59 — THE PRAYER OF JESUS

Presence of God. — O Jesus, grant me to enter into the sanctuary of Your most holy Soul and reveal to me the secret of Your prayer.

Meditation

1 — Although Jesus, by the beatific vision and the fullness of charity, was always united to the Father, He still willed to dedicate to His Father, in an exclusive way, a portion of the time in which He carried out His human activity: the time of prayer. Particularly dedicated to prayer were the long years spent at Nazareth and the forty days passed in the desert; then, during His apostolic life, Jesus generally consecrated to it the night, wholly or in part. The Gospel expressly notes this at the most solemn moments of His life: before choosing the twelve Apostles, when Jesus “went out to the mountain to pray, and spent the whole night in prayer to God” (Lk. 6, 12), before Peter’s confession and the Transfiguration (Lk. 9, 18 and 28), at the Last Supper, at Gethsemane, on Calvary, etc. Moreover, He often interrupted His apostolic activity and “withdrew to lonely places and prayed” (Lk. 5, 16); many times before performing a miracle He raised His eyes to heaven invoking the Father and then, when evening came, “having dismissed the crowds, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray” (Mt. 14, 23).

We cannot imagine a prayer more intimate and profound than Jesus’; and only in heaven, where it will also be granted to us to see God face to face, shall we be able truly to understand and share in it. But meanwhile, on this earth, we can imitate Jesus’ attitude: to know how to interrupt any activity, even apostolic activity, in order to dedicate to prayer the due time and in that time leave everything to concentrate ourselves in God alone.

2 — Only Jesus’ prayer is perfect praise and adoration of the Trinity, perfect thanksgiving and always efficacious supplication, because He alone is able to offer the Trinity infinite homage. Our prayer has value insofar as we unite it to Jesus’ and seek that it be an echo and prolongation of His.

But Jesus’ prayer is completed in sacrifice, joined to it and culminating in it: sacrifice of nights spent in vigil, sacrifice of fasting and penance accompanying prayer in the desert for forty days, sacrifice of a toilsome life with nowhere even to lay His head. Little by little sacrifice grows until it reaches its maximum in the agony in the garden and on the Cross: here prayer becomes total and bloody offering for the Father’s glory and the good of souls.

Our prayer too must be permeated, substantiated with sacrifice, with real and generous offering of ourselves with Christ, until becoming with Him and in Him victims of praise and propitiation. As long as we are on this earth, prayer, contemplation itself, cannot be only enjoyment of God, but must always be joined to sacrifice: only thus is it true. Prayer, authentic contemplation, urges the soul to generosity, disposes it to embrace for God any labor and fatigue, to give itself totally to Him: on this earth self-gift is always accomplished in sacrifice.

St. Teresa of Jesus teaches that the goal of contemplative graces is precisely “to strengthen our weakness so that we may know how to imitate Our Lord in much suffering” (M. VII, 4, 4).

Colloquy

O Jesus, what a difference between my prayer and Yours! Yours so deep, so intense; mine so superficial, distracted, hurried. How often, unfortunately, I let myself be taken up by concern for work, absorbed by activity to the point of not being able to interrupt it.

But You make me understand that my bustle is vain, that my works are sterile when they are not permeated, imbued with prayer, with union with God.

And by Your example You teach me that, if I truly want to live united to God and nourish my union with Him, I absolutely need those pauses which, interrupting every other occupation, concentrate all my powers in God. O Lord, to follow Your example, I want to be faithful in leaving everything, at the proper time, to recollect myself in prayer. By preference You went up to the heights to pray; in this way You tell me that in order to pray well one must detach oneself from the low things of earth, one must rise above human preoccupations and thoughts. And when the soul knows how to recollect itself thus in solitude, in an elevated place, above creatures and itself, desiring only to meet You, O Lord, You do not delay in letting Yourself be found by it.

O my God, Most Holy Trinity, grant that at least in the hours of prayer I may know how to become aware of Your indwelling in my soul and know how to make my union with You actual. Grant that at least in these hours I may not leave You alone in the depth of my heart, but know how to return into myself, “go back home,” shut myself in the temple of my soul where You await me.

O Jesus, teach me and grant me deep prayer that immerses the soul in God and that, by living contact with Him, purifies and strengthens it. But I also desire to participate in Your prayer, the only adoration worthy of God; therefore, O sweet Lord, take my very poor prayer, unite it to Yours, and thus offer it Yourself to the Most Holy Trinity. Only in this way shall I too become one of those “true worshipers... in spirit and truth” (Jn. 4, 23) whom the Father seeks and desires.

And that my prayer may truly be like Yours, teach me further to nourish it with sacrifice and generous renunciation of some hours of rest, detachment from everything, silence, interior recollection; fulfillment of my duties; little voluntary mortifications; full and joyful acceptance of every one of Your wills, of every circumstance.

Grant, Lord, that each day I may end my prayer with dispositions of greater generosity, ready to embrace for love of You every sacrifice I shall meet on my path.