Chapter VIII: The Treatise on Prayer given by Our Lord Jesus Christ.

BY prayer man is brought into relation with God; therefore this duty was laid upon him from the very beginning, and it is evident all through the Old Testament what an important place prayer has in the life of man.

When our divine Lord came into this world to teach us all truth, he brought us new light upon the subject of prayer, which is the great means of attaining union with God, and He gave us the example of it in His most holy life. We find Him consecrating at one time whole nights to prayer, at another fixed hours of the day. He prays before working His miracles, and before choosing His twelve apostles. With a loud voice He gives thanks to His Father, He recollects Himself within Himself; in fact, He is the shining example of a life devoted to the most perfect prayer. But not content with giving us the example, He moreover imparted to His apostles a precise teaching and left them the divine method of prayer.

On one occasion, as St. Luke relates, when our Lord had concluded His prayer, one of His disciples drew nigh, and said: "Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. And He said to them: When you pray say: Father, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.”¹ We see clearly from the simple question of the apostle that, even in the old law, the prophets gave their disciples regular instructions on the subject of prayer, and possibly little rivalries arose between the different schools. They sought a master in the art, for no doubt it had become evident that souls profit much by the experience of one already versed in prayer, and are spared much groping in the dark and many mistakes.

St. Matthew, in his Gospel, does not mention the question of the disciple, but he gives us the whole of the Lord’s prayer, and the Church has chosen his more complete text as her formula. Moreover, this evangelist transmits to us the precious teaching on preparation for prayer with which our Lord accompanied the Pater noster.

The first danger that our Master points out is ostentation or vanity—faults too common in prayer: “When ye pray ye shall not be like the hypocrites, that love to stand and pray in the synagogues and corners of the streets that they may be seen by men. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.”² Prayer is in itself a meritorious act, but it must be animated by purity of intention to have its proper efficacy: if it is sullied with human motives, it will be null or of very little good. It is only just that in his familiar intercourse with God, man should banish every foreign thought and preoccupation.

Our Lord next says: “But thou, when thou shalt pray, enter into thy chamber, and having shut the door, pray to thy Father in secret; and thy Father, who seeth in secret, will repay thee."³ Hence, in the first place, the conditions which our Saviour requires are that we should enter into our private dwelling place, that we should shut the door, that we should recollect ourselves in the presence of God, and that we should banish all distracting thoughts. The soul can then humbly address herself to Him, whom, with good reason, she calls her Father, since she has received the spirit of adoption, and she can speak to Him "in secret." Plainly this "secret" is something more than the material solitude created round about her by the "closing of the door"; it means that mysterious darkness of faith—a darkness which is brighter than the day—in which we pray to God, our Father. In this prayer of pure and simple faith the soul receives her reward, and rises securely to God. "We pray in our chamber", says Cassian, "when we banish from our heart the tumult of our thoughts and anxieties, in order to offer our prayer to God in the 'secret' of love. We 'close the door' when we close our lips in order to pray in silence to Him who hears the heart much more than the words. We 'pray in secret' when we make known our petitions to God with our whole heart and soul, without letting our enemy know what we are asking; for we pray in silence not only that our brethren may not be distracted by our groans and cries, and thus be prevented from praying themselves, but also to hide our intentions from the demons, who attack us especially during prayer."⁴

To pray to our Father "in secret" also means seeking God in the depths of our soul, in that secret dwelling place prepared within us by the holy Sacrament of Baptism. This impulse towards the depths of the soul is one of the first impressions that we receive when we begin to forsake the life of the senses and to be “strengthened by the Spirit unto the inward man.”⁵ Then, instead of seeking God outside, and in symbols and images, the soul enters within herself, there to find Him. St. Benedict, and all the ancients, favoured the repression of external demonstrations in prayer.

St. Cyprian had already taught to the ardent Christians of his Church this wise reserve: “But let our speech and petition, when we pray, be under discipline, observing quietness and modesty. Let us consider that we are standing in God’s sight. We must please the divine eyes both with the habit of body and the measure of voice. For, as it is characteristic of a shameless man to be noisy with his cries, so, on the other hand, it is fitting to the modest man to pray with moderated petitions. Moreover, in His teaching, the Lord has bidden us to pray in secret—in hidden and remote places, even in our very bedchambers—which is best suited to faith, that we may know that God is everywhere present, and hears and sees all, and in the plenitude of His majesty penetrates even into hidden and secret places.

