If Jesus Prayed Judaism's 18 Benedictions, Why Don't We?

“The Son of God who became Son of the Virgin also learned to pray according to his human heart. He learns the formulas of prayer from his mother ... He learns to pray in the words and rhythms of the prayer of his people.” (CCC 2599)

Until five years ago, when I began an intense study of Jesus' earthly prayer, I had never heard of the Eighteen Benedictions.  What I quickly discovered was how they are a beautiful tapestry of blessings and petitions that the Jews had been praying three times a day for at least a century before the birth of Christ. Their centrality in Jewish prayer is witnessed to by their Hebrew name, Tephilla, or simply “the prayer.” (You will also hear them referred to as Amidah, “standing,” since they are prayed while standing; Jesus likely refers to this in  Mk 11:25.)  These benedictions both praise God for his goodness and ask for his continued blessings and the fulfillment of his promises.  With their importance in the prayer life of Jesus and his Jewish apostles, why didn't their use continue among Christians? I believe the answer is two-fold.

First, Scripture assures us that Jesus entered history in the “fullness of time” (Gal.4:4).  He entered at precisely the right moment of history for these blessings and petitions to form an integral part of his daily prayer with Mary and Joseph.  And Jesus' own death and resurrection - and all that means for humanity - were the answer to many of the Eighteen Benedictions: "Blessed be the Lord who forgives our sins, ... who raises the dead, ... restore the kingdom of David, ... allow us to worship in your sanctuary."

Second, Jesus commanded us to pray the Our Father.  Because it comes from God the Son, it is literally the perfect prayer.  Its seven petitions encapsulate all others, the Eighteen Benedictions included; and when prayed slowly, with the proper awe and love expressed in these words, "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name," can encapsulate all blessing and thanksgiving as well. The early Church recognized this, and so we find its first catechism, the Didache (70-120 A.D.), instructing believers to pray the Our Father three times a day (8:1). The 1993 Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms that this was done “in place of the ‘Eighteen Benedictions’ customary in Jewish piety” (CCC 2767).

In the early days of my conversion I neglected the Our Father. As a "rote prayer" that I learned in childhood and often rattled off with my parochial school classmates, in my heart-of-hearts, I didn't believe it could capture the "closeness" and "spontaneity" Jesus wanted me to enjoy with the Father! (Ridiculous, right? Ah, but far too common.) Like many others, I had misunderstood Jesus' words in Mt 6:7, "when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words." Jesus, a faithful Jew, was far from opposed to praying "set" prayers. (While hanging upon the Cross he prayed the same Psalms he had since childhood!)  Rather, Jesus was warning his Jewish audience against the errors found in pagan prayer - believing that God would be moved to grant their requests by the sheer amount of verbiage.  

God wants prayer to be an expression of our hearts; and as the Holy Spirit brought me to recognize, nothing expresses them better than the Our Father.  St. Paul went so far as to teach that it is the Holy Spirit who puts this prayer on our lips: "you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by which we cry out 'Abba! Father!'" (Rom 8:15). 

So why don't we Christians pray the Eighteen Benedictions? Ultimately, it is for the same reason we no longer offer the animal sacrifices prescribed in the Law of Moses: Jesus, and the prayer he taught us, is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets (Mt. 5:17; Heb 8:13) ... and the Eighteen Benedictions.
______________________
If you'd like to read more along these lines, you might enjoy the soon-to-be-released Through, With, and In Him: The Prayer Life of Jesus and How to Make It Our Own.

If You Can't Make Daily Mass, Pray Like JMJ

Our spiritual lives are centered upon Jesus' sacrifice, made present in the Eucharist. Probably the majority of us however, have schedules that keep us from attending Mass on a daily basis. It may come as a surprise to learn that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph - and the majority of Jews at the time - found themselves in an analogous situation. They also arrived at an ingenious solution that we can make our own.

Jewish religious life was built around sacrifice; and the only place it could be legitimately offered was Jerusalem's Temple. Every day, at 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., its priests made the daily offering, or tamid. After the singing of a Psalm and the recitation of Judaism's creed, the Shema, a lamb, cake of bread, and wine were offered on the altar. (Remind you of the Mass?) It was the heart of Israel's spirituality, yet Jews such as the Holy Family lived too far away to take part except on special occassions. (Nazareth was approximately 70 miles from Jerusalem.)

