The Sacred Heart - Source of Our Prayer

When we speak of Jesus’s prayer, it is legitimate to put “prayer” within quotation marks. (Benedict XVI did this in Volume I of his Jesus of Nazareth). It is done when we want to highlight the uniqueness of Jesus’ prayer. It was, after all, the human prayer of the Second Person of the Trinity. But even on the purely human level, the personal union of God and man in Christ allowed his prayer to be something impossible since humanity’s fall from grace – the loving conversation of a child with his Father, as opposed to simply a creature petitioning and offering homage to his or her Creator.

I think there is also a truth to be highlighted by coming at prayer from the opposite direction too – to say that Jesus prayed, and you and I “pray” to the degree that we unite ourselves to His prayer. It is in Jesus, after all, that every human action  –  prayer included – reaches perfection. Only He can show us what it means to be fully human, and only He can teach us what it really means to pray.  And because prayer is an activity of the heart (CCC 2562), meditation upon Jesus’ Sacred Heart will open our eyes to the startling reality of what it means to pray as a Christian.

From eternity, God the Father and God the Son have been communicating Themselves to Each Other in the Person of the Holy Spirit. In a never ending, perfect rush of Love, Father and Son pour Themselves out to One Another. When the Son became a human being he continued to pour himself out to the Father, but that gift began to be “channeled” through a human heart – Jesus’ Sacred Heart. God the Son expressed His love and dependence upon the Father in human thoughts, displays of emotion, words, and actions.

Jesus assured the apostles that, “no one comes to the Father but by me.” We do not have independent relationships with God the Father; we participate in Jesus’ relationship with the Father! We believe that Jesus wants to perfect our words and actions in this world by making them extensions of His own (we are saved by grace), and that extends to our prayer lives.

Jesus desires to raise our prayer up into His own, and He does this through the Holy Spirit. What I am talking about is a Mystery of the first order. Listen to St. Paul:

… the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, for the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (Rom. 8:26-27)

That’s right – the Divine communication that takes place in eternity, the Divine communication that was channeled through the human heart of God the Son, is now (because of our union with Christ) occurring inside of you and me! The YOUCAT says it about as clearly and as beautifully as possible:

Basically prayer means that from the depths of my heart, God speaks to God. The Holy Spirit helps our spirit to pray. Hence we should say again and again, “Come, Holy Spirit, come and help me to pray.” (YOUCAT 496)

Yes Holy Spirit, flow from the Sacred Heart of our Savior to ours (Jn. 7:38), and fill us with his prayer to the Father.  

If you wish to begin uttering Jesus’ prayer right now, then pray the Our Father, for “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Gal.4:6). As the Catechism teaches:

[This] prayer that comes to us from Jesus is truly unique... On the one hand, in the words of this prayer the only Son gives us the words the Father gave him [Jn.17:7]... On the other, as Word incarnate, he knows in his human heart the needs of his human brothers and sisters and reveals them to us: he is the model of our prayer (CCC 2765).

Jesus discloses and entrusts his Heart to us at Mass. He professes his love to us in the words of consecration and delivers himself – heart, soul, body, blood, soul, and divinity – into the arms of his beloved in Communion. The Mass makes present his sacrifice upon the Cross, “where prayer and the gift of self are but one” (CCC 2605), and it is our participation in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that identifies us with his Heart – “This is my body…this is my blood…Do this” (CCC 1419).
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If you'd like to read more along these lines, you might enjoy Through, With, and In Him: The Prayer Life of Jesus and How to Make It Our Own.

Jesus' Prayer within the Womb of Mary

Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) said something – actually, tens of thousands of things – that it would do us a tremendous amount of good to meditate upon. In his book Behold the Pierced One, he wrote “[P]rayer was the central act of the person of Jesus…this person is constituted by the act of prayer, of unbroken communication with the one he calls ‘Father.’”[1] This was true at every point of our Lord’s human life, including the nine months he spent in the womb of our Blessed Mother. And because our Lord “enables us to live in him all that he himself lived” (CCC 521), Jesus’ embryonic prayer life is able to massively enrich our own – especially when we are at a loss for the words to pray!

