Meaning of prayer in Christ’s ministry evident in profound ways

Article 171 - Catechism of the Catholic Church Series

Paragraphs 2598-2619

Growing up in Canada, the first and closest affiliation I had with the United States was the old Air Force Base, Fort Pepperrell, that the Americans left behind following World War II. The base was a stone’s throw from our family home. Another reminder of the United States was the weekly rendition of the “Star Spangled Banner” played before the NHL hockey game. My dad often lamented that the American national anthem did not make any reference to God. He felt strongly that “God Bless America” would have been a more appropriate acknowledgment of the God-given rights cherished by American patriots. I agreed with my dad back then. However, I later came to discover that the fourth verse of the “Star Spangled Banner does make reference to God with the words: “And this be our motto – ‘In God is our trust’.”

As Catholics, we especially trust in God and in “the drama of prayer fully revealed to us in the Word who became flesh and dwells among us” (ccc 2598). We first contemplate Jesus as Son of the Virgin Mary, learning “to pray according to his human heart” (ccc 2599). He learned “the formulas of prayer from his mother…in the words and rhythms of the prayer of his people, in the synagogue at Nazareth and the Temple at Jerusalem” (ccc 2599). Jesus’ prayer also “springs from an otherwise secret source, as he intimates at the age of 12: ‘I must be in my Father’s house’… [Jesus’] filial prayer, …which the Father awaits from his children is finally going to be lived out by the only Son in his humanity, with and for humanity” (ccc 2599).

The meaning of prayer in Christ’s ministry is emphasized especially in the Gospel of Saint Luke. The Catechism states that Jesus “prays before the decisive moments of his mission…during his baptism and Transfiguration, and before his own fulfillment of the Father’s plan of love by his Passion” (ccc 2600). Jesus also prays before “decisive moments” involving the apostles, such as the call of the Twelve, before Peter’s confession of him as “the Christ of God,” and again that “the faith of the chief of the Apostles may not fail when tempted” (ccc 2600). The Catechism also explains how the “Lord’s Prayer” came to us: “By contemplating and hearing the Son, the master of prayer, the children learn to pray to the Father” (ccc 2601).

We learn from Sacred Scripture that Jesus often prays in solitude. He “includes all people in his prayer…offer[ing] them to the Father when he offers himself… sympathiz[ing] with their weaknesses in order to free them” (cc 2602).

The Catechism also tells us that “the evangelists have preserved two more explicit prayers offered by Christ during his public ministry” (cc. 2603), each of which begins with “gratitude.” In the first, Jesus tells us that the Father has “hidden the mysteries of the Kingdom from those who think themselves learned and has revealed them to infants, the poor of the Beatitudes” (ccc 2603). In the second, thanksgiving precedes the event of Lazarus being raised from the dead. Jesus begins: “Father, I thank you for having heard me” (ccc 2604).

Later, “Jesus allows a glimpse of the boundless depth of his filial prayer” (ccc 2605), providing this through the words: “Abba…not my will, but yours” (Lk 22:42) and then in the ‘time-honored’ last words from the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34).

The Catechism makes it crystal clear that the Letter to the Hebrews (5:7-9) summarizes and expresses how the prayers of Jesus accomplished the victory of salvation: “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard for his godly fear…” (ccc 2606).

In the next paragraph, we learn that “when Jesus prays he is already teaching us how to pray” (ccc 2607). He will also “speak openly of the Father and the Holy Spirit to his disciples who will be the teachers of prayer in his Church” (ccc 2607).

Additionally, Jesus’ insistence on interior conversion of heart suggests “prayerful forgiveness from the depths of the heart” (ccc 2608). Why? Because “the heart learns to pray in faith” (ccc 2609). As such, praying in faith “consists not only in saying ‘Lord, Lord’, but in disposing the heart to do the will of the Father…” (ccc 2611).

We learn, too, in Jesus’ farewell discourse, that when our prayer is united with that of Jesus, the Father gives us “another Counselor, to be with [us] forever” (ccc 2615). Thus, “in the Holy Spirit, Christian prayer is a communion of love with the Father, not only through Christ but also in him” (ccc 2615).

Many examples illustrate that “prayer to Jesus is answered by him already during his ministry” (ccc 2616). For example, “Jesus hears the prayer of faith, expressed in words [the leper, Jairus, the Canaanite woman, the good thief] or in silence [the bearers of the paralytic, the woman with a hemorrhage who touches his clothes, the tears and ointment of the sinful woman]” (ccc 2616). Fourth century bishop St. Augustine summarizes the three dimensions of Jesus’ prayer: “He prays for us as our priest, prays in us as our Head, and is prayed to by us as our God.” (ccc 2616).

Our Blessed Mother, too, responds prayerfully by offering her whole being: “Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be [done] to me according to your word. ‘Fiat’…this is Christian prayer” (ccc 2617).

As Catholics, we trust in God as Mary did. The “Canticle of Mary (the Magnificat)” is her prayer of trust and “the song both of the Mother of God and of the Church; the song of the Daughter of Zion and of the new People of God” (ccc 1619).

Father Hillier is director, diocesan Office of Pontifical Mission Societies, the Office for Persons with Disabilities and Censor Luborum