{"id":6605,"date":"2014-04-04T09:17:31","date_gmt":"2014-04-04T08:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/?p=6605"},"modified":"2014-07-05T19:54:10","modified_gmt":"2014-07-05T18:54:10","slug":"the-prayer-of-the-son","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/2014\/04\/the-prayer-of-the-son\/","title":{"rendered":"The Prayer of the Son"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Lazzaro.jpg\"<\/a>
\nSaint John’s is the divine and mystic Gospel:
\nits every page shines
\nwith the brightness of the Face of Christ,
\nrevealing the glory of the Father.
\nIts every page burns
\nthe fire of the Heart of Jesus
\nrevealing the Father’s merciful love.
\nSaint John’s Gospel is alive
\nwith the prayer of Jesus to the Father.<\/p>\n

One cannot listen to the Gospel of Saint John,
\nor read it, or meditate it in one’s heart
\nwithout being lifted, almost imperceptibly,
\ninto the prayer of Jesus to the Father:
\na prayer that rises on the wings of an unshakable confidence
\nin the Father’s readiness to hear us at every moment.
\nSo few of us pray as the Father would have us pray
\nbecause we cling to our own prayers
\n— narrow, myopic, half-hearted,
\nconstrained by our fears,
\nand weighed down by our inability to trust.
\nJesus, however, would have us pray as He prays.
\nEven more than that,
\nHe would have us open our hearts
\nto His own prayer to the Father;
\nthe bold and trusting prayer of the Son,
\nthe sacrificial and all-powerful prayer
\nof the Eternal High Priest.<\/p>\n

Jesus would infuse His own prayer into our souls
\nand, by the action of the Holy Ghost,
\nso draw us into His own relationship with the Father
\nthat He will pray in us,
\nand we in Him,
\nand the Father, seeing us in prayer
\nhearing our words,
\nattentive to our groanings,
\nand counting our tears
\nas so many pearls for the treasury of the Kingdom,
\nwill see on our faces the Face of the Son,
\nthe Eternal High Priest,
\nand hear in our every heartbeat
\nthe echo of His.<\/p>\n

There is much in today’s Gospel
\nthat solicits my attention
\nand almost begs to be preached.
\nThere is, for instance,
\nthe message sent to Jesus by Martha and Mary,
\nthe model of all intercessory prayer:
\n“Lord, behold him whom Thou lovest is sick.”
\nHow like the prayer of the Mother of God at Cana
\nis this prayer of two women, friends of Jesus,
\nfully confident in His response even before He gives it.
\n“They have no wine.” (Jn 2:3)
\n“Lord, behold him whom Thou lovest is sick.”
\nThere is no need to say more.
\nA prayer of intercession patterned after this prayer
\ncannot fail to touch the Heart of Jesus.<\/p>\n

I could also linger over the message that Martha
\nwhispers into Mary’s ear:
\n“The Master is here, and calleth for thee.” (Jn 11:28)
\nThis is the very message that everything in our churches
\nwhispers to the believing heart:
\nthe doors of the Church says it,
\nthe Holy Water at the entrance of the Church says it,
\nthe flicker of the sanctuary lamp says it,
\nthe centrality of the tabernacle says it.
\n“The Master is here, and calleth for thee.” (Jn 11:28)
\nHow can you or I remain indifferent to such an appeal?<\/p>\n

I could preach about the tears of Jesus:
\nthe tears of the God-Man,
\nthe tears that reveal the Divine Sensitivity of the Human Heart of God,
\nthe tears that show us the Divine capacity for human friendship,
\nthe tears that, falling upon our stony, hardened hearts,
\nsoften them, change them, and wash them clean.<\/p>\n

There is much more in today’s Gospel
\nthat begs to be preached, repeated, prayed
\nand held in our hearts.
\nEvery line, in fact, is a vein of purest gold
\nwaiting to be mined for the treasury of Mother Church.<\/p>\n

All of this being said,
\ntoday I am drawn irresistibly to verses 41 and 42
\nof this eleventh chapter of Saint John.
\n“And Jesus, lifting up His eyes said:
\n‘Father, I give Thee thanks that Thou hast heard me.
\nAnd I know that Thou hearest me always;
\nbut because of the people who stand about have I said it,
\nthat they may believe that Thou hast sent me.” (Jn 11:41-42).<\/p>\n

Jesus lifts up His eyes.
\nBy lifting His eyes towards heaven,
\nJesus teaches us that prayer is nothing else
\nthan the lifting of the heart and mind to God.
\nThe direction of His eyes
\nreveal the movement of His Heart.
\nEverything in the Son is turned towards His Father.
\nThere is not a moment in His earthly life
\nwhen He, the Word who was in the beginning,
\nis not God facing God.
\nInstructed by His example,
\nthe Church directs that in the most sacred part of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass,
\nin that “Holy of Holies” that is the Canon of the Mass,
\nthe priest, in imitation of Jesus,
\nlift his eyes towards the Father.
\nHere, the priest functions as the Head of the whole
\nworshipping body,
\nthe congregation kneeling behind him.<\/p>\n

