Catechism
Readings: Paragraphs 2697 – 2776
(In case you noticed a slight
gap in these catechism summaries, a friend’s illness took priority these last
weeks.)
This section of Christian Prayer focuses on the Expressions
of Prayer, vocal prayer, meditation, and
contemplative prayer. It then moves
on to what it describes as “The Battle of Prayer,” intending to show that
starting --- and continuing --- in our prayer efforts is often not easy, but
the rewards are great.
“The Tradition of the Church proposes to the faithful
certain rhythms of praying intended to nourish continual prayer. Some are daily, such as morning and evening
prayer (which I try to do faithfully), grace before and after meals, the Liturgy
of the Hours. Sundays, centered on the
Eucharist, are kept holy primarily by prayer.
2698 Christian
Tradition has retained three major expressions of prayer: vocal, meditative, and contemplative.” 2699
“Anyone who loves another person and all day long never
gives that person a sign of his love does not really love him. So it is with God, too. Anyone who truly seeks him will keep sending
him signals of his longing for his company and friendship. Get up in the morning and give the day to
God; thank him, especially at mealtimes; at the end of the day, place
everything into his hands, ask him for forgiveness, and pray for peace for
yourself and others.” YC 499
“Vocal prayer is
an essential element of the Christian life.
(Jesus) prayed aloud the liturgical prayers of the synagogue but, as the
Gospels show, he raised his voice to express his personal prayer. 2701
Because it is external and so thoroughly human, vocal prayer is the form
of prayer most readily accessible to Christian life, in order to adhere and
respond to what the Lord is asking. The
required attentiveness is difficult to sustain.
We are usually helped by books – the page on which the “today” of God is
written. 2705 Christian prayer tries
above all to meditate on the mysteries of Christ, as in lectio divina or the Christian prayer should go further: to the knowledge of the love of the Lord
Jesus, to union with him.” 2708
“St. Theresa answers: “Contemplative prayer in my opinion is
nothing else than a close sharing between friends; it means taking time
frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us.” Contemplative prayer seeks him “whom my soul
loves.” 2709 Entering into
contemplative prayer is like entering into the Eucharistic liturgy: We “gather up” the heart, recollect our whole
being under the prompting of the Holy Spirit, abide in the dwelling place of
the Lord which we are, awaken our faith in order to enter into the presence of
him who awaits us. We let our masks fall. 2711 Contemplation is a gaze of faith, fixed on Jesus.
The light of the countenance of Jesus illumines the eyes of our heart
and teaches us to see everything in the light of his truth and his compassion
for all men. Contemplation also turns
its gaze on the mysteries of the life of Christ. Thus it learns the “interior knowledge of the
Lord,” the more to love him and follow him.” 2715
“Prayer is both a gift of grace and a determined response on
our part. It always presupposes
effort. We pray as we live, because we
live as we pray. If we do not want to
act habitually according to the Spirit of Christ, neither can we pray
habitually in his name. 2725
In the battle of prayer, we must face in ourselves and around us
erroneous notions of prayer. Many
Christians unconsciously regard prayer as an occupation that is incompatible
with all the other things they have to do:
they don’t have time. Those who
seek God by prayer are quickly discouraged because they do not know that prayer
comes from the Holy Spirit and not from themselves alone. 2726 We must also fact the fact that certain
attitudes deriving from the mentality of this present world can penetrate our
lives if we are not vigilant. For
example, some would have it that only that is true which can be verified by
reason and science; yet prayer is a mystery that overflows both our conscious
and unconscious lives. Others overly
prize production and profit; thus prayer, being unproductive, is useless. 2727 Finally, our battle has to confront what we
experience as failure in prayer;
discouragement during periods of dryness; disappointment over not being heard
according to our own will; our resistance to the idea that prayer is a free and
unmerited gift; and so forth. The
conclusion is always the same: what good
does it do to pray? To overcome these
obstacles, we must battle to gain humility, trust, and perseverance.” 2728
“The saintly Cure of Ars once asked a brother priest who was
complaining about his lack of success. ‘You
have prayed, you have sighed … but have you fasted, too? Have you kept vigil?’ It could also be that we are asking God for
the wrong things. St. Teresa of Avila
once said, ‘Do not pray for lighter burdens; pray for a stronger back.’” YC 507
“The habitual
difficulty in prayer is distraction. A
distraction reveals to us what we are attached to, and this humble awareness
before the Lord should awaken our preferential love for him and lead us
resolutely to offer him our heart to be purified. Therein lies the battle, the choice of which
master to serve. 2729 Another difficulty,
especially for those who sincerely want to pray, is dryness. Dryness belongs to contemplative prayer when
the heart is separated from God, with no taste for thoughts, memories, and
feelings, even spiritual ones. This is the moment of sheer faith.” 2731
“The most common yet most hidden temptation is our lack of
faith. Sometimes we turn to the Lord as
a last resort, but do we really believe he is?
