The Beginning of Christian Prayer

Jesus’ last cry from the Cross is the beginning of Christian prayer. How can we ignore the connection between what St. Paul says is the Holy Spirit groaning in us and this wordless cry of the Word made flesh? The Holy Spirit, the very Soul of our souls, pours out Christ’s prayer in us, especially in those moments when the Lord seems furthest away, when the very meaning of life seems lost. Christ cries out in us in our broken poverty, suffering this with us so that even the most severely sick, those right at death’s door, can find Him. When the cry of our hearts is taken up by the cry of his heart – this is prayer. St. Therese of Lisieux explains that this is a cry of recognition and love, a cry that embraces not only joy but every trial, even the most crushing defeats. For in this cry of faith, Christ is recognized, his love known, his joy tasted, and the cup of his suffering shared. 


The prayer of those who believe in Jesus is not their own - by a wholly simple movement of love they participate in the deepest yearning of the Lord's own heart.  That is why cultivating silence, self-possession and interior recollection are all so important.  Only faith guided by love can enter deep into the heart of the Lord - can find the heart of the Lord the depths of one's own poverty.  And He discloses the most beautiful truths to those who persevere in seeking Him.  They come to rest in knowing Him and in knowing all things in Him.  But what strange rest - for those who taste it find themselves caught up in the superactivity of divine love!  This kind of rest constantly breaks forth in new acts of compassion and concern.  This rest bursts forth with Jesus's thrill in the goodness of the Father.   This rest plunges into the very heart-ache of Christ for those who will not hear his voice.  Words fail.  This is why the great doctors of prayer describe it as a rain storm, a wild fire, a gentle breeze, blairing trumpets, delicate melodies, a loving light, fire in the night, eternity begun and still in progress.

For those who open their hearts to this kind of prayer, the movements of His heart are the gravitational force for their whole existence - in Christian prayer, the heart moves into the orbit of the One crucified by love.  Every time one dies to oneself, every small act of obedience to the Lords voice, joins us to the mystery of crucified love - the only place where human poverty and God's mercy can embrace.  Because of the Cross, Christians can finally pray in a communion of real friendship with the living God. The disciple of Christ's prayer discovers in this friendship he is totally understood and begins to understand, he is exceedingly loved and so begins to learn to love in return.

Prayer and Creation

Christian prayer is rooted in creation because the true Christian accepts the fundamental goodness of God's work.    Ancient Christian thinkers loved to ponder this point.  For example, Dionysius Areopagite taught how the Lord created the world with a diversity aimed at manifesting his own incomprehensible goodness and inexhaustible glory.  Such faith recieves the world as a gift - and the more profoundly this gift is recieved, the purer and deeper its ability to give thanks. Christian prayer drinks in the manifold diversityof creation and discerns in the harmony of the things that exist Someone who is love.  Here, St. John ofthe Cross believes that even inanimate objects can be messangers that wound the soul with God's love -- for mystics like him, creation becomes an invitation, an ever unfolding epiphany of a surprising truth, a deeply stirring theophany knocking at the heart.
This is especially true of the human person, the particular man or woman, son or daughter, parent or child entrusted to me and you right now by God.  The path to God is not by a method that takes me away from them or raises me above the struggles of our frail humanity - it is through the Cross, and the Cross alone, which God has given me the privilege to help them carry.  But this Cross cannot be carried without prayer - so lets pray for one another.  Whoever you are, what you are, in all your suffering splendor is irrepeatably precious, for you too are part of his great work - and it is God's will that you not perish, even if you stand at the threshold of death.  Because He has entered our world with the desire to save us, our hidden struggles are not senseless, our personal plight not unnoticed. 

The Author of Creation, by becoming one of us, has shown us the path to become fully ourselves, to real human freedom, to the greatness of our humanity.  It is the path of humility, of accepting we are not God and need God.  We who are limited, frail and vulnerable - we who struggle not to deem equality with God something to be grasped at - all this struggle is uniquely yours and mine, an unrepeatable creative work which we possess when we, like our crucified God, empty ourselves.  Behold, the greatness of the humanity entrusted to us individually and together.  You who yearn for God, who struggle to be true to Him, your goodness and nobility are most clearly manifest in that inner poverty that God cannot resist and yearns to fill with his love - yes, you yourself, He wills to live forever with Him. 

Priesthood Needed: even in a world that deems it irrelevant

At the beginning of an address to seminarians, Pope Benedict observes that the world will always need the priesthood because, no matter how advanced the culture, people always need God:

"When in December 1944 I was drafted for military service, the company commander asked each of us what we planned to do in the future. I answered that I wanted to become a Catholic priest. The lieutenant replied: 'Then you ought to look for something else. In the new Germany priests are no longer needed'. I knew that this 'new Germany' was already coming to an end, and that, after the enormous devastation which that madness had brought upon the country, priests would be needed more than ever.
     Today the situation is completely changed. In different ways, though, many people nowadays also think that the Catholic priesthood is not a 'job' for the future, but one that belongs more to the past. You, dear friends, have decided to enter the seminary and to prepare for priestly ministry in the Catholic Church in spite of such opinions and objections. You have done a good thing.
     Because people will always have need of God, even in an age marked by technical mastery of the world and globalisation: they will always need the God Who has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ, the God Who gathers us together in the universal Church in order to learn with Him and through Him life's true meaning and in order to uphold and apply the standards of true humanity. Where people no longer perceive God, life grows empty; nothing is ever enough".

The Grace of Baptism and the Jordan River

On our pilgrimage last summer, we went to the Jordan River, a spot north of where John baptized Jesus. While we renewed our baptismal promises, other Christian groups from around the world came for baptisms. It was so beautiful. Christian prayer leads to and flows out of the grace baptism bestows. This is why for Catholics our prayer begins and ends with the sign of the Cross we recieved at baptism. This sign of our faith, this sign of our baptism, reminds us of our promises by which we are bound to the Lord and at the same time, it reminds us of God's promise, the Gift of the Holy Spirit - the Spirit of God dwelling in us as in a temple. This means through our faith and by the action of the Church at baptism, each of us becomes a place where God is known and loved in such a way that he can be given true spiritual worship through our very bodies when we offer them - and everything we do with them - as a sacrifice to God.  This gift animates Christian prayer to make it effective and it transforms Christian life to make it acceptable.

The Vocation of St. Therese

I am gong to make you smile:  in my childhood I dreamed of fighting on battlefields.  When I was starting to learn the history of France, the story of Joan of Arc's exploits delighted me.  I used to feel  the desire and the courage to imitate her.  It seemed to me that the Lord destined me too for great things.  I was not mistaken.  But instead of voices from Heaven calling me to combat, I heard in the depths of my soul a voice that was gentler and stronger still:  the voice of the Spouse of virgins was calling me to other exploits and more glorious conquests, and in the solitude of Carmel I understood my mission was not to crown a mortal king but to make the King of Heaven loved, to conquer for Him the kingdom of hearts.
Letter to Maurice Belliere, April 5, 1897, trans. Patrick Ahern