Day 331: The Foundations of Prayer (2574-2580)

• It’s Day 331!!

• We are going to talk about the story of Salvation and the way in which prayer has been revealed and taught to us and participated throughout Covenant history

• MOSES AND THE PRAYER OF THE MEDIATOR

• DAVID AND THE PRAYER OF THE KING

• We are men and women who are called to intercede on behalf of others

• We have been called to live as kings and queens in Christ’s Kingdom

• That is how we pray

• We pray in mediation

• We pray as royalty, as part of God’s family

• Let’s pray!!

Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, we praise and glorify you. Thank you. Thank you for bringing us to this day. THank you so much for inviting us into this relationship with you that is called prayer. Thank you for moving first. Thank you for inviting us to respond, and thank you for the grace of being able to say yes to your invitation. In all things, Lord God, help us to say yes to you. In all things, help us to constantly be attentive to your initiative. And in all things, help us to never stop listening for your voice. And when we hear your voice, help us to respond with our whole heart. We make this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen”

• So there we have it!!

• Paragraph 2574 says, “Once the promise begins to be fulfilled (Passover, the Exodus, the gift of the Law, and the ratification of the covenant), the prayer of Moses becomes the most striking example of intercessory prayer, which will be fulfilled in ‘the one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.’”

• Paragraph 2575 says, “Here again the initiative is God’s. From the midst of the burning bush he calls Moses. This event will remain one of the primordial images of prayer in the spiritual tradition of Jews and Christians alike. When ‘the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob’ calls Moses to be his servant, it is because he is the living God who wants men to live. God reveals himself in order to save them, though he does not do this alone or despite them: he calls Moses to be his messenger, an associate in his compassion, his work of salvation. There is something of a divine plea in this mission, and only after long debate does Moses attune his own will to that of the Savior God. But in the dialogue in which God confides in him, Moses also learns how to pray: he balks, makes excuses, above all questions: and it is in response to his question that the Lord confides his ineffable name, which will be revealed through his mighty deeds.”

• Moses is just going about his day

• He’s run away from his home in Pharaoh’s temple and fled Egypt

• He is a shepherd with a family living his life

• In that midst, what does God do?

• God initiates

• When God appears, what happens?

• This story is a microcosm of what it means to learn how to pray

• As God initiates, Moses realizes that he is standing on holy ground

• God is calling Moses to move and be different and to do something

• It is the process of prayer that helps Moses become a prayer

• Moses doesn’t pretend that he is someone else

• Moses doesn’t pretend to understand things when he doesn’t

• Moses isn’t pretending that this is OK when it’s not OK

• He questions

• He hesitates

• He makes excuses

• Does this sound like anyone you know?

• It sounds a lot like us

• Moses teaches us that our prayer has to be honest

• Paragraph 2576 says, “‘Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.’ Moses’ prayer is characteristic of contemplative prayer by which God’s servant remains faithful to his mission. Moses converses with God often and at length, climbing the mountain to hear and entreat him and coming down to the people to repeat the words of his God for their guidance. Moses ‘is entrusted with all my house. With him I speak face to face, clearly, not in riddles,’ for ‘Moses was very humble, more so than anyone else on the face of the earth.”

• This is the beginning of CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER where we simply reflect and contemplate on the goodness of God 

• His being

• His presence

• His person

• This is the life we are called to

• Because Moses has been honest, that is why he can do this

• Fr. Mike wanted to talk about PILLAR 4: HOW WE PRAY the entire time of Catechism in a Year

• Why?

• Because we need to learn about God, but we have to talk to God and talk with God

• If we are learning about the Church’s teaching, that is incredible and so good

• BUT…

• Unless we are actually in conversation, in relationship with God in regular prayer, then what’s the point?

• The point of all this is to be in relationship with God

• The point of the ability to worship God in the sacraments…

• The point of being able to walk like God and live like God on this earth is to be able to be in relationship with Him

• Humility is the foundation of prayer

• Humility is nothing more than honesty

• When we are in prayer, are we fully honest?

• The first move of humility is, “Ok, you are God and I am not.”

