Examples of Prayer.

        The primary example of prayer is Jesus Himself. Jesus grew up in an extended family of devout Jews and in a religion of prayer. The Gospel of Luke (chaps. 1-2) tells about Zechariah the priest, Elizabeth, Mary, Symeon the elder, and Anna the prophetess, whose lives were filled with prayer. When Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth, Elizabeth was inspired with the Holy Spirit and cried out to Mary: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” And Mary replied: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Lk. 1:41-47). Pious Jews prayed three times a day. A key prayer was the biblical creed of faith from Deut. 6:4-5, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”

        Like all devout Jews, Jesus was a man of prayer. He regularly prayed at meals and observed the traditional Jewish festivals. He frequented the centers of Jewish religious life, the Temple and the synagogues. When He cast out the money changers from the Temple area, He did so in order to cleanse its sacred precincts from commercialism. His holy zeal was to restore the Temple from a “den of robbers” to a “house of prayer for all the nations” (Mk 12:17).

        In particular the Gospels emphasize that Christ practiced solitary prayer away from the crowds and sometimes away from the disciples as well. We read: “In the morning, long before daylight, He rose and went out to a lonely place and there He prayed” (Mk 1:35). After teaching and dismissing the crowds, “He went up into the hills to pray” (Mt. 15:23). Prior to the selection of His disciples, He withdrew into the wilderness to pray and “all night He continued in prayer to God” (Lk. 6:12). On one occasion, when the people wanted to acclaim Him king, Jesus left both them and the disciples, and “withdrew again to the mountain by Himself” (Jn 6:15). At Gethsemane, Christ was sorrowful and distraught. He asked the disciples to pray with Him, looking to them for support. He went a little farther to be by Himself, fell to the ground, and prayed: “Abba, Father, all things are possible with You; remove this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what You will.” Returning, He admonished the sleepy disciples: “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mk 14:36-38). His last breath on the Cross was a prayer: “Father, to Your hands I commit my spirit” (Lk. 23:46).

        Christ was fully God, one with the Father and the Spirit, sharing the essence and attributes of the Triune God. But He was also fully human, sharing all the attributes and frailties of human nature, except sin. He experienced the whole range of human emotions from birth to death. He was not “acting” when he was joyful or indignant, when He needed to eat and drink, when He became tired and needed to rest, when He felt agony and pain. Nor was His devotion to prayer merely for pedagogical reasons, simply to instruct His disciples and us about prayer. He both needed and rejoiced in prayer. He found prayer a source of comfort, refreshment and strength to fulfil His mission. Prayer was a way He affirmed and renewed his closeness to the Father, the hallmark of Christ’s life and mission. The mystery of the Incarnation assures us that Christ’s life of prayer was as real as it was powerful. His example serves the archetype of deep, personal prayer.

        Another example of prayer is the Apostle Paul, the most successful missionary of the apostolic Church. A man of action, Saint Paul preached the Gospel and established churches throughout the eastern Mediterranean and then planned to go to Rome and even as far as Spain (Rom. 15:17-29). He candidly mentions the enormous work that Christ accomplished through him (Rom. 15:17-29) as well as the many trials he suffered (2 Cor. 11:23-29). He was a warrior of Christ ready to fight for the truth of the Gospel before Jews, Gentiles, and even fellow Christians (Gal. 2:6-14). Nevertheless, Saint Paul was also a man of prayer, indeed a mystic of Christ privileged with heavenly visions. His conversion on the road to Damascus led him led him to a singular focus on Christ and life in union with Him. In one of his mystical experiences he was lifted up to the “third heaven” where he beheld “visions and revelations of the Lord” and “heard things that cannot be told” (2 Cor. 12:1-4).  At the core of Saint Paul’s spirituality was a conscious communion with the risen Lord to the extent that he could say: “For me to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21) and again: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:19-20).

        When we read the Epistles of Saint Paul, we see that his life and thought were filled with prayer and prayerfulness. Large sections of his Epistles read like prayers in which he spontaneously referred all his joys and trials to God. They also abound with specific pastoral exhortations to pray. He tells the Christians in Rome, “I remember you always in my prayers” (Rom. 1:10), and appeals to them, “strive with me in prayer to God” (Rom. 15:30). To the Thessalonians, he writes: “Rejoice always, pray constantly, and give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ for you” and again asks, “pray for us” (1 Thess. 5:16-18,25). Joy and thanksgiving, even in the midst trials and persecutions, are the distinctive elements of Saint Paul’s prayers. The Epistle to the Philippians was written from prison, a place of cruelty and inhumanity especially in the ancient world. Yet not the slightest hint of personal complaint or self-pity is found in it. Rather, Saint Paul is eager to encourage the Philippians with these words:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Let all know your forbearance. The

Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace

of God, which      passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Phil. 4:4-7).

