Meditation on Prayer
Tuesday of the First Week of Lent - Feb 20, 2024.
Isaiah 55:10-11; Psalm 34:4-5, 6-7, 16-17, 18-19; Matthew 6:7-15
The passage from the book of Isaiah speaks about the effectiveness and reliability of God's word. It compares God's word to the rain and snow that bring life to the earth, emphasizing that God's word accomplishes its purpose and does not return empty. This truth is evident in the New Testament. The eternal Word of God came to dwell among us and became man. Jesus of Nazareth went about doing good and completed the will of the Father saving us from the power of sin and death by His death on the cross. Then, when he accomplished the Father's will, He ascended back to the Father.
Psalm 34 proclaims that God listens to the prayer of the poor and the righteous by delivering them from all their fears and distress. Again, we see this truth confirmed in the life of our Lord. In the letter to the Hebrews, we read that Jesus “in the days of his flesh, having offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death” (Hebr. 5:7). The Father heard to the supplication of His son and "raised [Jesus] up, having loosed the pangs of death: because it was not possible that he should be held by it” (Acts 2:24).
Finally, as we move to the Gospel, our Lord teaches us how to pray. He calls God, ‘your Father’ and he reminds us of the fact that the Father knows what we need before we ask him. Further into his teaching, Jesus tells us not to worry about our food and clothes, as the Gentiles do, because God knows that we need these things. But that brings up a question: if God knows everything why is there a need to pray?
Bible does not solve this paradox. Jesus does not teach us that we should not pray but that we should pray with a different mindset. Some come to God only in times of need. Some think prayer equals request only. But prayer is more than that. We see Jesus in the Gospel often withdrawing from the crowds to pray, to converse with his Father. And in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus repeats his request three times. So what is prayer?
Thousands of books were written on the topic of prayer and each writer brings his ideas into the discussion. But, the one who in my view had captured the essence of prayer was Pope Benedict XVI. To learn how to pray is like learning a language. As we have learned our native language from our close relatives, so we learn prayer from God. We pray using God’s language, the language of the scriptures, and the prayer that Jesus taught us is the prime example of it.
The unifying theme across these passages is prayer as an expression of relationship, an intimate dialogue between us and God. We pray because we believe that God listens to the cries of His children and that His Word has the power to accomplish His will in our lives. In this intimate conversation with the Lord, we are being reshaped and become merciful like our Heavenly Father, willing to forgive those who wrong us.