Our Lord’s prayer throughout his first 40 weeks on earth was completely wordless. From the nanosecond his soul and body came into existence, our Lord’s entire humanity was oriented toward the Father. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews heard the prayer of Jesus’ heart in Psalm 40:

When Christ came into the world, he said,“Sacrifices and offerings thou hast not desired,but a body hast thou prepared for me;in burnt offerings and sin offerings thou hast taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God,’as it is written of me in the roll of the book.”(Heb 10:5-7; Ps 40:6-8)

Simply by being, by existing as a child, Jesus was at prayer. It was the prayer of surrender, entrustment. Words were not needed. In the heights of his soul, Jesus gazed upon the Father with all the clarity of the saints in heaven. He was “not engaged in the adult business of thinking at all.” Rather, “in the earthly paradise of his Mother’s body, he is resting and seeing and loving and praising the Father.”[2] And his prayer is available to us in our moments of need. No, we do not have his direct vision of the God the Father, but we can gaze upon the God-Man in the Eucharist.

At some point each of us finds ourselves at a loss for what to say to God. It is usually at a time of intense trial. The pain of disease, agony of loss, or sting of betrayal leave us overwhelmed. Our sadness and anger are so acute that we feel abandoned, as if God were a universe away. How do we pray in those moments? We look to Jesus, who desires to draw us into his own prayer.

No matter how deep our pain and confusion, nor how distant we may feel from God, when we visit Jesus in the tabernacle we objectively place ourselves in his presence. When the Eucharist, the Lord’s Body, is reserved in a Tabernacle or exposed to our eyes in a monstrance, we are allowed to kneel and gaze upon our brother Jesus … as He gazes upon the Father. There he is – just as he has been from all of eternity – surrendered to the Father in the Holy Spirit, and offering himself completely to us

When you don’t have the words, put yourself in Jesus’ presence and fasten your eyes upon him. Be with him. In baptism he united you to his own conception by the Holy Spirit. Jesus made you a child of the Father. Open your arms to him and let his Spirit, dwelling within you, “intercede with sighs too deep for words” (Rom 8:26). Begin there. In a short time your ability to speak will return and you will be able to make Jesus’ prayer in Gethsamene your own (it’s there in the Our Father). You will be able to open your Bible and pray the psalms he did upon the Cross (Ps 22, 31, and 69), psalms that praise the Father for the resurrection to come, even amidst the pain. But begin like Jesus by gazing upon the Lord and resting in his presence… resting beneath the heart of the Blessed Mother. 

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Our Lord's prayer is an infinite source of riches. If you'd like to go a little deeper, I have several articles available here as well as my labor of love, the book Through, With, and In Him.
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[1] Joseph Ratzinger, Behold the Pierced One: An Approach to a Spiritual Christology (Ignatius Press: San Francisco, 1986).
[2] Saward, John, Redeemer in the Womb (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993).

Hey St. Louis, You're Invited!

St. Ferdinand Parish in St. Louis, is hosting me for a Lenten talk - and anyone and everyone is cordially invited. There is no charge. 

If you'd like a preview of some of the information I'll be sharing, here are a few links:
The Sacred Heart - Source of Our Prayer
Jesus' Transfiguration: 4 Steps to Hearing God's Voice
How to Pray When the Words Won't Come
If You Can't Make Daily Mass, Pray Like JMJ
If Jesus Prayed Judaism's Eighteen Benedictions, Why Don't We?
Daily Consecration - Christ's and Ours
The Shema and the Sign of the Cross
Why I Love "Rote" Catholic Prayers
Our Prayer: God's Love for God
The Rosary and Mary's Jewish Prayer Life
Jesus' Prayer for His Church at His Ascension
We Still Find Him in the Temple
Praying Around the Clock: The Liturgy of the Hours


I will wrap my presentation around 8 p.m., and then Fr. Tom Haley will lead us in Evening Prayer (from the Liturgy of the Hours).  We hope you'll stick around afterwards to visit. Also, if you are interested in purchasing a book, there will be a small table in the gathering space.