When the eyes of the priest are raised heavenward,
\nthe hearts of the faithful are also drawn upward,
\nfor the eyes of the head
\ndetermine the orientation of the whole body.
\nThere is no detail in the liturgy of the Church
\nthat is of no consequence.
\nThe lifting of the eyes heavenward
\nsets in motion the whole Church,
\nthat is, the multitude of those who
\n“being of but one mind and one soul” (Ac 4:4)
\nlay aside all earthly cares
\nand forsake all that weighs upon their hearts
\nto enter with the Son, the High Priest,
\ninto the sanctuary of heaven.
\n‘Father, I give Thee thanks that Thou hast heard me.”<\/p>\n

Here is Saint John’s echo of that admirable thanksgiving of the Son
\nin the Gospels of Saint Matthew and Saint Luke:
\n“In that same hour, He rejoiced in the Holy Ghost,
\nand said: I confess to Thee, O Father,
\nLord of heaven and earth,
\nbecause Thou hast hidden these things
\nfrom the wise and prudent,
\nand hast revealed them to little ones.
\nYea, Father,
\nfor so it hath seemed good in Thy sight.” (Lk 10:21)<\/p>\n

The prayer of the Son to the Father
\nis an outpouring of thanksgiving:
\nevery utterance of the Son says to the Father:
\nI praise Thee,
\nI bless Thee,
\nI adore Thee,
\nI glorify Thee,
\nI give Thee thanks for Thy great glory.<\/p>\n

Is this not the hymn of His Bride the Church
\nthat will set all our bells ringing
\nin the night of Holy Pascha?
\nAnd where did the Church learn her language of thanksgiving
\nif not in the school of the Heart of Jesus,
\nher High Priest and her Spouse?
\nThere is never a moment when the prayer of the Son
\ndoes not capture
\nthe full and infinitely loving attention of His Father.
\nWhat was from all eternity
\n— the ineffable conversation of the Father with the Son,
\nand the Son with the Father —
\nis actualized for us here and now
\nin the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.<\/p>\n

The Mass, being the Son in dialogue with the Father,
\nbeing, even more, the Son handing Himself over to death
\nthe Son immolated,
\nthe Son sacrificed, albeit in an unbloody manner,
\nfor our sakes
\nand for the Father’s glory,
\nauthorizes every boldness in prayer.
\nThere is nothing that the Mass cannot obtain.<\/p>\n

Saint John Fisher said that
\n“He who goes about
\nto take the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass from the Church,
\nplots no less a calamity
\nthan if he tried to snatch the sun from the universe.”
\nWere the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
\nto cease on this earth of our ours,
\nwe would be plunged into a darkness
\nas terrible as if the sun, the moon, and the stars
\nwere extinguished in the firmament.
\nAnd why?
\nBecause the Mass is the Eternal Father
\ncaptivated by the prayer of the Son:
\nChrist’s prayer in us
\nand our prayer in Him.<\/p>\n

“Because of the people who stand about have I said it,
\nthat they may believe that Thou hast sent me.”
\nOur Lord prays aloud
\nnot because the Father needs to hear His human voice,
\nbut because He would have us hear Him pray.
\nHearing Him pray with such boldness,
\nwith such filial confidence,
\nwith such priestly majesty,
\nhow can we not believe
\nthat He who prays
\nis the Resurrection and the Life?<\/p>\n

The Son’s prayer to the Father
\nis uninterrupted,
\nceaseless from before the beginning of time
\nand into the infinite unfolding of eternity.
\nThis is the prayer that He articulates
\nfor our sakes
\nin front of the tomb of Lazarus,
\nso that we, confronted by the stench of our sins,
\nbound in bands of our vices,
\nshrouded in our self-absorption,
\nand faced with the inexorable reality of death,
\nmay be consoled and liberated by His prayer
\nand make His prayer our own
\nin this, the valley of the shadow of death,<\/p>\n

Tomorrow evening, we will enter into Passiontide;
\nthe following week called Great and Holy
\nwill be for you and for me
\na progressive entrance
\ninto the prayer of Christ to the Father.
\nChrist will pray in us
\nand we in Him
\nat every stage of His bitter Passion,
\nin the seven last words from the Cross,
\nin the stillness of Holy Saturday,
\nand then in the glory of the resurrection
\nwhen the Son, waking from the sleep of death,
\nwill open His eyes to see the Father bent over the tomb
\nas a father bends over the cradle of his first-born.<\/p>\n

Open your hearts then
\nto the prayer of Christ.
\nReceive it, distilled by the liturgy of His Bride the Church,
\nand having received it
\nlet it become in you ceaseless and uninterrupted
\nthe pulse of your life in God,
\nyour heartbeat, your life’s breath.
\nIt is time to go the altar.
\nThe Master is here and calleth for us.
\nLet us go to meet Him:
\nour Victim and our Priest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saint John’s is the divine and mystic Gospel: its every page shines with the brightness of the Face of Christ, revealing the glory of the Father. Its every page burns the fire of the Heart of Jesus revealing the Father’s merciful love. Saint John’s Gospel is alive with the prayer of Jesus to the Father. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[151],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lent-2014"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paVypq-1Ix","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6605"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6605"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7588,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6605\/revisions\/7588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}