• We are made in God’s image and that is good

• We are also broken

• We have our plans and that is what we approach God with

• We have our own desires and that is what we approach God with

• BUT…

• We also realize that God’s will is BETTER for us than our own will is

• We have to have this willingness to be taught

• We have to have this willingness to be led in prayer

• We have to have this willingness to engage, like Moses

• Let’s listen to Fr. Mike talk about God telling Moses what to do…

• We hesitate when we pray

• We try to negotiate when we pray

• We try to make excuses when we pray

• We question God when we pray

• We are going to do that as long as we are taking God seriously

• We don’t always want what God wants

• Moses took God’s call seriously and so he is taking God seriously and so he is honest

• God speaks to Moses face to face and not in riddles

• Paragraph 2577 says, “From this intimacy with the faithful God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, Moses drew strength and determination for his intercession. He does not pray for himself but for the people whom God has made his own. Moses already intercedes for them during the battle with the Amalekites and prays to obtain healing for Miriam. But it is chiefly after their apostasy that Moses ‘stands in the breach’ before God in order to save the people. The arguments of his prayer-for intercession is also a mysterious battle-will inspire the boldness of the great intercessors among the Jewish people and in the Church: God is love; he is therefore righteous and faithful; he cannot contradict himself; he must remember his marvelous deeds, since his glory is at stake, and he cannot forsake this people that bears his name.”

• Now Moses knows something about who God is

• It inspires him into boldness in this great intercession among the Jewish people and in the Church

• When we know who God is, we can approach Him with honesty

• We get to approach God as He is, knowing that if I find myself in a place of suffering or myself in a place of tragedy, or myself in a place I do not want to be, I realize I am not talking to a God who is indifferent

• I am not talking to a God who doesn’t care about my pain

• We are talking to a God who is LOVE

• THE God who is LOVE

• HE LOVES YOU!!

• So we can be honest with Him

• We can hesitate

• We can negotiate

• We can question

• BUT…

• We don’t question WHO He is because He has already revealed Himself

• “We know you are the God who is good, who is love, who is faithful. So when I am talking to you, I am talking to one that I know I can trust because you are good and because you are love and because you are faithful.”

• This is summarized in both Moses’ and David’s life

• David wrote a bunch of Psalms

• The Psalms are prayers not of a man who had all the answers or a life free from sorrow, pain, or sin

• These are the prayers of a man who had some big deal sins, big deal concerns, and massive tragedy, suffering, loss, and sorrow  in his life

• They are also the prayers of a man, even though he was in the midst of all those bad things, knew that he could trust in God

• In almost every one of the Psalms, there is so much suffering happening

• In almost every one of the Psalms he says, “Yet I will trust…”

• “Yet I praise your name…”

• “Now I still cry out to you…”

• Psalm 88 doesn’t have that happen

• Fr. Mike believes it is a prefigurement of the prayer of Jesus as He was being held in Caiaphas’ house overnight on Holy Thursday 

• “My one companion is darkness.”

• The reason why there is so much darkness but no declaration of hope at the end is because it is a prefigurement of the depths to which Jesus would be willing to enter into brokenness and darkness and hopelessness that we all experience

• This is the kind of hopelessness that is summarized in Jesus’ words from the Cross

• “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

• Not because God has forsaken Him, but because He knew what it felt like

• We know what it feels like 

• David can pray because he is honest and because he knows who God is

• David teaches us how to pray in the Psalms

• Paragraph 2579 says, “David is par excellence the king ‘after God’s own heart,’ the shepherd who prays for his people and prays in their name. His submission to the will of God, his praise, and his repentance, will be a model for the prayer of the people. His prayer, the prayer of God’s Anointed, is a faithful adherence to the divine promise and expresses a loving and joyful trust in God, the only King and Lord. In the Psalms David, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is the first prophet of Jewish and Christian prayer. The prayer of Christ, the true Messiah and Son of David, will reveal and fulfill the meaning of this prayer.”

• We pray the Psalms every single day and we recognize that God is present in our midst

• Paragraph 2580 says, “The Temple of Jerusalem, the house of prayer that David wanted to build, will be the work of his son, Solomon. The prayer at the dedication of the Temple relies on God’s promise and covenant, on the active presence of his name among his People, recalling his mighty deeds at the Exodus. The king lifts his hands toward heaven and begs the Lord, on his own behalf, on behalf of the entire people, and of the generations yet to come, for the forgiveness of their sins and for their daily needs, so that the nations may know that He is the only God and that the heart of his people may belong wholly and entirely to him.”

• That is our prayer because we intercede too

• Just like Moses, the intercessor, prayer of the mediator

• And just like David, prayer of the king who trusts in the midst of difficulty and darkness

• Because of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, we also have the ability to trust, to pray, and to live in the exact same way

• Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!

• Please pray for Fr. Mkke and for each other!!

• I cannot WAIT…