You can find directions here: 1765 Charbonier Road, Florissant, MO  63031

Why Do We Address God as "Father," Instead of "Mother"?

Well, because that is what Jesus did, and as Christians we don't have an independent relationship with God; we participate in Jesus' relationship.

Over the years I have heard a number of people object, "But Jesus only did that because of the patriarchal nature of ancient cultures" - the underlying assumption being that Jesus' word choice was culturally conditioned.   

The difficulty with that assumption is the freedom Jesus demonstrated throughout his ministry in breaking with the gender conventions of the time:  meeting with women privately, welcoming them to travel with him independent of their husbands, and his selection of women (unable to testify in courts of law at that point in history!) as the first witnesses to His resurrection.  His decision to name only males as apostles and address God with the masculine “Father” was not circumscribed by the outside culture.  In fact, priestesses and female deities existed throughout the Middle East as well as among the Greeks and Romans.  As the Word made flesh, Jesus’ revelation of God as Father was both free and deliberate. But why?

In Hebrew and Christian thought God is bigger than gender.  Both male and female are reflections of the Deity (Gen.1:27).  Scripture compares God to a mother (Is.49:15; Hos.11:3-4).  And yet, throughout the whole of Scripture, God is never addressed as “Mother.”  There is something about fatherhood that is more analogous than motherhood for describing God’s relationship to us.  Scripture does not come out and explain it, but I would suggest that male and female have been invested by God with an “iconic character.”  By this I mean that the differences we observe between male and female can give us insight into spiritual realities.

Think about the complementary roles the mother and father play in the conception of the child.  The father comes from the "outside," and the mother welcomes the father into herself.  The ovum produced by the mother awaits the father's sperm cell, and the union of the two produces the child’s body.  The child then grows within her mother, unable to see her father’s face until birth.   

God also plays a "Fatherly" role in every conception - coming from outside of all creation to breathe a spirit, an intellectual soul, into the child at the instant of his/her physical conception.  All of God’s actions come from “the outside” so to speak, and in this way are Fatherly.  The Church on the other hand – and the individual souls that make it up - is the  part of creation that has received God into itself and allowed him to bring forth new supernatural life.  In this analogy, whether biologically male or female, each human soul resembles the feminine.  This explains why Scripture refers to the Church as Christ’s Bride (Eph.5:22-23), and the Mother of the faithful (Rev.12:17).

As members of Christ's Body we approach God the Father through, with, and in Jesus.  In union with him we pray "Our Father, who art in heaven ..."
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This post was adapted from Through, With, and In Him: The Prayer Life of Jesus and How to Make It Our Own.

Question:  If we think about the "iconic character" attached to gender, might that yield an insight as to why the ministerial priesthood has been reserved to males?  If the priest is ordained to function "in the person of Christ" in ministering to the Lord's Bride, then doesn't the priest's masculinity function as a sacramental sign of Christ, the Divine Groom?

Mail from the Vatican!

Since Cardinal Ratzinger's writings figured so heavily in Through, With, and In Him, I sent a copy to both the Pope Emeritus and Pope Francis. It was pretty exciting to fish this out of the mailbox today:

An Unexpected Honor for TWIH

I just received the link to Pete Socks' (The Catholic Book Blogger at Patheos) Top 10 Picks for 2014 and was completely surprised and honored to find my Through, With, and In Him: The Prayer Life of Jesus and How to Make It Our Own listed among them! I find it listed among the books of good friends like Dr. Kevin Vost and Jared Zimmerer, as well as authors who helped form my own faith, such as Scott Hahn. Let me just humbly say, "Thank You, Lord. Thank you for using such a poor instrument to write about such a mighty subject. May it be of benefit to Your children."

Someone Broke Into Our Car

When the kids and I went out to the car this morning, we quickly realized that someone had been in it overnight.  (I forgot to lock it.)  I usually leave my wallet and cell phone in the compartment between the driver and passenger seats; but I had brought in the cell phone for an early morning call, and I had my wallet in my pocket when I came in from the store last night. Fortunately, I hadn't loaded my work laptop into the trunk either (here's to putting things off until morning!).

