The Gospel of St. Luke is the one which most tells us of Jesus at prayer. Jesus does not so much fit prayer into his busy schedule as fit his schedule into his intense prayer life. For prayer is not so much something we do as who we are. Jesus is the Son of the Father and His permanent awareness of the Father is the core of His life, of who He is, on earth and in heaven. His prayer both expresses and feeds this fundamental truth of His existence. He constantly speaks of the Father and of the will of the Father because He is constantly aware of the Father’s presence and love. Consider yourself how, in the midst of your daily activities, the thoughts of your heart are drawn to your loved ones. This gives you joy, a sense of purpose and belonging, a sense of identity. That’s akin to prayer. It’s not primarily about words but about a deep and loving awareness of those you love, in this case the Persons of the Trinity, and a grateful realization that they love and are aware of you. Everything Jesus says and does in His public ministry, especially his death and resurrection, is embedded and rooted in this mutual awareness between Himself and the Father, that is, in prayer. It is more radical and truer than anything else that happens to Him. His entire life, passion and death are prayer, which is why the Mass is prayer. We are privileged to enter into the prayer between the Son and the Father. In it, we are redeemed and made whole.

In our family and friendships, our love and knowledge of each other creates a bond. It’s a bond that’s meant to last and to grow stronger and tighter as time and experience go by. If you are apart for any length of time, the bond remains, and you don’t need to start again from scratch when you meet again. Think, too, how the child of married love personifies the bond between husband and wife and strengthens it even further. Their love stands before them. In a similar way, there is a bond between Jesus and the Father which is so real and eternal that it is itself another divine Person, the Holy Spirit. It is no coincidence, then, that, of the synoptic Gospels, St. Luke most mentions the Holy Spirit: the prayer of Jesus and the power and action of the Holy Spirit go hand in glove. Jesus prays to the Father in the Spirit and it is the Spirit who leads and even drives Jesus to put into action what the Father commands Him in prayer. The Spirit is the awareness between Father and Son.

So, when Jesus teaches the apostles how to pray, it’s no wonder that the first words are Our Father. As St. Paul tells us, it is the Spirit we receive who makes us cry out, “Abba! Father!” And it is in the power of the Spirit that we are able to fulfil all the other petitions of the Our Father. By the Spirit, we accept and proclaim that the Father is in heaven: He is not subject to the created order or to earthly power or influence. By the Spirit, we ask the Father to help us keep His Name Holy, that is, to live in the awareness of His Presence and to live in deep respect and awe of Who He Is, the I AM WHO AM. By the Spirit, we work with Christ and with others to usher in His Kingdom. By the Spirit, we open our hearts and minds in obedience to put His Will into practice on earth just as it is carried out in heaven in some wonderful way that is beyond our ken. By the Spirit, we open ourselves in trust to the Father that He will provide for our earthly material needs, our daily bread. By the Spirit, we ask the Father to give us open hearts to forgive our offenders so that we ourselves may be forgiven. And by the Spirit, we ask the Father to preserve us from sinning in the hour of temptation and to protect our lives from the poison of Satan, the Evil One.

So, in the Our Father, Jesus shares with us the secret of His own prayer, of His own relationship with the Father, of His own way of carrying out His mission of salvation. He reveals to us the shape and rhythm of His own Heart. By giving us the Spirit, He draws us into His own intimacy of love for and trust in the Father. If He tells us to ask, seek and knock, that is, to be pro-active and persevering, and even “impudent”, in coming to the Father with our prayer requests, it is not because the Father doesn’t know what we need before we ask Him: it is because Jesus wants us to do as He Himself does, that is, to live our entire lives before the Father’s face, to bring our entire lives into the wonderful orbit of the Father’s care. It is like a child who rabbits on to a parent about this and that and nothing in particular: it is pure and utter confidence and openness before the Father. The purpose of this is not to get what we think we need from the Father in this or that circumstance of our lives, but to receive from the Father what Heknows is best for us in that circumstance. We don’t pray so that our will may be done, but so that His will may be done. Prayer isn’t a shopping transaction in which I “pay” a few, or many, words or motions of the heart and then God has to give me what I’ve paid for! The Our Father doesn’t begin with “gimme, gimme”, but with honour and praise of the Father’s divine mystery in heaven, of His Kingdom and of His Will. When you come to prayer, then, don’t launch into a whole series of petitions on your shopping list, but first praise Him, glorify Him and thank Him that his will may be done on your earth as it is in His heaven. Entrust your petitions to Him, then, and be grateful for whatever His will provides. God makes all things turn out to the good of those who love Him even when we cannot see or understand how in the circumstances of our own lives. Our petitions to Him must be rooted first in a deep and loving awareness of His Presence, of the Presence of His Son and of the Presence of the Holy Spirit in our deepest hearts.

To know that Presence, the Lord invites us to spend time in silent recollection with his Word and, here in the church, with His Sacrament of the Real Presence. We have sadly lost the art of the visit to the Blessed Sacrament, and yet many of you tell me how ten or fifteen minutes in the presence of the Lord in the church brings you such great peace. We have become forgetful of peace and stillness before the Lord and driven to activism and the turmoil which it often brings. The world today draws us to the easy satisfactions of our human comforts and urges. To give time to prayer will mean setting some of such things aside, a certain spiritual discipline, a willingness to sacrifice. That will be easier if we ask the Lord to give us a prayerful heart, or a more prayerful heart. Ask Him to stir your heart with an eagerness to spend time with Him, for the Light of the Spirit to identify what may be making you reluctant to pray more, and to deal with it. If you have young children, either wait until they are all in bed, or in a simple or suitable way involve them in your prayer. Pray alone and with others. Pray with your spouse, with your family, with friends, with the parish. Overcome the initial awkwardness or shyness (or giggles!) in turning together towards the Lord. The benefits of prayer are incalculable. Prayer is a gift, so we, like the apostles, have to ask the Lord to teach us. Prayer is not an escape from life but gives it a firmer foundation, depth, a sense of order and purpose. It spreads the perfume of grace across the day and the night and all your relationships. Prayer prepares us for death and for eternity. A life lived in prayer will lead to a death died in prayer and to an eternity of adoration before the Face of God. So, Lord Jesus, with humility of heart we ask for the gift of your Spirit that we may pray, truly pray as you taught your disciples to pray. Make us understand that we are pray-ers before we say prayers. Transform our lives, our marriages, our families and our parish to truly be a living communion of prayer. Prepare us to adore You eternally.