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– Matthew 14:23 (NLT)

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REFLECTIONS ON PRAYER…

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Jesus leads by example.

If He, the Son of the living God, makes the time to pray,

and seeks places where He can pray profoundly,

then surely the least we can do is imitate Him!

…from the Catechism of the Catholic Church…

"Prayer is the raising of one’s mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God." 1

But when we pray, do we speak from the height of our pride and will,

or "out of the depths" of a humble and contrite heart? 2

He who humbles himself will be exalted; 3humility is the foundation of prayer,

Only when we humbly acknowledge that "we do not know how to pray as we ought," 4

are we ready to receive freely the gift of prayer.

"Man is a beggar before God." 5 [CCC2559]

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"If you knew the gift of God!" 6

The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water:

there, Christ comes to meet every human being.

It is He who first seeks us and asks us for a drink.

Jesus thirsts; His asking arises from the depths of God’s desire for us.

Whether we realise it or not, prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with ours.

God thirsts that we may thirst for Him. 7 [CCC2560]

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"You would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water." 8

Paradoxically our prayer of petition is a response to the plea of the living God:

"They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters,

and hewn out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water!" 9

Prayer is the response of faith to the free promise of salvation

and also a response of love to the thirst of the only Son of God. 10 [CCC2561]

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1 St. John Damascene
2 Ps 130:1.
3 Cf. Lk 18:9-14.
4 Rom 8:26.
5 St. Augustine
6 Jn 4:10.
7 Cf. St. Augustine
8 Jn 4:10.
9 Jer 2:13.
10 Cf. Jn 7:37-39; 19:28; Isa 12:3; 51:1; Zech 12:10; 13:1.
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QUOTE…

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“The Lord tells us: ‘the first task in life is this: prayer.’

But not the prayer of words, like a parrot;

but the prayer, the heart: gazing on the Lord, hearing the Lord, asking the Lord […].”
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– Pope Francis

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REPETITIVE PRAYER FOR TODAY…

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O Lord, my God, I thirst for You, I need You, I love You!

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