A Little Ditty About Prayer

 

 

There are many things Christians do as marks of their faith and religion. Prayer is one of them. But we are not the only one. Other religions meditate, sacrifice, and acknowledge  be or a state of being that is greater than themselves. But the Abrahamic religions, those which have descended from the seed of Abraham (Judaism, Islam, and Christianity) are the ones who believe we can pray to our God. We believe we have more or less a speed dial that eclipses speed – a direct link to our creator we can use when we are scared, joyful, in need of help, or just want to know what to do with our lives.  We three have very distinct religious practices but our religions include this particular facet among many other things - this maybe being of the most overlooked commonalities.

But as Christians we pray different. As Catholics we definitely pray different. We have our Liturgical prayers that take place during the mass which as a convert took some getting used to. Other Liturgies are used at certain rites, or sacraments such as Baptism, the Rite of Election, First Communion, Confirmation, and funeral ceremonies. Others forms of prayer are more personal but also hold a more communal and corporate use such as the Rosary or the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Monks, praying the 150 psalms daily through the use of a small rope with 150 knots in it gave a desire to the laity to pray daily and to memorize some scripture. Soon there emerged a quote from Luke’s Gospel from the Annunciation scene, “Hail Mary full of grace, the lord is with you…”, and combined this with an intercessory request to “pray for us…”. We have others which we recite on our own in front of the Blessed Sacrament or others we pray before meals and still others we create for ourselves.

But all of this goes back to Jesus for us. How He prayed. When He prayed. Who He prayed to. Jesus prayed daily. Not just once a day, but throughout the day, usually starting in the morning. Mark Ch. 1 gives us this daily prayer at morning, midday, and after sunset. He did not just pray with the others but often, and in this example, went out and prayed by Himself. Mark does not tell what the prayer is, only that he did it. This remains the case up until Gethsemane where he must have been at a threshold to remember the words of the Lord when he was close to death. Jesus when praying, even when in most of need and certainly serious, calls God “Abba” being the Hebrew word for “Father.” We should do this as well because as adopted children of God, He too is our Heavenly Father and it is our privilege to call Him by that title. As I started this little writing, there are many things that separate our religions and in prayer, which we have in common, this is the distinctive element. So it is both a heresy to our separated brethren, and a privilege for us at the same time. Why do we do it though? Because we follow in the example of Jesus – hence the perfect title of the “Our Father.” Let us follow Jesus’ example: let us pray many times per day, let us pray when troubled and happy,  let us call Him “Father”.

Know why you are Christian – know what distinguishes you from the rest – and exploit and develop those differences.