Fr. Patrick Santianez, SX
SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Jesus’ teaching on prayer in this passage illustrates many points. I don’t want to deal with all of these. Rather, I just want to concentrate on one phrase, one that touches me the most: Master, Teach us how to pray.
The disciples asked Jesus: Teach us how to pray. The desire of the disciples of Jesus was to learn how to pray. They turned to Jesus for they knew Jesus was the only one capable of teaching them. They had seen Jesus spending many hours in prayer especially before making crucial decisions in his life. They found Jesus withdrawing to the wilderness; always in communion with his Father, entrusting himself and his mission to the Father. Jesus was a person of prayer for them. And those who followed Jesus wanted to learn from him how to pray. This attitude of the disciples reminds me of what Pope Paul VI in Evangelii Nuntiandi said, “The modern world listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if it does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses”.
“Teach us how to pray” was the prayer of the disciples of Jesus to him. They were interested in prayer. Are we interested too? Do we experience in our hearts the deep desire to learn how to really pray? During these months when I am on holiday and far from Sierra Leone I receive prayer requests from people. I ask myself, why are these people asking me to pray on their behalves when they themselves can pray directly to God?. I have come to realise that it is because these people consider me to be an “expert” in prayer.
Can we ask the same thing, Lord teach us how to pray? Of course, like the disciples we would like him to teach us especially as in our times there are so many styles of prayer such as Yoga, Zen Meditation, the charismatic style of prayer, etc. One day a parishioner told me some of the comments he had overheard from members of another denomination about prayer in the Catholic Church - that in the Catholic Church there is no fire in pray because the way Catholics pray is very dry and monotonous. The Church, like Jesus needs to teach us how to pray. A church that is found praying teaches others how to pray.
“Teach us how to pray”, reminds us that the mark of a disciple, a follower, a student of Jesus Christ is the desire to learn how to pray the way Jesus prayed.
SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Jesus’ teaching on prayer in this passage illustrates many points. I don’t want to deal with all of these. Rather, I just want to concentrate on one phrase, one that touches me the most: Master, Teach us how to pray.
The disciples asked Jesus: Teach us how to pray. The desire of the disciples of Jesus was to learn how to pray. They turned to Jesus for they knew Jesus was the only one capable of teaching them. They had seen Jesus spending many hours in prayer especially before making crucial decisions in his life. They found Jesus withdrawing to the wilderness; always in communion with his Father, entrusting himself and his mission to the Father. Jesus was a person of prayer for them. And those who followed Jesus wanted to learn from him how to pray. This attitude of the disciples reminds me of what Pope Paul VI in Evangelii Nuntiandi said, “The modern world listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if it does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses”.
“Teach us how to pray” was the prayer of the disciples of Jesus to him. They were interested in prayer. Are we interested too? Do we experience in our hearts the deep desire to learn how to really pray? During these months when I am on holiday and far from Sierra Leone I receive prayer requests from people. I ask myself, why are these people asking me to pray on their behalves when they themselves can pray directly to God?. I have come to realise that it is because these people consider me to be an “expert” in prayer.
Can we ask the same thing, Lord teach us how to pray? Of course, like the disciples we would like him to teach us especially as in our times there are so many styles of prayer such as Yoga, Zen Meditation, the charismatic style of prayer, etc. One day a parishioner told me some of the comments he had overheard from members of another denomination about prayer in the Catholic Church - that in the Catholic Church there is no fire in pray because the way Catholics pray is very dry and monotonous. The Church, like Jesus needs to teach us how to pray. A church that is found praying teaches others how to pray.
“Teach us how to pray”, reminds us that the mark of a disciple, a follower, a student of Jesus Christ is the desire to learn how to pray the way Jesus prayed.