At least two centuries before the birth of Jesus, the Jewish people adopted the practice of stopping, wherever they were, three times a day, to pray facing toward the Temple. They prayed at 9 a.m., and 3 p.m., as the tamid was being offered, and again around sunset when any remaining scraps were burned on the altar and the Temple gate closed. The people's daily prayer joined them to the Temple's sacrifices!

Of what did their personal prayer consist? It largely mirrored the Temple's liturgy.  At the first and third times of prayer, they recited the Shema, "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD ..." ; You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength" (Dt 6:4-9; Dt 11:13-21; and Num15:37-41). At all three times of prayer they prayed the Eighteen Benedictions, a beautiful tapestry of blessing and petition.

St. Paul invites us Christians to unite our lives - our regular, busy lives of work and family - to Jesus’ sacrifice, made present in the Eucharist. “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, for this is our spiritual worship” (Rom 12:1). United to Jesus, our every thought, word, and action can become an offering to the Father.  It is as simple as making our own daily (preferably morning) offering: “Jesus, I offer You my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world.”

Further, we can mirror the Holy Family's beginning and ending their day with the Shema, by beginning and ending ours with the Sign of the Cross. It is our Nicene and Apostle's Creeds in miniature. Whenever we make it we proclaim our belief that it is through Christ’s Cross that we enter into the inner life of the Father, Son, and Spirit; and his grace can empower us to do so with all our mind, all our heart, and all our strength! (It is our Christian Shema.) The early Church also retained the Jewish practice of praying three times a day, but instead of the Eighteen Benedictions they prayed the Our Father (CCC 2767). Taught to us by Christ himself, it is the perfect prayer, encapsulating all others (CCC 2765; 2762).

So if you can't make it to Mass, take a lesson from the Holy Family: pray a Daily Offering and have recourse to the Sign of the Cross and the Our Father (slowly, intentionally) at least three times in the course of the day. You would also be well-advised to invite Mary and Joseph to pray with you; if they were good enough for Jesus, they're certainly good enough for you and me!
____________________________
Oh, and if you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy the soon-to-be-released book, Through,With, and In Him: The Prayer Life of Jesus and How to Make It Our Own.

Why I Love "Rote" Catholic Prayers

My friend Denise Fath posted this quote from Emeritus Pope Benedict on Facebook this morning, and it captured my sentiments perfectly: 

"Prayer should be 'wholly personal' but we also constantly need to make use of those prayers that express in words the encounter with God experienced both by the Church as a whole and by individual members of the Church. For without these aids to prayer, our own praying and our image of God becomes subjective and end up reflecting ourselves more than the living God."

Amen.  The prayers of the Church and of her saints, rather than stifle my ability to express myself to God, enlarged it.  I slowly came to see how the spontaneous - what seemed to me, the more “authentic” - prayers I offered at the beginning of my faith journey were those of a child.  They were heartfelt and sincere but, in retrospect, they seemed focused upon my life and the small circle of lives touching mine.  They were limited by my lack of knowledge regarding both the deepest needs and movements of the human heart and how prayer could be more than thought and words.   

The prayers of the Church are those of an adult with two thousand years of spiritual depth and know-how.  When I listened to her pray, especially at Mass, I was called out of myself, called to pray for and with the whole Body of Christ – on earth, in purgatory, and in heaven!  I was called to pray, fast, and do penance both for my sins and my brothers’ and sisters’.  Left to myself I don’t know how I ever could have arrived at the realization that all of our daily activities, even suffering, can be transformed into prayer! (My spontaneous prayers now take all of this into account.)

And studying the gospels and the religious life of Jewish people in first century Palestine convinces me that the Church did not arrive at the content or manner of her prayer lightly.  I found the same concerns and practices in the prayer of Jesus himself! The Church’s rich spiritual life is the work of the same Holy Spirit through whom Jesus poured himself out in prayer to the Father.