Day 334: How Jesus Prayed (2598-2606)

• It’s Day 334!!

• ARTICLE 2: IN THE FULLNESS OF TIME

• JESUS PRAYS

• As a human being with a human heart and human intellect, Jesus had to learn how to pray

• He has a filial prayer to His Father, because He is the Son

• Jesus prays before massive, decisive moments of His mission

• Jesus constantly prays

• Jesus prays in solitude

• Jesus intercedes on our behalf

• At the very heart of it, Jesus’ prayer is a GIGANTIC YES TO THE FATHER

• When we see Jesus do all these things, He reveals to us how we are called to pray and how we are called to be in relationship with the Father

• We too can pray like the Eternal Son of the Father since we are adopted sons and daughters of God the Father

• Let’s pray!!

Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, we give you praise. Thank yo so much. We ask you to please help us to pray like Jesus. Help us to see how Jesus prays, to watch how He prays, to listen to Him in His prayer, and to let our hearts grow in contemplation of your goodness. Let our hearts grow in contemplation of your faithfulness, of your fatherly love for each and every one of us, so that we can row in trust, so we can grow in our faithfulness, so that we, in all moments, can say ‘Yes, Father,’ to you and to your will. We make this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen”

• So there we have it!!

• Paragraph 2598 says, “The drama of prayer is fully revealed to us in the Word who became flesh and dwells mong us. To seek to understand his prayer through what his witnesses proclaim to us in the Gospel is to approach the holy Lord Jesus as Moses approached the burning bush: first to contemplate him in prayer, then to hear how he teaches us to pray, in order to know how he hears our prayer.”

• Jesus has His filial prayer as a Son trusting His Father from a young age

• Paragraph 2599 says, “The Son of God who became Son of the Virgin also learned to pray according to his human heart. He learns the formulas of prayer from his mother, who kept in her heart and meditated upon all the ‘great things’ done by the Almighty. He learns to pray in the words nad rhythms of the prayer of his people, in the synagogue at Nazareth and the Temple at Jerusalem. But his prayer springs from an otherwise secret source, as he intimates at the age of twelve: ‘I must be in my Father’s house.’ Here the newness of prayer in the fullness of time begins to be revealed: his 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 men.”

• Because of the Power of the Holy Spirit, we get to pray as God’s sons and daughters

• Because of the Holy Spirit given to us in Baptism and through faith, we become a new creation, God’s adopted children

• The newness of prayer in the fullness of time begins to be revealed in Jesus and revealed to us because His filial prayer is finally going to be lived out by the only Son in His humanity

• From all eternity, the Son and Father are co-equally God and that has always been lived out

• BUT…

• In Christ’s Sonship, in His humanity, it comes at a moment in time and we get to see this

• We are called to watch Jesus pray because we are going to be drawn into this

• We are called to contemplate Jesus

• Just like how Moses sees the burning bush

• He first GAZES upon the burning bush

• Then he is DRAWN TOWARDS the burning bush

• He is invited to approach God’s presense

• So just like that, we are called to GAZE upon the Lord and watch how He prays

• Paragraph 2600 says, “The Gospel according to St. Luke emphasizes the action of the Holy Spirit and the meaning of prayer in Christ’s ministry. Jesus prays before the decisive moments of his mission: before his Father’s witness to him during his baptism and Transfiguration, and before his own fulfillment of the Father’s plan of love by his Passion. He also prays before the decisive moments involving the mission of his apostles: at his election and call of the Twelve, before Peter’s confession of him as ‘the Christ of God,’ and again that the faith of the chief of hte Apostles may not fail when tempted. Jesus’ prayer before the events of salvation that the Father has asked him to fulfill is a humble and trusting commitment of his human will to the loving will of the Father.”

• Before big moments, why not pray?

• We pray before meals

• We pray at the beginning and end of the day

• There is something about markiing the moment when you know there is something significant about to happen

• In some ways, Jesus knew what was about to happen, especially when He chose the Twelve Apostles

• BUT…

• We don’t always know is going to be a big day?

• OR…

• Is this going to be a run of the mill day?

• Is this going to be a decisive moment today?

