This morning’s Gospel reading is Luke 11:1–13:
Jesus 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 and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test.”
And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend to whom he goes at midnight and says, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, for a friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journey and I have nothing to offer him,’ and he says in reply from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked and my children and I are already in bed. I cannot get up to give you anything.’ I tell you, if he does not get up to give the visitor the loaves because of their friendship, he will get up to give him whatever he needs because of his persistence.
“And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”
How do we talk to the Lord?
It’s time for Yet Another Confession From the Wayward Catholic: I have never been terribly good at standard prayers. My wife learned all of them through excellent formation in Catholic schools; I went to public schools, and my family stopped attending Mass on a regular basis after our First Communions. I came back to the Church in my mid-twenties, which was a rich faith journey in itself (and ongoing!), and I don’t think I’d trade one of the other.
However, my prayer life isn’t exactly what it should be. One reason I enjoy guest-hosting on Relevant Radio occasionally is for the opportunity it presents to improve my devotion to prayer. The Drew Mariani Show has the Chaplet of Divine Mercy in its second hour, so when I guest host, I lead that prayer with a partner from the studio. However, I have to have the script in front of me, because despite years of leading or following in this devotion, I still have not memorized all of the prayers or its sequence. (A previous producer, Maggie, created a lovely script for me a few years ago, including highlighting the parts my partner reads rather than me. I still use it. Thanks, Maggie!)
And for a long time, I resisted the idea of traditional prayers and devotion. I preferred to pray — or so I told myself — conversationally. I’d give Jesus a call and just chat with Him, letting Him know what’s on my mind and heart, and asking for His assistance. Using someone else’s prayer seemed somehow too rote and impersonal to be effective.
There really isn’t anything wrong with that. Jesus wants us to have a personal connection to Him. He is our friend, our shepherd, and someone who loves us and cares about our trials and tribulations. He sent the Holy Spirit — the vessel of Trinitarian love that flows from the Father and the Son — to inhabit our hearts and bring us into that familial relationship. We should feel free to ‘call’ on Him at all times, and in all ways, especially when we need His love and support the most.
We see an example of this in our first reading from Genesis. The Lord warns Abraham about the coming destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah over their horribly evil and sinful natures. Abraham doesn’t respond in devotional prayer, or even in personal colloquy about his own concerns. Instead, Abraham enters into negotiations with God, albeit with repeated declarations about his unfitness to do so. In a sequence that would sound familiar to anyone who has parented teens, Abraham walks the Lord down from a threshold of 50 to 10, all in a conversation that would not sound any different than one between two old friends.
What I have come to appreciate, however, is the formation of our traditional prayers and devotions. The prayer Jesus gives the disciples in this Gospel passage provides a framework similar to that Abraham uses in the first reading. It starts off by recognizing the authority of the Father, and submitting to His will over ours. It reminds us of our true needs in this life, while acknowledging our sinful nature and the need for forgiveness. Only then are we formed properly to ask for what we need, rather than what we want to take.
This still represented a revolutionary shift in approach from the practice at that time. The proper form for petitionary prayer was to go to the Temple, offer a sacrifice, and ask the priests to pray for intercessions. Even calling the Lord “Our Father” was a major step away from the contemporary practice. In our daily Mass, we recognize that to this day; the priest-celebrant will start the Lord’s Prayer by preceding it with “we dare/presume to say…”
This is what the traditional prayers and devotions do for us as well. They form us to appreciate the majesty and mystery of the Lord and the Trinitarian life to which we aspire. These prayers unlock our own humility and connect us to two millennia of prayer and scholarship that informs our faith to this day. When we recognize our proper relationship to the Lord, then we can be oriented to petition Him for what matters to our salvation and the salvation of those around us, along with true caritas in our hearts rather than the pursuit of our own appetites.
Here’s the best part: we can do both. Jesus wants us to have a personal relationship of familial love with Him; that is why He sends the Holy Spirit into our hearts. However, He also wants us to orient ourselves to what our place truly is within that Trinitarian life, so that we can continue to be formed for eternal life within it. The Lord’s Prayer in today’s Gospel gives us a bridge connecting both approaches, a gift of encouragement and love. It says, Know me and come to me.
So grab your missal if you can’t recall the prayers word for word, or have a wonderful friend and collaborator create a script for you, and explore the beauty and formation of traditional prayer and devotion. At the same time, keep talking with the Lord in your own way, to allow that familial Trinitarian love to become a constant part of our lives. When I do pray, as I do before writing these reflections, I add my own small prayer as a conclusion: Lord, help me to remember who I am called to be: a child of God, a disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ, and an instrument of Your holy will.
Previous reflections on these readings:
The front page image is “Triumph of Christianity Over Paganism,” fresco at the Vatican by Tommaso Laureti, ceiling inset, c. 1582-5. From my personal photo collection.
“Sunday Reflection” is a regular feature that looks at the specific readings used in today’s Mass in Catholic parishes around the world. The reflection represents only my own point of view, intended to help prepare myself for the Lord’s day and perhaps spark a meaningful discussion. Previous Sunday Reflections from the main page can be found here.
