Prayer in the Name of Jesus: Blessed Schuster’s Daily Thought

5th Sunday after Easter

Prayer in the Name of Jesus

1. Today in the Holy Gospel (John 16:23-30), Jesus teaches the Apostles a new rite of prayer, as it were. Before His Incarnation, the faithful invoked the Father in the measure of the divine revelation that was granted to them. Even in the times of St Paul, at Ephesus a group of those baptised with John’s baptism confessed: sed neque si Spiritus Sanctus est audivimus. (Acts 19:2, ‘We have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.’)

Now, however, it is not so. Jesus Christ, putting Himself at the Church’s disposal, has made of her His own Body, according to what is written: Et erunt duo in carne una. (Matt 19:5, ‘And they will be two in one same flesh.’)

The Holy Spirit has initiated her into all truth in its entirety. Thus, the Church now adores the Father perfectly in Spirit and Truth, or, as an ancient Collect of the Missal says, with the Incarnation of the Word of God Divini Cultus nobis est indita plenitudo. (‘We have been initiated into the perfection of divine worship.’)

This, then, is the new rite of prayer into which the Holy Gospel wishes to initiate us today. Unlike the Old Testament, now, when we pray, it is no longer so much we who address ourselves to the Father, as that in us Jesus is praying, the Spirit is groaning gemitibus inenarrabilibus (Rom 8:26, ‘With unutterable groanings’), the entire Catholic Church spread throughout the globe is praying with us.

This is the reason which inspired Saint Benedict to affirm in the Rule the principle: Nihil Operi Dei praeponatur. [Rule, Ch.43, ‘Let nothing be put before the Work of God.’]

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2. The Divine Saviour, exhorting us today to ask the Father in His Name, promises us at the same time that our prayer will not remain unheard.

He adds, however: ut gaudium vestrum sit plenum [that your joy may be full].

He therefore, as Saint Augustine explains, is not referring so much to those childish prayers which we can make as we please, in order to find ourselves less badly off during the present life. But He intends above all to allude to the graces which prepare us and dispose us for the full joy of eternal life. These are the gifts that He promises us, so that the integrity of His mystical body may not be torn, and so that where  the head already reigns glorious, the members may also arrive one day. This is the gaudium plenum which the Lord Jesus desires for us today in the Holy Gospel.

Meditating on these truths, Saint Benedict would write: Quid dulcius nobis ab hac voce Domini invitantis nos, fratres carissimi? Ecce pietate sua demonstrat nobis Dominus viam vitae. (Rule, Prologue: ‘What can there be that is sweeter than this divine voice of invitation, O dearest brethren? Behold how God in His goodness shows us the path of eternal life.’)

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3. The Holy Gospel speaks today also about the reward of love.

You, says the Lord to the Disciples, have loved Me and have believed in Me. Well then, My Father Himself will love you; in such a way that, to obtain graces from Him, My intervention will almost not be necessary, He Himself being quite ready to grant them to you.

All this, however, refers above all to the gaudium plenum of eternal life, where the Lord Palam de Patre annuntiabit (John 16:25: ‘Will speak to us plainly of the Father’).

During our present pilgrimage, per fidem ambulamus (2 Cor 5:7, ‘We walk by faith’), and our beatitude consists in having confidence in God, according to the Lord’s word: Beati qui non viderunt et crediderunt.  (John 20:29, ‘Blessed are they who have not seen and have believed.’)

The Apostle of love wrote a great word: nos credidimus caritati eius. (1 John 4:16, ‘We have believed in His love.’) As a little child falls asleep peacefully in the arms of his beloved mother, so we abandon ourselves with full confidence into the arms of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one only God, Who loves us and knows that He is loved by us in return.

This is the meaning of that maxim of Saint Benedict, repeated twice in the Rule: Nihil amori Christi praeponere (Rule, Ch. 4: ‘To put nothing ahead of the love of Christ’); Christo omnino praeponant, qui nos pariter ad vitam aeternam perducat. (Ibid., Ch. 72: ‘Let them put nothing at all ahead of Christ, and may He bring us all alike to eternal life.’)