• OR…

• Is this going to be a regular old Taco Tuesday? 😉

• The question we get to ask is am I going to pray as I walk into this day?

• Just like Jesus would pray before decisive moments, am I going to pray?

• Paragraph 2602 says, “Jesus often draws apart to pray in solitude, on a mountain, preferably at night. He includes all men in his prayer, for he has taken on humanity in his incarnation, and he offers them to the Father when he offers himself. Jesus, the Word who has become flesh, shares by his human prayer in all that ‘his brethren’ experience; he sympathizes with their weaknesses in order to free them. It was for this that the Father sent him. His words and works are the visible manifestation of his prayer in secret.”

• Jesus lived a different life than many of us are living

• Not many of us are itinerant preachers with no family, no spouse, and no children

• So we get to watch and see what are the essential elements of Jesus’ prayer?

• He pursues solitude in order to turn His heart to the Father

• Not that He ever removes His heart from His Father

• Jesus is constantly praying before His Father

• Paragraph 2603 says, “The evangelists have preserved two more explicit prayers offered by Christ during his public ministry. Each begins with thanksgiving. In the first, Jesus confess the Father, acknowledges, and blesses him because he has hidden the mysteries of the Kingdom from those who think themselves learned and has revealed them to infants, the poor of the Beatitudes. His exclamation, ‘Yes, Father!’ expresses the depth of his heart, his adherence to the Father’s ‘good pleasure,’ echoing his mother’s Fiat at the time of his conception and prefiguring what he will say to the Father in his agony. The whole prayer of Jesus is contained in this loving adherence of his human heart to the mystery of the will of the Father.”

• What was Jesus’ constant answer?

• “YES, FATHER!”

• This absolute trust and obedience that Jesus has for His Father

• Paragraph 2605 says, “When the hour had come for him to fulfill the Father’s plan of love, Jesus allows a glimpse of the boundless depth of his filial prayer, not only before he freely delivered himself up (‘Abba…not my will, but yours.’), but even in his last words on the Cross, where prayer and the gift of self are but one: ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do’; ‘Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise’; ‘Woman, behold your son’-‘Behold your mother’; ‘I thirst’; ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’; ‘It is finished’; ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!’ until the ‘lourd cry’ as he expires, giving up his spirit.”

• In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus says, ‘Father, take this cup away from me, yet not my will but yours…”

• We get a glimpse into the depth of Jesus’ trust of His Father

• Here He is, a Son being offered in sacrifice and yet He trusts

• How amazing would it be if your prayer was directly aligned with your life?

• The words you pray are actually the life you live?

• ⬆️These are called THE SEVEN LAST WORDS OF JESUS ON THE CROSS ⬆️

• Anytime we can contemplate these seven last words, it reveals the boundless depth of His filial prayer

• Paragraph 2606 says, “All the troubles, for all time, of humanity enslaved by sin and death, all the petitions and intercessions of salvation history are summed up in this cry of the incarnate Word. Here the Father accepts them and, beyond all hope, answers them by raising his Son. Thus is fulfilled and brought to completion the drama of prayer in the economy of creation and salvation. The Psalter gives us the key to prayer in Christ. In the ‘today’ of the Resurrection the Father says: ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.’ The Letter to the Hebrews expresses in dramatic terms how the prayer 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. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered, and being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him’”

• Have you ever taken a moment to reflect on when Scriptures says, “He let out a loud cry and gave up His Spirit…”?

• What does that loud cry mean?

• It means the every tear, every lamentation, every complaint, every trouble, every struggle, every pain, every suffering, every death, every grief of ALL humanity for ALL time are summed up in that cry of the Incarnate Word

• The Father accepts them and answers them by raising His Son

• This boggles the mind and breaks the heart

• Your prayer today…

• Your tears today…

• Your broken heart today…

• Has already been brought to the Father in that cry of Jesus, the Son

• The Father has heard it and accepts it and answers it

• That is the trust we have in the Father

• “Come Holy Spirit, teach us how to pray. For we do not know how to pray as we ought, but help us to pray like Jesus.”

• Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!

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

• I cannot WAIT…