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Lent 2012
In the biblical accounts of the earthly life of Jesus we
discover the way in which He lived in a continual communion with the Father.
They are meant to teach us the way of prayer. Here are but a few snippets of
many passages in the Gospels;
After all the people had been baptized and Jesus also had
been baptized and was praying, heaven was opened (Luke 3:21);
He was praying in a certain place, and when he had
finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray just as
John taught his disciples." He said to them, "When you pray, say: Father,
hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread.
(Luke 11: 1-3);
In those days he departed to the mountain to pray, and he
spent the night in prayer to God. When day came, he called his disciples to
himself, and from them he chose Twelve, whom he also named apostles: (Luke
6:12-13);
About eight days after he said this, he took Peter, John,
and James and went up the mountain to pray. While he was praying his face
changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white." (Luke
9:28-29)
Jesus was a man of prayer. We often think that He prayed
the way He did only "because He was Divine." However, in his sacred humanity
he reveals the fullness of our own humanity, as redeemed and recreated in
Him. The Fathers of the 2nd Vatican Council reminded us of this:
"The truth is that only in the mystery of the Incarnate
Word does the mystery of man take on light. For Adam, the first man, was a
figure of Him Who was to come, namely Christ the Lord. Christ, the final
Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully
reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear."
In Jesus, we find a new way of being human, beginning right
now. He Himself is the Way, the Truth and the Life. (Jn. 14:16) By His
Incarnation - His Saving Life, Death, Resurrection and Ascension- we are
capacitated by grace to live differently. We can become what spiritual
writers have long called "sons and daughters in the Son."
The prayer of Jesus opened the heavens, brought provision
to the hungry, gave Him clarity for making decisions and brought the glory
of heaven to earth and earth to heaven. Prayer still does all of this, and
more, for all who will learn how to live their lives immersed in God as He
did.
Through prayer we recover the capacity for a communion of
love with the living God and learn how to plunge ourselves into its embrace.
Through prayer we cry out with Jesus, "Abba Father." No longer alienated
from God, we participate in the inner life of God. God dwells in us and we
dwell in Him through His Spirit. This is prayer. It is not so much about
doing or getting but rather about being, receiving, giving, and loving.
Through prayer, daily life takes on a new meaning. It
becomes a classroom of communion. In that classroom we learn the truth about
who we are - and who we are becoming - in Jesus. Through prayer we receive
new glasses through which we see the true landscape of life and find the way
to walk.
Through prayer darkness is dispelled and the path of true
progress is illuminated. Through prayer we begin to understand why this kind
of communion seems so elusive at times. Because of sin, we struggle with our
own disordered appetites, and live in a manner at odds with the beauty and
order of the creation within which we dwell. Then, through prayer, we find
the way to freedom from the effects of sin and a new beginning. We learn to
live as penitents, eagerly confessing our sin and regularly returning to our
first love.
Prayer opens us to Revelation, expands our capacity to
comprehend truth and equips us to change, through conversion. Through prayer
we are drawn into a deepening relationship with Jesus, whose loving embrace
on the hill of Golgotha bridged heaven and earth. His relationship with His
Father is opened now to us. The same Spirit that raised Him from the dead
begins to give us new life as we are converted, transfigured and made new.
Through prayer, heavenly wisdom is planted in the field of
our hearts. We experience communion with the Trinitarian God. We become, in
the words of the Apostle Peter "partakers of the divine nature." (2 Peter
1:4) That participation will only be fully complete when we are with Him in
the fullness of His embrace, in Resurrected Bodies in a New Heaven and a New
Earth, but it begins now, in the grace of this present moment.
Christian prayer does not always bring consolation, at
least at the affective or emotional level. However, it does always bring an
increase in this communion. It is there where we find every answer, by
living in God. In prayer we learn to crawl into the wounded side of the
Savior and find our home next to His Sacred Heart.