The thief had to be pretty bummed when all he could find to take was a small bag of change.

I have lived in my house for five years and never experienced something like this before. What really made me chuckle was the timing of the theft: Just an hour before going out to the car, I had been talking to Matt Swaim on EWTN's Son Rise Morning Show, and one of the things we discussed was Jesus' prayer, "Father, forgive them." Matt and I talked about the way Jesus taught us to pray the same way in the Our Father, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." You have to love it when the Lord gives you a chance to walk the talk. Had I not just spoken with Matt, my heart may have been in a different state.  Thanks to the preparation, however, the kids and I launched straight into our morning prayer:

"Lord, we ask you to forgive, to pardon, the person who was in our car last night.  Please make him truly sorry for what he did and cause him to turn to you, ask for forgiveness, and never do this again.  If he or his family needed that bit of change to buy some food, we ask that they receive what they need.  And Lord, we thank you that you made sure we brought everything of value into the house last night. You take such incredible care of us, Lord. I will stop leaving my phone and wallet in the car overnight, and I'll be sure to double-check that it is locked.  Thank you, Lord.  Our Father..."

I recognize that I didn't have much to forgive. It was a small lesson ... but even small lessons have their purpose. My mind went to words I reread last night in preparation for my talk with Matt:

"I know what you are thinking: when you imagine yourself on his cross, praying 'Father, forgive them' seems impossible. But baptism makes it possible! It unites my soul to his. I could never pray those words on my own, apart from the action of the Holy Spirit. But through the Spirit, through the action of grace upon my soul, Jesus can pray those words in me; and they can become mine! Each time I pray the Our Father and cooperate with his grace to forgive people their small wrongs against me, my soul grows toward forgiving those who would take my life." (Through, With, and In Him, p.76)

 

Thank the Lord for baby steps.

 

CATHOLIC ANSWERS - LIVE: Help Me Prepare!

Hey my friends, on Monday, June 9th, I will be visiting with the Catholic Answers - LIVE radio program about my new book, Through, With, and In Him. 

I've listened to the program for years and am a huge fan of their work. That said, I know that a LOT of people both listen and CALL IN WITH QUESTIONS.  I was hoping that you good folks might lend me a hand by: (1) Praying that the Lord gives me wisdom and allows the words to flow easily that afternoon; and (2) Putting yourself in a "Patrick Coffin state of mind" and posting some questions you think he or callers may ask regarding the book, their prayer lives, Jesus' prayer life, and/or Catholic devotions.

If you post a question in the comment section, it would be a real help; and I will do my best to have an answer up within 36 hours. My thanks in advance! 

                                                                        -Shane

The Rosary & Our Mother Mary's Jewish Prayer Life

When I ponder what it means for Mary to be the mother of God incarnate, one of the most astounding aspects is to recognize the role she played in shaping Jesus’s human prayer. Yes, in the heights of His soul Jesus beheld the Father as clearly as the angels in heaven; but as a child, “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).  When Jesus entrusted the Church to Mary at the Cross (Jn. 19:26-27; Rev. 12:17), He extended her motherhood to His entire Mystical Body. She became, in an utterly unique way (next to her Son of course), the Church’s great instructor in prayer. I think we see this most especially in the Rosary, and the way it mirrors the prayer times Mary and Jesus shared as devout Jews.

As faithful Jews, Jesus and Mary stopped three times each day to pray together.  They recited Israel’s creed, the Shema: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD; and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart. . .  .” (Deut. 6:4–9, 11:13–21; Num. 15:37–41). They also prayed the Eighteen Benedictions, a beautiful, comprehensive tapestry of praise and petition. And between those times of prayer, as Mary went about the business of the day, she pondered the words of the Torah and the Prophets that she had heard in the synagogue and discussed with Jesus and Joseph. Through her meditation the Holy Spirit planted the words of Scripture so deeply in Mary’s heart that they naturally permeated her spontaneous prayer (see 1 Sam. 2:1-8 and Lk. 1:46-55) Most importantly, Mary’s heart was fixed upon her Son’s every word and action, contemplating the divine condescension to which she was exposed on a daily basis and how the covenants with Abraham, Moses and David were all reaching their fulfillment in Jesus. Mary’s prayer, so intimately united to the prayer of her Son, is the most beautiful imaginable – and that is what the Holy Spirit wants to give us in the Rosary!

