On Prayer

As for prayer: it is primarily about relationship, ‘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’. It is ‘the habit of being in the presence of God’ – a choice embracing the whole of life – within which a specific incidence of prayer or prayerfulness is ‘a surge from the heart, a simple look turned toward heaven, a cry of recognition and love, embracing both trial and joy’. It is ‘the raising of one’s mind and heart to God’. As a final concession, it might even be ‘the requesting of good things from God’, which is clearly trivial compared to the rest, albeit the most popular.²⁶⁵ Authentic prayer is about aligning our will with God’s will, not seeking to align God’s will with ours. The central prayer of Jesus, in which he invites us to share, is ‘thy will be done’.²⁶⁶

We see Jesus taking time alone to pray. In Mark chapter one he escapes the pressure of the crowd to go out into the countryside alone, long before dawn.²⁶⁷ We see him praying alone on the mountain all night immediately before choosing the twelve apostles from within the wider group of disciples.²⁶⁸ In the midst of his ministry, we see him sending his disciples away at the end of a long day and going up into the mountains alone to pray.²⁶⁹ It is after spending time alone in prayer that Jesus asks his disciples, ‘Who do the people say that I am?’²⁷⁰ – one of the major turning points in the gospel narrative. One week later the Transfiguration takes place when Jesus has taken Peter, James and John with him into the mountains to pray;²⁷¹ this prayer may also have gone on all night.²⁷² Jesus has been praying alone when the disciples ask him to teach them how to pray, and he offers them The Lord’s Prayer.²⁷³ And the ultimate representations of Jesus at prayer are those at each end of his earthly ministry: forty days alone in the wilderness at the beginning, and a night of despair alone at the end in the Garden of Gethsemane, as the disciples sleep, in the hours before the crucifixion. On each occasion he is seeking to align his own will with the will of God.²⁷⁴

Jesus gives remarkably little direct teaching on prayer, beyond the giving of The Lord’s Prayer itself. In the most direct saying, he advises that prayer should be in secret and with minimal words.²⁷⁵ Even this follows on from the same advice about almsgiving in the preceding verses: a combined warning against the hypocrisy of public piety, rather than direct advice about prayer. Any further advice is gleaned strictly in passing. The injunction that we pray for those who persecute us is more about a change of attitude than specific advice on prayer.²⁷⁶ Describing future global catastrophes, Jesus does not suggest praying that they do not happen, but only that the effects may be mitigated: ‘pray that it may not happen in winter’.²⁷⁷ In Gethsemane Jesus advises the slumbering disciples to pray that they may not enter into temptation.²⁷⁸ We have just two glimpses into Jesus’s private prayer: he prays for Simon Peter, that his faith may not fail,²⁷⁹ and he prays for his followers and for those in the future who will come to believe through them.²⁸⁰

Twice in parables Jesus assures his listeners that persistence in prayer will be answered, but the invitation is closely defined: the only promise in the parable of the persistent neighbour is that God who is pater will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask,²⁸¹ and the only promise in the parable of the persistent widow and the unrighteous judge is that God will vindicate in the end.²⁸² The more confident promise – that if you truly believe and have faith you will receive anything you ask – is mixed in with the bizarre incident of the withered fig tree. Even if we take it as an authentic saying, it remains a strictly limited invitation: presumably those who truly believe will in any case be asking not arbitrarily or selfishly but only in accordance with the will of God.²⁸³ When Jesus directly advises us on how to secure all our earthly needs, he does not mention prayer at all: he advises us not to concern ourselves with such matters, but to seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness, trusting that all other things will follow on. ‘Do not worry about tomorrow: let tomorrow worry about itself’.²⁸⁴

Despite all this there is a tradition, even in the mass, of asking for things.²⁸⁵ There is even a sacrament of anointing with oil for healing, encouraged by an invitation in the letter of Saint James.²⁸⁶ Anointing for healing is included, along with reconciliation and holy communion, in the so-called Last Rites for the dying, and indeed its use was restricted to this context for many centuries. A prayer for healing – and any true prayer – is ultimately a submission to the perfect will of Yahweh Elohim.

265 Catechism items 2565, 2558 (after St Therese of Lisieux) and 2559 (after Saint John Damascene)

266 ‘Thy will be done’ is in The Lord’s Prayer at Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4. Jesus’s own ‘Thy will, not mine, be done’ in the Garden of Gethsemane in the hours before the crucifixion is at Matthew 26:39-44, Mark 14:36-39 and Luke 22:42. ‘Thy will be done’ is also the theme of the temptations in the wilderness at the beginning of Jesus’s earthly ministry, in Matthew 4:1-11 and Luke 4:1-13.

267 This is the occasion when he resolves not to return to the place of his growing popularity, but to move on to other towns, to preach there also. Mark 1.35-38 (also Luke 4:42-43 and Luke 5:15-16).

269 Matthew 14:22-23 and Mark 6:45-46, also Luke 5:15-16

272 Luke 9:37 suggests this, but may be ambiguous. The parallels, Matthew 17:9 and Mark 9:9, do not specify.

274 The temptations in the wilderness at the beginning of Jesus’s earthly ministry are described in Matthew 4:1-11 and Luke 4:1-13. Jesus’s prayer ‘Thy will, not mine, be done’ in the Garden of Gethsemane in the hours before the crucifixion is at Matthew 26:39-44, Mark 14:36-39 and Luke 22:42.

276 The context is the prohibition of retaliation, and the call to love even our enemies: see Matthew 5:44 in the context of Matthew 5:38-47 and the whole of Matthew chapter five, and Luke 6:28 in the context of Luke 6:27-36.

277 Matthew 24:20 and Mark 13:18. This is in the true spirit of those who gave thanks, after 11 September 2001, that the day was no worse than it had been.

283 The story is at Matthew 21:20-22 and Mark 11:20-24. The saying also appears at Matthew 17:20, where the context is the embarrassment of a failed healing by the disciples which Jesus completes, and at Luke 17:6, where it appears with no context at all.

285 The standard format for these prayers in the mass retains a gentle humility. The person leading the prayers does not presume to address God directly. Instead the text addresses fellow worshippers, in the form ‘Let us pray for…’. These invitations to prayer are called bidding prayers. Each bidding is followed by silence, during which those gathered, having been invited to pray, have the opportunity to do so, in silence. The biddings can be extempore or prepared, and conventionally focus in sequence on themes relating to the church throughout the world, the nations of the world, and individuals in need. Traditionally there may be a final bidding to pray ‘of your charity’ for the repose of the souls of those who have gone before – the recently departed, and those whose anniversaries fall at this time. When the bidding format is used, the only prayers addressed directly to God during the entire mass are those read directly from the official text of the mass, and shared therefore with the entire worldwide church.