Sometimes we enlist the Lord as an ally, but our heart remains
presumptions. In each case, our lack of
faith reveals that we do not yet share in the disposition of a humble heart. 2732
Some stop praying because they think their petition is not heard. “You ask and do not receive, because you ask
wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” (Jas 4:3) If we ask with a divided heart, we are ‘adulterers’,
God cannot answer us, for he desires our well-being, our life. “Do not be troubled if you do not immediately
receive from God what you ask him; for he desires to do something even greater
for you, while you cling to him in prayer.”
2737
“When ‘his hour’ came, Jesus prayed to the Father. (Jn
43). His prayer, the longest transmitted
by the Gospel, embraces the whole economy of creation and salvation, as well as
his death and Resurrection. The prayer
of the Hour of Jesus always remains his own, just as his Passover ‘once for all’
remains ever present in the liturgy of his Church. 2746 The prayer of the hour of Jesus, rightly
called the ‘priestly prayer’, sums up the whole economy of creation and
salvation. It fulfills the great
petitions of the Our Father.
THE OUR FATHER: “Jesus
‘was praying at a certain place, and when he ceased, one of his disciples said
to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”’ In response to this request the Lord entrusts
to his disciples and to his Church the fundamental Christian prayer. 2759 The Lord’s prayer is the most perfect of
prayers … in it we ask, not only for all the things we rightly desire, but also
in the sequence that they should be desired.
(St. Thomas Aquinas) 2763 The Sermon on the Mount is teaching for
life, the Our Father is a prayer, but in both the one and the other the Spirit
of the Lord gives new form to our desires, those inner movements that animate
our lives. Jesus teaches us this new
life by this words; he teaches us to ask for it by our prayer. The rightness of our life in him will depend
on the rightness of our prayer. 2764
But Jesus does not give us a formula to repeat mechanically. As in every vocal prayer, it is through the
Word of God that the Holy Spirit teaches the children of God to pray to their
Father. Jesus not only gives us the
words of our filial prayer; at the same time he gives us the Spirit by whom
these words become in us ‘spirit and life.’” 2766
“This indivisible gift of the Lord’s words and of the holy
Spirit who gives life to them in the hearts of believers has been received and
lived by the Church from the beginning.
The first communities prayed the Lord’s Prayer three times a day, in
place of the ‘Eighteen Benedictions’ customary in Jewish piety. 2767 In Baptism and Confirmation, the handling on
of the Lord’s Prayer signifies new birth into the divine life. Since Christian prayer is our speaking to God
with the very word of God, those who are born
anew through the living and abiding word of God learn to invoke their
Father by the one Word he always hears. 2769
In the Eucharistic liturgy the Lord’s Prayer appears as the prayer of
the whole Church and there reveals its full meaning and efficacy. Placed between the Eucharistic prayer and the
communion, the Lord’s Prayer sums up on the one hand all the petitions and
intercessions expressed in the movement of the epiclesis and, on the other,
knocks at the door of the Banquet of the kingdom which sacramental communion anticipates.” 2770
The next set of catechism paragraphs begin the walk through
the meaning of the words of the Our Father prayer.