You see, in the New Covenant, the magnificent prayer of God’s people has been to new heights. Jesus commanded His disciples to pray the Our Father, a prayer whose seven petitions encapsulate all others – the Eighteen Benedictions included. And when it is prayed slowly, with the proper awe and love expressed in the words, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,” it can encapsulate all blessing and thanksgiving as well. The early Church recognized this quite clearly (CCC 2767). The revelation of God’s oneness constantly confessed by the Jewish people in the Shema, has been completed by Jesus’s revelation of the Trinity and our confession of it in the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds and our making of the Sign of the Cross (the Creed in miniature) each time we prayer. All of this, and more, is present when we pray the Rosary.

We also join in Mary’s contemplation of her Son – contemplating Him in the light of Scripture. We invoke her intercession, softly praying the words of Scripture (the Hail Mary – Lk. 1:28, 42-43), as we mediate upon the mysteries of her and Jesus’s lives, narrated in the gospels. As we think and rethink the evangelists’ inspired words the Holy Spirit blesses us with deeper understanding of their significance and calls us, as He did Mary, to ever more profound discipleship. We complete our meditation on each mystery with the Glory Be – even more Scripture (Lk. 2:14; Matt. 28:19; Rev. 1:8). It’s such an amazing reflection of our Lady’s own prayer life! Pope St. John Paul II called Mary’s meditation, “the ‘rosary’ which she recited uninterruptedly throughout her earthly life;” and he invited us to join her: “With the Rosary, the Christian people sits at the school of Mary and is led to contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love” (Rosarium Virginis Mariae, 11; 1). Is it any wonder that when our Blessed Mother has been sent to earth – such as at Lourdes and Fatima – she beseeches us to pray the Rosary? It is one of the most important ways she nourishes and instructs the children entrusted to her by Jesus, at the Cross. It is one of the main ways she cooperates with the Holy Spirit to mother the Body as she did our Head!

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If you enjoyed the information shared in this post, you may also enjoy the book, Through, With, and  In Him: The Prayer Life of Jesus and How to Make It Our Own (Angelico Press, 2014), which explores these points in further detail.

Walking the Chaplet of Divine Mercy

Divine Mercy Chaplet made at Etsy.com

Today I am trapped inside by the frigid temps, but last weekend I was able to get out for a five mile walk; and with both spring and Lent just around the corner I wanted to suggest a method of prayer. 

Now, on a five mile walk there is plenty of time to pray the Rosary and Chaplet of Divine Mercy - and the latter, multiple times.  I often find it hard to focus during the Chaplet, but last weekend I found two different ways of praying it that, combined with the physicality of walking, held my attention. 

Each of the fifty times I prayed, "For the sake of His sorrowful Passion have mercy on us and on the whole world," I imagined:

1. Our Lord receiving one more blow from the whip
2. Jesus taking one more agonizing step under the weight of the Cross

Prayed while walking at a good clip - breathing a little heavier, with ankles a bit sore - it kept my focus on Jesus' pain, and how little my discomfort is in comparison ... and then I went ahead and united my little discomfort to His Passion.

The Cover of the New Book!

Angelico Press emailed this to me earlier today.  

The release date is April 4th!

