Forms of prayer foster communion with God, forgiveness

Article 172 - Catechism of the Catholic Church Series’’
Paragraphs 2623-2643

We have all heard it said that prayer does not work, especially prayers addressed to God requesting his help or intercession. Such prayers, according to some, are “a total waste of time.”

For us, like the first disciples before us, we find comfort by joining our prayers to those of others. Sacred Scripture reminds us that the first Christians “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and the prayers” (Acts 2:42). The Catechism explains: “these are prayers that the faithful hear and read in the Scriptures, but also [these are prayers] that they make their own – especially those of the Psalms” (ccc 2625). We experience prayer as 1. Blessing and adoration, 2. Petition, 3. Intercession, 4. Thanksgiving, and 5. Praise (defined by God’s blessing and our adoration). Therefore, “because God blesses, the human heart can in return bless the One who is the source of every blessing” (ccc 2626). As the Catechism elaborates: “we bless [God] for having blessed us” (ccc 2627).

What is our response? Adoration is our first response, acknowledging ourselves as creatures in the presence of the Creator or, as Fourth Century bishop St. Augustine puts it: “respectful silence in the presence of the ‘ever greater’ God” (ccc 2628). “It exalts the greatness of the Lord who made us and the almighty power of the Savior who sets us free from evil” (2628).

Our “Adoration” of God blends with our humility which then leads us to the most usual form of prayer, “Petition,” wherein “we express awareness of our relationship with God” (ccc 2629). As such, we recognize ourselves as “creatures who are not our own beginning…[nor] our own last end…[but] sinners who as Christians know that we have turned away from our Father. Our petition is already ‘a turning back to him’” (ccc 2629). In the New Testament, our prayer of petition is “buoyed by hope” in the Risen Christ (ccc 2630).

The Catechism further explains: The first movement of the prayer of petition is asking forgiveness, like the tax collector in the parable in St. Luke’s Gospel (18:13): “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” This is “a trusting humility” that helps bring us back into communion with God and each other. Requesting such forgiveness “is the prerequisite for both the Eucharistic liturgy and personal prayer” (ccc 2631). As with all things, “there is a hierarchy in these petitions: we pray first for the Kingdom, then for what is necessary to welcome it and cooperate with its coming” (ccc 2632). By our sharing in God’s saving love, we come to understand “that every need can become the object of petition. Christ, who assumed all things in order to redeem all things, is, as St. John’s Gospel (14:13) states, glorified by what we ask the Father in his name” (ccc 2633).

The prayer of Petition leads us to a third form of prayer called Intercession. The Holy Spirit “himself intercedes for us. . .and intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (ccc 2634). Abraham, our Father in faith and the Father of many nations, interceded – “asking on behalf of another [and having a heart] attuned to God’s mercy” (ccc 2635). The intercession of Christians recognizes no limitations: “for all men, for kings and all who are in high positions, for persecutors, for the salvation of those who reject the Gospel” (ccc 2636). In short, prayer of Intercession consists in asking on behalf of another. It knows no boundaries and even extends to one’s enemies.

A fourth form of prayer, Thanksgiving, characterizes the prayer of the Church which, when celebrating the Eucharist, “reveals and becomes more fully what she is” (ccc 2637) – the Mystical Body of Christ. The thanksgiving of the members of the Body participating in that of their Head (ccc 2637) makes them more faithful bearers of Christ. St. Paul indicates throughout his writings that, “in the prayer of petition, every event and need can become an offering of thanksgiving” (ccc 2638). As such, we ought to “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thess 5:18).

Finally, Praise is the form of prayer which recognizes most immediately that God is God. It lauds God for his own sake and gives him glory, not only for what he does, but simply because HE IS. . .Praise embraces the other forms of prayer and carries them toward him who is its source and goal: the “one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist” (ccc 2639). “St. Luke in his Gospel expresses wonder and praise at the marvels of Christ and in his Acts of the Apostles stresses them as actions of the Holy Spirit” (ccc 2640).

Sacred Scripture reminds us: “[Address] one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart.” This is exactly what priests, consecrated religious, as well as many lay Catholics, do several times each day. And, like the first Christian communities who read the Book of Psalms and “composed hymns and canticles in the light of the unheard-of event that God accomplished in his Son: his Incarnation, his death which conquered death, his Resurrection, and Ascension to the right hand of the Father” (ccc 2641), we do likewise.

All our heartfelt affections and prayerful inclinations toward God demonstrate that “faith is pure praise” (ccc 2642). The Eucharist, however, contains and expresses all forms of prayer: it is “the pure offering” of the whole Body of Christ to the glory of God’s name and, according to the traditions of East and West, it is the “sacrifice of praise” (ccc 2643). Sacred Scripture affirms: “those who offer praise as a sacrifice honor God; those whose way is steadfast, look upon the salvation of God!” (Ps 50:23)

Does prayer work, especially prayers addressed to God requesting his help or intercession? Absolutely. In short, the only prayer that does not work is the prayer we stop praying before we receive God’s answer to that prayer.

Father Hillier is director, diocesan Office of Pontifical Mission Societies, the Office for Persons with Disabilities and Censor Luborum