“Nor need He be clamorously reminded, since He sees men’s thoughts . . . and this, Anna, in the First Book of Kings, who was a type of the Church, maintains and observes, in that she prayed to God not with clamorous petition, but silently and modestly, within the very recesses of her heart. She spoke with hidden prayer, but with manifest faith. She spoke, not with her voice, but with her heart, because she knew that thus God hears; and she effectually obtained what she sought, because she asked it with belief.”⁶

St. Teresa’s teaching is exactly the same as that of the ancient fathers, and thus we see that the latter ages of the Church are like unto the first.

But let us return to our divine Master, and learn from Him how to avoid other excesses in our prayer; "And when you are praying speak not much, as heathens. For they think that in their much speaking they may be heard. Be not you therefore like to them, for your Father knoweth what is needful for you before you shall ask Him."⁷ Unlike the pagan, the Christian knows whom he is addressing; he must avoid in his prayer that superabundance of words which betrays ignorance of the divine Majesty. To escape this error the divine Master gives His disciples the formula of all our prayers: "Thus therefore shall you pray: 'Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our supersubstantial bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors, and lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil. Amen.'"⁸

All prayers, all petitions which do not fall under the head of one or another of these petitions of the Pater noster will fail to be acceptable to God. We must, therefore, study closely this admirable formula of prayer. Divinely composed, it contains not only the secret of all prayer, but moreover the secret of our transformation into God. It is like a diapason, to which our soul must be attuned, that we may render to our Lord the glory which is due to Him; for it was not our Lord's intention to give us merely a set form of words, but rather to deposit a living and effectual prayer in the very depth of our souls.

Hence the great solemnity with which, in the fourth week of Lent, this formula was given to the catechumens when, as the time of their Baptism drew near, they came to the Church to receive, together with the holy Gospels and the Rule of Faith, the Lord's Prayer and the Law of Prayer. Why should we be astonished that the fathers delighted in commenting on this prayer? Tertullian thus speaks of it: "In summaries of so few words, how many utterances of the prophets, the gospels, the apostles! How many discourses, examples, parables of our Lord are touched upon! How many duties are simultaneously discharged! The honour of God in the title of 'Father,' the testimony of lively faith which asks for the glory of His name, the offering of obedience which sighs after the accomplishment of His will; the exercise of hope which calls for the coming of His kingdom; the petition for life in the daily bread; the full avowal of our sins in the prayer for forgiveness; the remedy against temptations in the request for divine protection. What wonder! Only God could teach us how He wished us to pray to Him. Therefore the religious rite of prayer, ordained by Himself and animated by His own Spirit when it issued from His divine mouth, ascends by its own prerogative into heaven, commending to the Father what the Son has taught, touching the heart of the Father by the words of the Son. Since however the Lord, the foreseer of human necessities, said separately, after delivering His rule of prayer: 'Ask, and ye shall receive'; and since there are petitions which are made according to the circumstances of each individual, our additional wants have the right—after beginning with the legitimate and customary prayers, as a foundation—of rearing an outer superstructure of petitions, yet with remembrance of the [Master's] precepts."⁹ St. Cyprian comments upon and enlarges the same thoughts. Like Tertullian he shows that everything is contained in the sublime prayer which the Word of God Himself has taught us. To be fully convinced of this, we have only to read their treatises on the Pater noster. They show clearly that in the Church the laws of prayer have ever been the same. St. Augustine, in his letter to the holy widow Proba, gives a like testimony: "If you go over all the prayers that are in the sacred Scriptures, you will, I believe, find nothing that cannot be comprised and summed up in the petitions of the Lord's Prayer. Therefore, in praying, we are free to use different words, but we must ask the same things; in this we have no choice."¹⁰

Lastly, Cassian says: "The most perfect and sublime prayer is that inspired by the contemplation of God and the glowing fire of charity when the soul, dissolved in love of her Creator, speaks tenderly and familiarly with Him as with a father. The prayer which Jesus Christ has taught us shows by its first words, Pater noster, that we should apply ourselves earnestly to the attainment of this disposition."¹¹ It is superfluous to recall how, in the sixteenth century, the seraphic reformer of Carmel, in her "Way of Perfection," makes use of the Pater noster.