Book Release ... It's Getting Closer

I have been looking forward to this book's release for quite some time, and I can't believe it's almost here.  The human prayer of Jesus - it's an absolute ocean for us to immerse ourselves in, and the Holy Spirit opens the way through the Church's sacraments, devotions, and practices!  I'm very excited by the early reviews that have come in:
"Shane Kapler has reflected deeply upon the Scriptures and the history of the Christian people. He makes it clear that the mystery of God is not something to be figured out, but rather, something to immerse oneself in." 
- Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki, Springfield, IL

"This text beautifully and masterfully demonstrates that when our eyes are opened to the rich theological truths of the Church, seen through their ancient Jewish scriptural and liturgical roots, our hearts will stand all the more ready to embrace that Sacred Heart of Christ who taught us to how to pray." - Kevin Vost, author of Memorize the Reasons! 

“This book gives more than most of us know how to wish for. Shane Kapler leads readers beyond ‘prayers’ to prayer. Beginning to pray in this way, we can begin to live our heaven even as we pass our days on earth. As the child's voice said to St. Augustine: Take up and read! This book can change your life for the better.” - Mike Aquilina, author of
The Mass: The Glory, The Mystery, The Tradition 

  "In this well researched book we learn how Jesus truly and concretely desires to incorporate us into his prayer life with the Father. Kapler offers a brilliant and well organized blending together of the rituals of the Jewish tradition and the liturgical prayer of Jesus and His Church.   Historical, theological, liturgical, devotional, and deeply personal, this book is certain to help you grow more in love with Jesus and the treasures offered to you through His Church!"
- Fr. Donald Calloway, MIC, author of Under the Mantle: Marian Thoughts from a 21st Century Priest


You can read more about the book HERE as well as check out some of the themes in my most recent blog posts.

How to Pray When the Words Won't Come (Look to Jesus, Literally)

At some point in life each of us finds ourselves at a loss for what to say to God. It is usually at a time of intense trial.  The pain of disease, agony of loss, or sting of betrayal leave us overwhelmed.  Our sadness and anger are so acute that we fell abandoned, as if God were a universe away.  How do we pray in those moments?  We look to the example of our Lord Jesus, who desires to draw us into his own prayer.

We can and should look to how Jesus prayed in his Passion (his words and use of the Psalms) ... but I wouldn't necessarily begin there.  More than anything else we need God's nearness, need to know that we dwell in his presence; and for that we should look to how Jesus prayed within the womb of Mary.

Our Lord's prayer throughout his first 40 weeks on earth was completely wordless. From the nanosecond his soul and body came into existence, our Lord's entire humanity was oriented toward the Father. The writer of the Epistle to the  Hebrews heard the prayer of  Jesus' heart in Psalm 40:

When Christ came into the world, he said,
"Sacrifices and offerings thou hast not desired,
but a body hast thou prepared for me;
in burnt offerings and sin offerings thou hast taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God,’as it is written of me in the roll of the book.”
(Heb 10:5-7; Ps 40:6-8)

Simply by being, by existing as a child, Jesus was at prayer. It was the prayer of surrender, entrustment. Words were not needed.  In the heights of his soul, Jesus gazed upon the Father with all the clarity of the saints in heaven. He was “not engaged in the adult business of thinking at all." Rather, "in the earthly paradise of his Mother’s body, he is resting and seeing and loving and praising the Father.” [1]  And his prayer is available to us in our moments of need.  No, we do not have his direct vision of the God the Father, but we can gaze upon the God-Man in the Eucharist.

No matter how deep our pain and confusion, nor how distant we might feel from God, we objectively place ourselves in his presence when we visit him in the tabernacle.  When the Eucharist, the Lord’s Body, is reserved in a Tabernacle or exposed to our eyes in a monstrance, we are allowed to kneel and gaze upon our brother Jesus ... as He gazes upon the Father. There he is – just as he has been from all of eternity - surrendered to the Father in the Holy Spirit, and offering himself completely to us. St. Jean Marie Vianney once asked a parishioner what went through his mind as he sat in the church, day after day, staring up at the altar: “Nothing.  I am not much good at thinking, nor do I know many prayers.  So I just sit here, as you see, looking at God.  I look at him and he looks at me.  That is all.”[2]  That is all?  What a reflection of Jesus' prayer in the womb of Mary!

