I would like to take from this school that Jesus gives to the Twelve four practical tips for learning how to pray. Jesus teaches how prayer comes to blossom. Let us remember well that only Jesus is our Master of prayer, the Master of masters.
Everyone else, including the Saints, are only supporting teachers or humble repeaters. Let no one say, “I know how to pray.” In Heaven we shall know how to pray. Even those who pray a great deal are always beginners in prayer.
So let us begin to look at these four tips.
One of the disciples said: Lord, teach us to pray.
If I do not want to, I will not learn how to pray.
Notice well that the disciples had seen Jesus pray a great deal: spending the night in prayer, seeking solitary places for prayer, even leaving the poor in order to pray—for His appointment of prayer with the Father.
The disciples must have thought: What does He do for so long in prayer? What does He say? What does He think?
Master, teach us to pray.
And notice that the disciples, as good Israelites, were accustomed to prayer. They knew the Psalms recited in the synagogues. From childhood they had learned the Psalms, from the so-called blessings, the berakhot, to prayers of praise and blessing. They used them constantly throughout the day—up to more than 600 blessings from the crowing of the rooster until sunset.
Yet they ask themselves: How can He remain so long in silence? What happens? What does He say? What does He think? Perhaps they were expecting a formula.
The search for a formula comes from their weak way of thinking.
Jesus provides a short but extremely profound “formula” for long periods of prayer.
The first rule of prayer
Prayer must not begin with our problems but with attention to God: looking Him in the eyes and calling Him Father; entering into a direct relationship with God, into His presence as Father—Dad—from the heart of God, and letting ourselves be looked at in the eyes.
Here is the great truth about our prayer: a relationship from person to Person with God.
How often this does not happen: we ask for many things, but if we do not ask for a person-to-person relationship, we do not enter into prayer. Prayer is a relationship of affectionate trust with God; it is prayer of love and tenderness.
I forgot one thing: I wanted to say that I address this program, this school of prayer, especially to young people who are ill.
I would like above all to reach them, because they are the great power of the Church. They especially need a school of prayer, also because they have suffering to offer. We have words to offer; they have something else: their suffering.
So I would like to recommend to all listeners who are ill that it is first of all for them that I want to speak—especially for young people who are ill—and then for all those who are troubled.
This is the audience I would like for my school of prayer: above all, to have the sick in the front row, young people who are ill, and all those who are burdened, because those who suffer are the ones who most need to learn deep prayer.
We must enter into a relationship of affectionate trust with God.
Jesus says: when you pray, say Father. Prayer is love, tenderness.
Has there been a word of tenderness for God in our prayer?
Our minds are full of useless clutter; we must throw everything away. We must learn to prepare ourselves for prayer and leave outside everything that prevents contact with God.
Romano Guardini says that everything depends on recollection; no effort made for this purpose is wasted. The first thing in prayer consists in creating recollection; it is always time well spent—it is prayer itself.
Jesus continues.
When you pray, say:
Our Father,
hallowed be Your name,
Your Kingdom come.
Here, then, is a second very important rule for prayer.
Your prayer must not start from your own interests but from God’s interests; it must be a relationship of love. Once again Jesus is saying: you are before God who is Father and Dad—open yourself to love.
What, then, can I do?
Hallowed be Your name.
May His Person be sanctified; may God be known; may the Person of God be known—first of all by you, and then by everyone. And then Jesus says to you:
Your Kingdom come, that is, may Your Kingdom arrive on earth—first of all in your heart. You must open your heart to Him and let Him enter.
In Matthew’s text, Matthew says that Jesus added:
Your will be done.
Perhaps this explains hallowed be Your name, Your Kingdom come.
How do I sanctify the name of God, the Person of God? How do I foster the Kingdom in my heart and in the hearts of all?
Perhaps I do this: Your will be done.
Here is the core of your prayer, the breakthrough of your journey of love: you must do the will of God—and not in just any way, but perfectly.
Your will be done, as in heaven—that is, in a perfect way.
In simple words: you must come to love God with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. And you love God with all your strength if you do His will with all your strength—through prayer and with the soul of prayer, which is love.
Without love there is no prayer. No sentimentalism. To love perfectly is to seek to do the will of God with all one’s strength.
One day Mother Teresa said:
“Do you want to know what it means to be saints? It is to do the will of God—but with a smile.”
Love compels you to descend into conscience, because love is in deeds—facts. The first rule of holiness given to the first man He called, Abraham, was: Walk before Me and be blameless. This is the will of God.
Jesus fulfilled the will of the Father in an extraordinary way: My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me—food, that is, what sustains Me. I have not come to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.
Father, not My will, but Yours be done.
Continuing:
Your Kingdom come.
It is not enough for me to pray only in a generic way; I must come down to the practical level. And it is not enough to think only of myself. It means that I love You, but that my family also loves You; that my prayer becomes a continual prayer of intercession—if there is someone in my family who does not think of God.
So, my friends, I will not give myself peace. I want to intercede as Abraham did—intercede even to the point of tears, but intercede concretely: what can I do?
