the Fullness of Time Article 3: In the Age of the Church c. Chapter 2: The Tradition of Prayer Article 1: At the Wellsprings of Prayer Article 2: The Way of Prayer Article 3: Guides for Prayer d. Chapter 3: The Life of Prayer Article 1: Expressions of Prayer Article 2: The Battle of Prayer Article 3: The Prayer of the Hour of Jesus 2. Section Two: The Lord s Prayer: Our Father! (in 4 Articles) 1

III. Intro to Pillar 4 A. CCC, 2558 asks: What is Prayer? 1. From the opening to the pillar: vital and personal relationship with the living and true God is prayer Since all are called into this relationship of love, the call to prayer is universal. 2. St. Therese of Lisieux: For me prayer is a surge of the heart a simple look a cry of recognition a. It is therefore quite clear that all Christians in any state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity (Lumen Gentium, The Universal Call to Holiness in the Church, V, 40). b. But it would be wrong to think that ordinary Christians can be content with a shallow prayer that is unable to fill their whole life. Especially in the face of the many trials to which today's world subjects faith, they would be not only mediocre Christians but Christians at risk (JPII, Novo Millenio Inuente, 34). 3. #2559: Prayer is the raising of one s mind and heart to God (St. John Damascene) B. Humility is the foundation of prayer 1. Analogy from St. Augustine: If you wish to reach high, then begin at the lowest level. If you are trying to construct some mighty edifice in height, you will begin with the lowest foundation. This is humility. However great the mass of the building you may wish to design or erect, the taller the building is to be, the deeper you will dig the foundation (Sermon 69.2) 2. Humility is accepting the truth about ourselves--most fundamental is the acceptance of: I am not God, but am a creature dependent on God or-- Thinking less about yourself, not thinking less of yourself.we see ourselves less and less and God more and more. This is our supreme joy. Pride has ingrown eyeballs. Humility stares outward (Peter Kreeft, Back to Virtue, 102-3). 3. Mother Teresa: God cannot fill what is full. He can fill only emptiness deep poverty (Come Be My Light, p.275), cf. Man is a beggar before God (CCC, 2559) 4. He who humbles himself will be exalted (2559) is taken from the Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee (Lk. 18:9-14). Note the ingrown eyeballs of the Pharisee at prayer in contrast with the humble stance of the Publican. Who truly prays? 2

C. Prayer as RESPONSE (CCC, 2560) refers to John.4:6-29, the narrative of Jesus and the Samaritan Woman: [6] Jesus, wearied as he was with his journey, sat down beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. [7] There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." [8] For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.[9] The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. [10] Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." [11] The woman said to him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; where do you get that living water? [12] Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, and his sons, and his cattle?"[13] Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, [14] but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."[15] The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw. [16] Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here."[17] The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, I have no husband'; [18] for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband; this you said truly." [19] The woman said to him, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet I know that the Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ); when he comes, he will show us all things."[26] Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am he." [27] Just then his disciples came. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but none said, "What do you wish?" or, "Why are you talking with her?"[28] So the woman left her water jar, and went away into the city, and said to the people, [29] "Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?" We have, in this narrative, a paradigm of prayer: 1. Christ initiates; It is he who first seeks us and asks us for a drink (#2560). 2. Our personal history, the stuff of our lives is often the starting point of prayer (e.g. asking for what we need, giving thanks for how we ve been blessed) Another starting point: His Word. 3. She responds and a conversation ensues: prayer is not a monologue! 4. Christ leads her to deeper levels of self-understanding as well as revelation of himself. 5. As the 7th man in her life, the true and perfect Lover for whom she has 3

longed, he meets her thirst, for she goes off, leaving her jug, to proclaim his wonders (verses 28-9); truly prayer is the encounter of God s thirst with ours (#2560). D. It is the heart that prays. If our heart is far from God, the words of prayer are in vain (#2562). 1. 1 Samuel 16:7 People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart. The heart is the dwelling place where I am our hidden center the place of decision (#2562-3), i.e. deeper than our emotions. While emotions can aid our prayer, they also can derail it. To advance in prayer, it is extremely important to begin with great determination (St. Theresa of Avila, Way, 23) drawn from a deeper source than our everchanging emotional life (i.e., drawn from the heart). 2. Prayer a heart-to-heart conversation: a. Our memorized prayers or those we might read (e.g. the Psalms, or Liturgy of the Hours) become prayer as we engage our hearts. b. Methods (including the Lectio Divina) are merely means to engage the heart in loving exchange. We may need to leave the method behind in order to follow the Holy Spirit. ( Responding to God in love is the ultimate method.) E. Christian prayer is Trinitarian, Christological, and Ecclesial (2564-5). Prayer is directed to the Father, springing forth from the Holy Spirit, in union with Christ, our teacher, our model, and head of his Mystical Body, the Church. He prays for us as our priest, prays in us as our Head, and is prayed to by us as our God. Therefore let us acknowledge our voice in him and his in us (St. Augustine, as quoted in CCC, 2616). IV. Prayer in the Old Testament (the first of 3 parts addressing The Revelation of Prayer. ) Prayer unfolds throughout the whole history of salvation as a reciprocal call between God and man (2591). The lives of the O.T. figures of faith exemplify the qualities of prayer described in CCC, 2558-2563. A. The human thirst for God and for communing with God, borne out in all religions, was not destroyed by original sin. The revelation of prayer comes between the fall and the restoration of man starting with God s sorrowful call to his first children: Where are you? (2568, cf. Jer. 29:12-13). B. Prayer is intimately tied to holiness of life. All of the O.T. figures devoted to prayer demonstrate that a life lived generously for God forms the good soil for prayer as well as the fruit of prayer. Prayer restores man to God s likeness and enables him to share in the power of God s love that saves (2572). Note especially: Abraham (2570-2), Elijah (2582), and Moses (2577). 4