When you don't have the words, put yourself in Jesus' presence and fasten your eyes upon him.  Be with him.  Open your arms to him and let his Holy Spirit, dwelling within you, "intercede with sighs too deep for words" (Rom 8:26).  Begin there.  In a short time your ability to speak will return and you will be able to make Jesus' prayer in Gethsamene your own (it's there in the Our Father).  You will be able to open your Bible and pray the psalms he did upon the Cross (Ps 22, 31, and 69), psalms that praise the Father for the resurrection to come, even amidst the pain.  But begin, like Jesus, by gazing upon the Lord.

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[1] Saward, John, Redeemer in the Womb (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993),  p.73.

[2] Lomask, Milton, The Cure of Ars: The Priest Who Outtalked the Devil, (New York: Vision Books, 1966),  p.151. 

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.
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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!
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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.

Jesus' Transfiguration - 4 Steps to Hearing God's Voice

You recall Jesus' transfiguration: While Jesus was at prayer on a mountaintop, Peter, James, and John witnessed Him become “more brilliant than the sun.” Moses and Elijah appeared to Jesus, and the disciples heard them discussing his “exodus.” The scene culminated with a cloud (the Shekinah, or cloud of God’s glory) overshadowing the mountain as God the Father proclaimed, “This is my beloved Son, listen to him” (Lk 9:28-35).  We all want to hear God's voice the way Peter, James, and John did; and the narrative of Jesus' Transfiguration gives us a blueprint for doing that - a practice known as lectio divina, "divine reading."

Step 1 - Get yourself "into position" to hear God
We have it easy compared to the apostles.  They had to climb a mountain before they experienced the Transfiguration.  For most of us it's just a matter of finding a quiet place in the house or stepping out onto the porch.  (Alright, depending on your family, a small hike might be in order.) Consciously place yourself in God's presence by making the Sign of the Cross.  Pray the Our Father to ask God for the daily bread of his word.  You need his word so that his Kingdom may more fully come and his will be more fully done in your life.  This bread, like the Eucharist, strengthens us to fight temptation and the evil one (Eph 6:17; Mt 4:3-11). We need the Lord to open the ears of our hearts.

Step 2 - Read his word
Like Jesus, allow the Father to speak to you through Moses (representing the books of the Law) and Elijah (the prophets).  Listen to Jesus himself in the gospels, and the apostles in the epistles.  Accept what you read in a spirit of humility, not intellectual pride or skepticism. By all means, use the study notes in your Bible's margin and commentaries to better understand the text; but never allow your heart to question its truthfulness. Jesus is our model.  As Dr. Scott Hahn pointed out, "Jesus embodies the response of personal humility that the form of the written Word requires. Hearing the Scriptures as the voice of the Father, he allowed himself to be formed by it message in all aspects of his human life" (Consuming the Word, p.99).

Step 3 - Invite the Spirit to "overshadow" you as you ponder what you have read
This is meditation, Christian meditation.  No need to cross your legs or chant "ohm" (although softly reciting ten Hail Marys - a decade of the Rosary - is highly encouraged). Meditation simply means to think things over deeply and prayerfully.  Try to get inside the text by asking questions.  Interact with it the way Jesus interacted with Moses and Elijah.  For example, if you were meditating on the Transfiguration, try putting yourself in St. James' sandals: What would have gone through your head when you saw Jesus' face begin emitting light right there in front of you?  When you heard the Father say, "Listen to him," would your mind have turned to the parts of his teaching you had conveniently ignored? Now ask yourself, "What parts of Jesus' teaching have I been ignoring?"  If you take seriously what you've read, how should your life change?  Can you think of something concrete that you can begin doing today?

Step 4 - "Listen to him" - resolve to live what you have heard
Voice your thoughts and conclusions to the Lord.  Ask him for the grace to live out whatever resolutions you have made.  Allow Jesus to accompany you "down the mountain," as you reenter the business of life.

And there you go - 4 steps to hearing God's voice!  Please let me know how it goes.
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P.S.,  If you enjoyed this post, you might also like the soon-to-be-released book, Through,With, and In Him: The Prayer Life of Jesus and How to Make It Our Own.