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It’s Day 337!!
ARTICLE 3: IN THE AGE OF THE CHURCH
Ever since Pentecost, the Holy Spirit that Jesus Christ promised was poured out on all the disciples gathered together in one place
What did the prayer of the Church look like?
In the Acts of the Apostles, we see the early Christians devote themselves to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, breaking of the bread, and prayers
The apostles’ teaching is THE MAGISTERIUM
The fellowship is the community that they all belonged to each other
The breaking of the bread is the codename for THE SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST
And prayers
BLESSING AND ADORATION
PRAYER OF PETITION
THe first attitude that we can have before God is acknowledging that we are creatures and God is the Creator, our Creator
There is an intrinsic relationship between us and the one who made us
So we adore Him
Let’s pray!!
Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, we praise and glorify your name. Send your Holy Spirit to teach us how to pray, please, because we do not know how to pray as we ought. And so fill our hearts with your love, fill our hearts with your spirit, with your truth. And help us to become people of prayer, people who at all times, in all seasons, in all circumstances, bless you, adore you, and make our prayers and petitions known to you. We make this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen”
So there we have it!!
Paragraph 2625 says, “In the first place these are prayers that the faithful hear and read in the Scriptures, but also that they make their own-especially those of the Psalms, in view of their fulfillment in Christ. The Holy Spirit, who thus keeps the memory of Christ alive in his Church at prayer, also leads her toward the fullness of truth and inspires new formulations expressing the unfathomable mystery of Christ at work in his Church’s life, sacraments, and mission. These formulations are developed in the great liturgical and spiritual traditions. The forms of prayer revealed in the apostolic and canonical Scriptures remain normative for Christian prayer.”
Paragraph 2626 says, “Blessing expresses the basic movement of Christian prayer: it is an encounter between God and man. In blessing, God’s gift and man’s acceptance of it are united in dialogue with each other. The prayer of blessing is man’s response to God’s gifts: because God blesses, the human heart can in return bless the One who is the source of every blessing.”
Blessing is the gift of God
God blesses us by giving us His gifts
When we accept His gifts, we bless God
Every time we pray, it is always a response
God initiates, and we get to respond
It is the same thing with blessing
Paragraph 2628 says, “Adoration is the first attitude of man acknowledging that he is a creature before his Creator. It exalts the greatness of the Lord who made us and the almighty power of the Savior who sets us free from evil. Adoration is homage of the spirit to the ‘King of Glory,’ respectful silence in the presence of the ‘ever greater’ God. Adoration of the thrice-holy and sovereign God of love blends with humility and gives assurance to our supplication.”
We can adore the Lord in so many ways
In praise through singing or speaking
In silence
The heart of it is acknowledging that we are creatures before God, who is the Creator
For Catholics, Adoration can mean spending time in front of the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament
We can see Him in the Monstrance on the altar
We can also spend time with Him when He is in the Tabernacle
Whether Jesus is behind glass, or behind brass, we get to adore the Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist
“Lord, you are God. I am not.”
“My Lord and my God.”
Paragraph 2629 says, “The vocabulary of supplication in the New Testament is rich in shades of meaning: ask, beseech, plead, invoke, entreat, cry out, even ‘struggle in prayer.’ Its most usual form, because the most spontaneous, is petition: by prayer of petition we express awareness of our relationship with God. We are creatures who are not our own beginning, not as masters of adversity, not our own last end. We are sinners who as Christians know that we have turned away from our Father. Our petition is already a turning back to him.”
We are told by Jesus Christ to ask, to seek, to knock
When we ask, we are talking to our Father
Petition is turning back to the Lord
Paragraph 2630 says, “The New Testament contains scarcely any prayers of lamentation, so frequent in the Old Testament. In the risen Christ the Church’s petition is buoyed by hope, even if we still wait in a state of expectation and must be converted anew every day. Christian petition, what St. Paul calls ‘groaning,’ arises from another depth, that of creation ‘in labor pains’ and that of ourselves ‘as we wait for the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we are saved.’ In the end, however, ‘with sighs too deep for words’ the Holy Spirit ‘helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.’”
The words of the Old and New Testaments are both incredibly relevant
They are both the Word of God
We even have the Book of Lamentations and other similar prayers
The New Testament is different
Lament is this cry out to God that does not have the same aspect of Christian hope that is present when people cry out in the New Covenant
We still cry out, obviously
But there is a different quality
HOPE
Paragraph 2631 says, “The first movement of prayer of petition is asking forgiveness, like the tax collector in the parable: ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ It is a prerequisite for righteous and pure prayer. A trusting humility brings us back into the light of communion between the Father and his Son Jesus Christ and with one another, so that ‘we receive from him whatever we ask.’ Asking forgiveness is the prerequisite for both the Eucharistic liturgy and personal prayer.”
Sometimes we pray in petition and forget that the first thing we should ask for is mery, for God’s forgiveness
Paragraph 2632 says, “Christian petition is centered on the desire and search for the Kingdom to come, in keeping with the teaching of Christ. There is a hierarchy in these petitions: we pray first for the Kingdom, then for what is necessary to welcome it and cooperate with its coming. This collaboration with the mission of Christ and the Holy Spirit, which is now that of the Church, is the object of the prayer of the apostolic community. It is the prayer of Paul, the apostle par excellence, which reveals to us how the divine solicitude for all the churches ought to inspire Christian prayer. By prayer every baptized person works for the coming of the Kingdom.”
It is so important for us to get the first things first
First, we ask for mercy and forgiveness
Second, we search for the Kingdom of God and then for whatever is necessary for that Kingdom
Then we continue to pray for the whole community
Paragraph 2633 says, “When we share in God’s saving love, we understand that every need can become the object of petition. Christ, who assumed all things in order to redeem all things, is glorified by what we ask the Father in his name. It is with this confidence that St. James and St. Paul exhort us to pray at all times.”
Have you ever considered that the Father is GLORIFIED when we come before Him in prayer and ask Him for what we want?
When you treat your father like he is you father, you honor him
When you treat your mother like she is your mother, you honor her
We don’t just use our parents for utility
We don’t come to our Father in Heaven just looking for handouts
That is not the only relationship we have with our Father
How often have we failed to bring something before God because we think God doesn’t care?
BUT…
When we share in God’s saving love, we understand that every need we have can become an object of petition
Let’s listen to Fr. Mike’s example for National Evangelization Teams (NET)...
When we are so confident in God’s love for us, we don’t need to edit ourselves when it comes to what we pray for
Even if we want tacos
God cares
God is close
God hears your prayers
You can bring Him anything, even if it is silly
You can ask for His mercy when you have been sinful
The question is, are you editing your prayer?
Are there times when you stop sharing with God what it is that you desire because you do not trust in God’s love?
That could be the case for any one of us
To not edit your prayer is a great gift
Bring before the Father whatever is in your heart
Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!
Please pray for Fr. Mike and for each other!!
I cannot WAIT…
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