Without starting from afar—what can I do today within my family?
Jesus, the psychologist, teaches us to take care of today. Do not even think about the will of God you will have to do tomorrow; think about what you must do today. Do not think about tomorrow; tomorrow will have its own prayer. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
You must pray for the problems of the world, against that word spoken by Cain: Am I my brother’s keeper?
This is the greatest drama of our days. Do not pray for abstract problems. Consider concrete situations of the day, for very specific people.
If you can, do it for the precise people who cause the drama—for example, pray for Islamic fundamentalists in Algeria.
Then you immediately understand the dynamism beneath such a prayer: it has become love.
The third tip
Jesus continues:
Give us each day our daily bread,
forgive us our sins as we forgive others,
do not lead us into temptation.
We must pray about the things that burn, about the problems that beset us—with love.
Jesus explains to me which problems burn. He suggests three: the material needs of today; forgive us our debts; do not lead us into temptation.
For Him, these are the three burning problems.
Do not be afraid to ask. Therefore, I must place before God the problems that assail me—but I must do so with faith.
This is the point. This is what Jesus wants me to learn. And so, to help you understand what and how to ask with faith, Jesus tells the short parable of the persistent friend.
Everyone asks for a miracle. Jesus is often seen as a dispenser of miracles.
Jesus speaks of faith, and when the miracle has occurred, He hastens to underline it: Your faith has saved you.
This faith is our responsibility—aside from the fact that it is a gift of God. There is a mysterious part that belongs to us, which we must draw out every day.
One day a drug addict said to me: “Faith… yes, I know I have it; He gave it to me. But I have to draw it out. I cannot obtain from the Lord victory over my torment without this.”
Exactly so. In everyone’s heart there is faith, but it sleeps, and we must awaken it. There are many examples in the Gospel, and Jesus says: Your faith has saved you.
We must get to work. The head of the synagogue asks Jesus to come and heal his sick little daughter. They tell him: “She is dead; do not trouble the Master anymore.” Jesus says to him clearly: You must believe; just keep on having faith.
I am deeply struck by the words recorded by Matthew: Whatever you ask in prayer with faith, you will receive.
There is a parallel in Mark. Once Jesus says: Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have already received it, and it will be granted to you.
Faith is our “omnipotence.”
The fourth tip
We must throw ourselves headlong into prayer with relentless confidence, because we are certain that God wants these things as much as we do—indeed, more than we do.
As for the material things we ask for—it is certain that we cannot receive them if they are harmful to us.
So let us leave room for God. Let us present our desires and remain calm, trusting like a child. A father responds to all the needs of his child: if the child needs a little bread, he gives bread; if he needs an egg or a fish, he is ready to give the egg or the fish.
I cannot know what is truly good for me, but God knows my good.
So I open my heart. A Desert Father says: “Many do not learn to pray because they have never learned to ask for the things that burn.”
Knock and it will be opened to you; seek and you will find.
This is the meaning of faith: to pray with perseverance, without growing weary. That is why God is often silent—to make us discover our faith to the point where it can be answered.
Faith has the power to work miracles.
Look back over your life: you have surely experienced extraordinary interventions by God, and some have even been able to work miracles through their prayer.
For now, I am finished.
Daily prayer exercise
Now I would like you, at home, in the days that follow—until the next school of prayer, which will be on another Wednesday—to practice prayer.
I would like to give you some practical suggestions, some homework.
Every school gives homework. Here it is.
For prayer, at the beginning, half an hour would be useful. If that is not possible, divide it into two periods of fifteen minutes. Why do I say half an hour?
Because it takes time to enter into prayer and to relax, and then to remain silent and recollected. If you can, place a crucifix or a sacred image before you. If possible, make your prayer before the Eucharist.
Then kneel down—kneeling with shoulders and arms relaxed—because if you learn to let the body pray as well, your prayer will be more attentive.
Then begin with the Sign of the Cross, done well: touching the forehead, consecrate your thoughts to the Father; touching the chest, consecrate your heart, your capacity to love; touching the shoulders, consecrate your actions and your will to the Holy Spirit.
Entrust yourself to the Holy Spirit; He is the Master of prayer. Concentrate on the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Paul the Apostle says: You are God’s temple; God’s Spirit dwells in you.
Try to dialogue with Him, and if you have a difficult problem that weighs on you, ask: Come, Creator Spirit.
The second period should be dedicated to Jesus—the prayer of listening.
Take in your hands chapter 11 of Luke, from which we began, as if He were speaking to you, as if you were reading it for the first time.
The third period should be dedicated to the Father.
Ask yourself this question: What do You want from me, Father?
Before Him, invoke Father—or even Dad, my Father, my everything—as a concrete act of love. Try to enter, with ever greater affection, into the presence of the Father.
At the end of your prayer, write down a concrete resolution to carry out with love.
Love must consist in concrete deeds. Make a decision and carry it forward, entrusting it to Mary.
Ask Mary for the grace to learn how to pray, for the gift of prayer, and for perseverance.