Following the example of so many venerable authors, we would, in our turn, add a few words to show how completely the Pater noster contains the rule of perfection as well as the rule of prayer. For if it begins with the words Pater noster—because those who are saying it have received the Spirit of adoption, and it is of them our Lord says: "I have manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou hast given Me out of the world"¹²—it is none the less true that practically as regards our perfection, the last petition of the prayer comes first. In fact, according as this prayer works its effect in our souls, germinates so to say, it begins by delivering us from evil; then it obtains that we be not tempted in a dangerous manner, as our

Lord says: "Pray that ye enter not into temptation."¹³

If we are strictly faithful, this prayer soon obtains for us the full and entire pardon of our sins, on condition that we practise the second commandment, which is like unto the first, since it is the external proof and certain pledge that we are accomplishing it. Then it unites us to God by obtaining for us the supersubstantial Bread of eternal Truth, either under the form of doctrine, or under the appearances of that Bread, which in truth is the Body of the Lord. The divine will is then accomplished in the soul, on earth as it is in heaven; the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ is established and the Father's name is truly glorified by the creature thus restored and remade. Cassian expresses the same thought, when he says: "The aim of every monk and the perfection of his heart tends to continual and unbroken perseverance in prayer,"¹⁴ till at last this mysterious prayer transforms the soul itself and puts it in possession of the incomparable inheritance, which the single word "Our Father" implies.

Moreover, this sublime prayer contains a very noble mention of the three divine Persons, for the first petition is addressed particularly to the eternal Father, the second to the Incarnate Word, and the third to the divine Paraclete, who gathers together the members of Christ's mystical Body into that marvellous unity for which our Lord prayed at the Last Supper, "That they may be one, as We also are one."¹⁵ After this mention of the three divine Persons in their relations with us, comes the petition for union with God; for communion with Him either by the Holy Eucharist or by the holy Scripture; and lastly the fifth, sixth and seventh petitions seem to refer to the Unitive, the Illuminative and the Purgative Life, and the whole ends with "Amen," a word which belongs to time and to eternity.

There is no form of prayer more excellent than this. The Church puts it on the lips of her priests in the very midst of the cloud, when standing face to face with God in the divine mysteries. Hence we can have no difficulty in appreciating that profound passage of Cassian, which refers to the highest stage of the spiritual life: "The prayer taught and recommended by our Lord contains in truth all perfection. Yet it raises those that are faithful to it to a still more sublime state, of which we have already spoken, for it conducts them to that glowing and burning prayer known only to a few, which cannot be explained because it surpasses the conception and intelligence of man. This prayer is formed by no sound of the voice, by no movement of the tongue, by no utterance of words; the soul enlightened by a heavenly light uses no human language, but, as an abundant fountain, she overflows with affections, and raises herself to God in an ineffable manner, saying so many things all at once that when she returns to herself she can neither express them in words nor recall them in thought. Our Lord gave us the example of this prayer when He retired alone upon the mountain, or when He prayed in silence and watered the ground with His Blood in the agony of His incomprehensible ardour."¹⁶

Footnotes

1. Domine, doce nos orare, sicut docuit et Joannes discipulos suos. Et ait illis: Cum oratis, dicite: Pater, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie. Et dimitte nobis peccata nostra, siquidem et ipsi dimittimus omni debenti nobis. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem (Luc., xi, 1-4). ↩

2. Cum oratis, not eritis sicut hypocritæ, qui amant in synagogis, et in angulis platearum stantes orare, ut videantur ab hominibus: amen dico vobis, receperunt mercedem suam (Matth. vi, 5). ↩

3. Tu autem, cum oraveris, intra in cubiculum tuum, et clauso ostio, ora Patrem tuum in abscondito: et Pater tuus qui vidit in abscondito, reddet tibi (Ibid, vi, 6). ↩

4. Cassian, Coll. ix, cap. xxxv. ↩

5. Virtute corroborari per Spiritum ejus in interiorem hominem (Eph. iii, 16). ↩

6. S. Cypr. De Orat. Dom., nn. 4, 5. ↩

7. Orantes autem nolite multum loqui, sicut ethnici; putant enim quod in multiloquio suo exaudiantur. Nolite ergo assimilari eis; scit enim Pater vester quid opus sit vobis, antequam petatis eum. Sic ergo vos orabitis (Matth., vi, 7-9). ↩

8. Sic ergo vos orabitis: Pater noster qui es in coelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in cœlo et in terra. Panem nostrum, supersubstantialem da nobis hodie. Et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem. Sed libera nos a malo. Amen. (Matth., vi, 9-13). ↩

9. Ter. De Orat. Dom., ix, x. ↩

10. S. Aug. Epist. cxxx, cap. xii. ↩

11. Cassian, Coll. ix, cap. xviii. ↩

12. Manifestavi nomen tuum hominibus, quos dedisti mihi de mundo (Joann, xvii, 6). ↩

13. Orate ut non intretis in tentationem (Matth. xxvi, 41). ↩

14. Cassian, Coll. ix, cap. ii. ↩

15. Ut sint unum, sicut et nos unum sumus (Joann., xvii, 22). ↩

16. Cassian, Coll, ix, cap. xxv. ↩