Day 336: Jesus Hears Our Prayer (2616-2622)

• It’s Day 336!!

• JESUS HEARS OUR PRAYER

• THE PRAYER OF THE VIRGIN MARY

• Mary becomes a model pray-er for us

• Let’s pray!!

Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, we praise you and glorify your name. We thank you, thank you for who you are, and for all that you have done. We praise your name for who you are. You are good. You are just. You are merciful. You are fair. You are near. And Lord God, you are God above all. You are the Lord of all. In you, everything has its being. In you, everything touches the light, your light, yourself, Lord God, your very being holds us into existence, keeps us in being. So Lord God, we ask you to please meet us with your reality, your presence, your power. Meet us with your grace in every way today, especially teach us how to pray. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen”

• So there we have it!!

• Paragraph 2616 says, “Prayer to Jesus is answered by him already during his ministry, through signs that anticipate the power of his death and Resurrection: Jesus hears the prayer of faith, expressed in words (the leper, Jairus, the Canaanite woman, the good thief) or in silence (the bearers of the paralytic, the woman with a hemorrhage who touches his clothes, the tears and ointment of the sinful woman). The urgent request of the blind men, ‘Have mercy on us, Son of David’ or ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ has been renewed in the traditional prayer to Jesus known as the Jesus Prayer: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’ Healing infirmities or forgiving sins, Jesus always responds to a prayer offered in faith: ‘Your faith has made you well; go in peace.’ St. Augustine wonderfully summarizes the three dimensions of Jesus’ prayer: ‘He prays for us as our priest, prays in us as our Head, and is prayed to by us as our God. Therefore let us acknowledge our voice in him and his in us.’”

• “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!”

• There are variations

• “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner!”

• It can even be shortened

• We are encouraged to pray this with our very breath

• Inhale: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God…”

• Exhale: “...have mercy on me, a sinner!”

• Or simply inhale: “Jesus”

• Exhale: “Mercy”

• We can be constantly praying and aware of Jesus

• It can also work as an Act of Contrition in Confession if you ever freeze up

• It is such a simple prayer

• Prayer has to be connected to our heart

• As Christians, we do not simply repeat a mantra

• As Christians, we pray and we are talking to someone

• It is not a mantra because we are talking to someone

• We are directing our prayer, our thoughts, our attention even if we are driving or out for a walk

• We are reminding ourselves that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit hold us in their gaze

• Paragraph 2617 says, “Mary’s prayer is revealed to us at the dawning of the fullness of time. Before the incarnation of the Son of God, and before the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, her prayer cooperates in a unique way with the Father’s plan of loving kindness: at the Annunciation, for Christ’s conception; at Pentecost for the formation of the Church, his Body. In the faith of his humble handmaid, the Gift of God found the acceptance he had awaited from the beginning of time. She whom the Almighty made ‘full of grace’ responds by offering her whole being: ‘Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be [done] to me according to your word.’ ‘Fiat’: this is Christian prayer: to be wholly God’s, because he is wholly ours.”

• Jesus is coming into the world in the Incarnation, in the Nativity

• That is the fullness of time

• Mary’s prayer is the beginning of that

• Why?

• Because as she conceived Jesus in her womb, by the power of the Holy Spirit, her prayer cooperates in a unique way with the Father’s plan of loving kindness

• What prayer?

• “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word.”

• Did you know that is a prayer?

• Because of that prayer, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us

• Mary is a model for all of us to have that kind of trust and openness

• “God, whatever it is that you want, so be it. Whatever it is you want, Fiat.”

• Paragraph 2618 says, “The Gospel reveals to us how Mary prays and intercedes in faith. At Cana, the mother of Jesus asks her son for the needs of a wedding feast; this is the sign of another feast-that of the wedding of the Lamb where he gives his body and blood at the request of the Church, his Bride. It is at the hour of the New Covenant, at the foot of the cross, that Mary is heard as the Woman, the new Eve, the true ‘Mother of all the living.’”

• Mary visits her relative, Elizabeth, and she breaks into song

• As the baby John the Baptist leaps in the womb (he is not an infant at this point, Fr. Mike, but we’ll let that slide, eh? 😉)  

• Elizabeth says, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Who am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”

• And Mary cries out her prayer, The Magnificat

• “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God, my Savior…”

• Again, Mary is our model for prayer, praising the Lord

• Paragraph 2619 says, “That is why the Canticle of Mary, the Magnificast (Latin) or Megalynei (Byzantine) is the song both of the Mother of God and of the Church; the song of the Daughter of Zion and of the new People of God; the song of thanksgiving for the fullness of graces poured out in the economy of salvation and the song of the ‘poor’ whose hope is met by the fulfillment of the promises made to our ancestors, ‘to Abraham and to his posterity forever.’”

• Paragraph 2621 says, “In his teaching, Jesus teaches his disciples to pray with a purified heart, with lively and persevering faith, with filial boldness. He calls them to vigilance and invites them to present their petitions to God in his name. Jesus Christ himself answers prayers addressed to him.”

• In all of our prayers, we should ask the Holy Spirit to teach us how to pray with a purified heart, with lively and persevering faith, and with filial boldness

• We come humbly, but as God’s sons and daughters

• And with vigilance where we are aware of what is going on

• And we present our petitions before God, in the name of Jesus Christ himself

• That is powerful prayer because that is what Christian prayer is

• I wish that we were able to read through PILLAR 4: HOW WE PRAY for the entire year

• It is more important to PRAY than to talk about prayer

• Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!

• Please pray for Fr. Mike and for each other!!

• I cannot WAIT…