My prayer life and sense of God’s presence was strong during a silent retreat at the Ignatius House Jesuit Retreat Center in Atlanta, Georgia from 13 February through 16 February 2014. Then I came home and kept very little of what I gained when I re-entered my daily routine. I kept thinking I just needed a few days to catch up after being gone, but two weeks have passed now. My daily routine crowds time for prayer and serious reflection out. I think daily prayer and reflection is important, so today I made a start of reading and praying Scripture (Luke 11:1-13). My plan is to keep working through passages recommended for the first week of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola in a little prayer book that I bought during my recent retreat – Hearts on Fire: Praying with Jesuits, Edited by Michael Harter, SJ. I am not sure how consistently I will publish my written work here, but I am sharing today’s.
Luke 11: 1-13 Jesus’ Teaching on Prayer
Jesus prayed.
I certainly need to pray if Jesus prayed.
His disciples could see when Jesus finished praying. He was probably not praying aloud or his disciples could have learned to pray from hearing what he said, but his posture probably signaled when his prayer ended.
Model prayer:
Father: May your holy name be honored – Praise
May your kingdom come – Submit to God’s will
Give us day by day the food we need – Recognize God as source of life
Forgive us our sins, for we forgive everyone who does us wrong – Confess wrong and forgive others
And do not bring us to hard testing – Ask for mercy… Be humble…
Note: Jesus seemed to assume our praying in community… the food WE need, OUR sins, WE forgive, do not bring US to hard testing.
Be persistent in prayer. Don’t ask once and stop. Keep seeking God’s help.
Jesus promises a benevolent response to those who pray because God is a good father who loves his children and cares for their well-being.
Praying Jesus’ Teaching on Prayer
Father, it is so easy for me to be arrogant; to assume that my strength and judgment is sufficient. Easy until I fall and am broken by attempting to do alone what I cannot do without you and without your people.
Thank you for the role model of Jesus as a man of prayer. Teach me to pray every day. Keep me from being satisfied with what I know and what I can do and instead to seek your wisdom, your strength, and your generosity.
Glorious Father, We offer our praise to you.
Teach me to love as you love, so that I may live inside of your will every day.
Thank you for the gift of life and the resources of life. Make me eager to share them with my brothers and sisters.
Show me my sins. Make me conscious of my wrongdoing. And Lord, help me to be conscious of when I am offended and hurt by others. Help me to see my part. Help me to understand the part of others and to forgive without reservation.
Lord, please don’t teach me the limits of my abilities with hard testing.
Lord, help me to pray as persistently as I eat. May I learn to devote as much time to praying as I do to cooking and to find as much joy in praying as I do in eating.
Amen.
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