C. Prayer is revealed as dialogue. Examples include God s conversation with Adam and Eve after the fall (Gen. 3:9f), with Moses from the burning bush (Ex. 3:1f)(2575), and with Abraham s intercession for Sodom (Gen. 18:16-32). One grows in the recognition of God in prayer: Samuel and Elijah (2583) D. A humble heart enables Abraham to listen and obey, Moses to speak face to face with God, as a man speaks to his friend (2576), and King David to offer thanksgiving, praise, and repentance, that will become a model for the prayer of the people (2579) (See Psalms: 69, 51, 42, 146.) The prophets call for a deeper interiorization of prayer (2581) in which our hearts are turned more to God in trust and love, and less centered on externals and/or ourselves. V. A Call to Prayer Goals for beginning or improving your prayer: The important thing [in prayer] is not to think much but to love much and so do that which best stirs you to love (St. Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, IV). 5

Psalm 86 (Abbreviated) A poor man's prayer in time of trouble All: You, Lord God, are slow to anger, abounding in love. Turn your ear to me, Lord, and hear me, for I am poor and destitute. Keep my life safe, for I am faithful; O God, save your servant, who trusts in you. Take pity upon me, O Lord, for I call to you all the day long. Make your servant s heart glad, for to you, O Lord, I have raised it. For you, Lord, are gentle and mild: you are kind to all those who call on you. Let your ears hear my prayer, O Lord! Turn to the voice of my pleading! O Lord, teach me your paths, and I will come to your truth. Make my heart simple and guileless, so that it honors your name. I will proclaim you, Lord my God, and give you praise with all my heart. I will give glory to your name forever, for your great kindness is upon me: you have rescued me from the deepest depths. And you, Lord, are a God of compassion, full of mercies, patient and true. Look upon me, have mercy upon me, give your strength and protection to your servant. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. You, Lord God, are slow to anger, abounding in love. 6

PART FOUR: CHRISTIAN PRAYER SECTION ONE PRAYER IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 2558 "Great is the mystery of the faith!" The Church professes this mystery in the Apostles' Creed (Part One) and celebrates it in the sacramental liturgy (Part Two), so that the life of the faithful may be conformed to Christ in the Holy Spirit to the glory of God the Father (Part Three). This mystery, then, requires that the faithful believe in it, that they celebrate it, and that they live from it in a vital and personal relationship with the living and true God. This relationship is prayer. WHAT IS PRAYER? For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy. 1 Prayer as God's gift 2559 "Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God." 2 But when we pray, do we speak from the height of our pride and will, or "out of the depths" of a humble and contrite heart? 3 He who humbles himself will be exalted; 4 humility is the foundation of prayer, Only when we humbly acknowledge that "we do not know how to pray as we ought," 5 are we ready to receive freely the gift of prayer. "Man is a beggar before God." 6 2560 "If you knew the gift of God!" 7 The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water: there, Christ comes to meet every human being. It is he who first seeks us and asks us for a drink. Jesus thirsts; his asking arises from the depths of God's desire for us. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God's thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him. 8 2561 "You would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." 9 Paradoxically our prayer of petition is a response to the plea of the living God: "They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water!" 10 Prayer is the response of faith to the free promise of salvation and also a response of love to the thirst of the only Son of God. 11 Prayer as covenant 7

2562 Where does prayer come from? Whether prayer is expressed in words or gestures, it is the whole man who prays. But in naming the source of prayer, Scripture speaks sometimes of the soul or the spirit, but most often of the heart (more than a thousand times). According to Scripture, it is the heart that prays. If our heart is far from God, the words of prayer are in vain. 2563 The heart is the dwelling-place where I am, where I live; according to the Semitic or Biblical expression, the heart is the place "to which I withdraw." The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others; only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully. The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because as image of God we live in relation: it is the place of covenant. 2564 Christian prayer is a covenant relationship between God and man in Christ. It is the action of God and of man, springing forth from both the Holy Spirit and ourselves, wholly directed to the Father, in union with the human will of the Son of God made man. Prayer as communion 2565 In the New Covenant, prayer is the living relationship of the children of God with their Father who is good beyond measure, with his Son Jesus Christ and with the Holy Spirit. The grace of the Kingdom is "the union of the entire holy and royal Trinity... with the whole human spirit." 12 Thus, the life of prayer is the habit of being in the presence of the thrice-holy God and in communion with him. This communion of life is always possible because, through Baptism, we have already been united with Christ. 13 Prayer is Christian insofar as it is communion with Christ and extends throughout the Church, which is his Body. Its dimensions are those of Christ's love. 14 http://www.vatican.va/archive/eng0015/ P8Z.HTM 8