The following three examples of prayer are drawn from the Church Fathers. One was fully engaged with the Church’s work in the world. The other was a monastic throughout his life. The third was involved in both.

        The first is Saint John Chrysostom, a lover of the Gospel of Christ and a great admirer of Saint Paul. He, too, was a man of action and prayer. Endowed with exceptional gifts of intelligence and eloquence, he nevertheless put aside a promising career as a lawyer to concentrate on spiritual life. As a zealous young Christian in his twenties, he spent several years in a cave praying and reading one book, the Bible, until bad health forced him back to the city. In Antioch, where he served as deacon and priest, he devoted himself to evangelical preaching and philanthropic activities. He became the “golden mouth” (Chrysostomos) of Christ and the applied Gospel. Later, as Archbishop of Constantinople, he led a life of strict fasting and private prayer, while his public witness was a bustle of evangelical activities through preaching, philanthropy and missionary work. His zeal and uncompromising spirit brought him into conflict with emperors and bishops. Condemned by an ecclesiastical court and forced out of office by the emperor, Saint John Chrysostom mightily resisted his persecutors until finally soldiers drew their swords against the crowd protecting him, and the Church of St. Sophia began to burn. He was exiled and died in Armenia while suffering terribly physical hardships. But he endured all with amazing spiritual strength derived from his deep faith and the life of prayer.  The man with the golden words counted prayer as his great inspiration. His principle was: “First comes prayer and then words” (Proteron euche kai tote logos). His last words were in fact a prayer: “Glory be to God for all things” (Doxa Theo panton eneken).

        The second Church Father, also named John, was a monastic. He spent forty years in solitude on Mount Sinai, and afterwards, until death, served as abbot of Saint Catherine’s monastery located at the foot of the mountain. He is known as Saint John of the Ladder because he wrote what in later centuries became the most famous book of Orthodox spirituality, The Ladder of Divine Ascent. It is a stern and yet compassionate book. Beyond ascetic strictures and toils, Saint was a seeker of God’s love and of how to enliven the heart with God’s holy presence. Cardiologists tell us that a baby’s heart begins to beat when some electrical charge flashes through its nerve system while the infant is developing in the mother’s womb, a unique, wondrous event! For Saint John, prayer fulfils a similar spiritual function. Prayer draws the “electrical” charge of God’s grace and gives the soul its spiritual beat, the basis of all spiritual life. He wrote in The Ladder of Divine Ascent: “The first ray of light is lit by prayer. Prayer gives the first hint of what we are seeking and prayer awakens more fervently the mind and heart to God. Prayer is the beginning and basis of all striving toward God.”

        The third example from the Church Fathers is a Russian saint of the nineteenth century, Saint Theophan the Recluse. Saint Theophan grew up in a pious home and later excelled in seminary studies. For many years he served the Church with exceeding devotion and wisdom as priest and bishop. However, drawn to the life of stillness (hesychia), he retired to a monastery and embraced total solitude even among the monastics, which earned him the title “the Recluse.” But he never cut contacts with people whom he advised through countless letters. Saint Theophan’s special gift was to combine prayer and study. He was a man of wide learning and profound spirituality. His life’s harvest include many books on the spiritual life written with penetrating insight and clarity, as if he lived and wrote in our own days. A summary of his teachings on prayer may be found in a valuable anthology entitled The Art of Prayer. His chief aim was to show people how to transform Christian existence into a conscious sacrament of grace through deliberate and systematic spiritual growth. The key was heartfelt prayer and a disciplined life of prayer. By prayer, believers truly attained to inward communion with God and possessed the power of a “battle-ax” against the devil and his works. For Saint Theophan, prayer summed up the essence of the inner life with God which begins with a spark, fans into a flame, and kindles one’s whole being with the fire of divine love. Prayer is the basis, criterion and guide behind all spiritual endeavors. He writes in The Art of Prayer:

What is prayer? Prayer is the test of everything; it is the source of everything, the

driving force of everything, and the director of everything. If prayer is right, everything

is right. Prayer will not allow anything to go wrong. If you are not successful in your prayer,

do not expect success in anything. It is the root of all.