Praying is an art to learn: What does Jesus teach?

[Michie]

We are God’s children. One of the things he teaches us is how to pray.

One day when Jesus had finished praying, one of his disciples asked him, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Lk 11:1). And Jesus taught them the Our Father. Just what does the Lord teach us in the Lord’s Prayer?

If we start at the end, we realize that even the least God-minded person at times is moved to pray. And what prompts that prayer is the burden of evil. Think of how the churches in America were packed the days following 9/11. Those people were convinced of the existence of Something Even Greater than evil, and they put their belief in it through prayer. We cannot abolish evil, but Jesus teaches us a way of not being alone with it.

We need run-ins with temptation to show us where we are weak. Trials purify us. In the petition “lead us not into temptation,” Jesus is teaching us to use the experience of temptation well: not overestimating our capacities, not becoming discouraged or despairing. Jesus teaches us to recognize the limits of our strength so that we can entrust ourselves to his strength with confidence.

Continued below.

Praying is an art to learn: What does Jesus teach?

We are God’s children. One of the things he teaches us is how to pray.

aleteia.org

 

[fide]

Jesus does teach us much - much! - in the Our Father! I'm sorry for the author's title here, however, calling prayer an "art". The trouble is, what "art" has become in the modern world: self-expression, emphasis on "self". Much modern art is a distortion of reality, betraying a distortion, a disorder, dysfunction in the soul of the observer-artist, who then, expressing himself, does his "art." Frequently it is, IMHO, ugly.

Seeing the Our Father as St. Thomas Aquinas did - as "the perfect prayer", and thus a model of prayer, for praying, I would say that prayer, to be good praying, must be beautiful - as truth is beautiful. Even as a cry in pain for help by a lost hurting sinner is beautiful!

St. John Vianney said that "Prayer is nothing other than union with God." The word "art" does not seem fitting in that definition either: is union with God an "art"? The word seems, in today's modern sense of the word, far too subjective to be fitting for union with God, in which there are two subjects: one subject often too subjective, and The Subject Who is also The Objective of prayer: Absolute Reality and Truth, God Himself.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

How fitting, I just read this morning.

From the Office of the Readings, the 2nd Reading on prayer.

Second reading
From a letter to Proba by Saint Augustine, bishop
Let us turn our mind to the task of prayer at appointed hours

Let us always desire the happy life from the Lord God and always pray for it. But for this very reason we turn our mind to the task of prayer at appointed hours, since that desire grows lukewarm, so to speak, from our involvement in other concerns and occupations. We remind ourselves through the words of prayer to focus our attention on the object of our desire; otherwise, the desire that began to grow lukewarm may grow chill altogether and may be totally extinguished unless it is repeatedly stirred into flame.

Therefore, when the Apostle says: Let your petitions become known before God, this should not be taken in the sense that they are in fact becoming known to God who certainly knew them even before they were made, but that they are becoming known to us before God through submission and not before men through boasting.

Since this is the case, it is not wrong or useless to pray even for a long time when there is the opportunity. I mean when it does not keep us from performing the other good and necessary actions we are obliged to do. But even in these actions, as I have said, we must always pray with that desire. To pray for a longer time is not the same as to pray by multiplying words, as some people suppose. Lengthy talk is one thing, a prayerful disposition which lasts a long time is another. For it is even written in reference to the Lord himself that he spent the night in prayer and that he prayed at great length. Was he not giving us an example by this? In time, he prays when it is appropriate; and in eternity, he hears our prayers with the Father.

The monks in Egypt are said to offer frequent prayers, but these are very short and hurled like swift javelins. Otherwise their watchful attention, a very necessary quality for anyone at prayer, could be dulled and could disappear through protracted delays. They also clearly demonstrate through this practice that a person must not quickly divert such attention if it lasts, just as one must not allow it to be blunted if it cannot last.

Excessive talking should be kept out of prayer but that does not mean that one should not spend much time in prayer so long as fervent attitude continues to accompany his prayer. To talk at length in prayer is to perform a necessary action with an excess of words. To spend much time in prayer is to knock with a persistent and holy fervor at the door of the one whom we beseech. This task is generally accomplished more through sighs than words, more through weeping than speech. He places our tears in his sight, and our sighs are not hidden from him, for he has established all things through his Word and does not seek human words.