Christian Prayer Is Liturgical and Sacramental - Benedict XVI In Unpublished Letter
In general, prayer is the fundamental religious act. It is an attempt to establish a direct connection with God.
The peculiarity of Christian prayer is that one prays with Jesus Christ and to Him simultaneously. As both man and God, Jesus can be the bridge that overcomes the infinite abyss between God and man.
In this sense, Christ is the ontological possibility of prayer.
For this reason, he is also the practical guide to prayer. His disciples, who had seen him pray, addressed this request to him: "Lord, teach us to pray" (Lk 11:1). They recalled that John the Baptist had taught his disciples to pray, knowing that Jesus was infinitely closer to God than even the greatest religious figure: John the Baptist.
Thus, the two fundamental characteristics of prayer emerge: those relative to being and awareness. These two characteristics are intertwined.
A profound bond with God consists of abiding with Him. In Jesus' school of prayer, our knowledge of him grows, as does our closeness to him.
In this regard, we must also keep in mind Jesus's criticism of mistaken or insufficient ways of praying.
The juxtaposition with the cross is evident throughout his proclamation and in the prophetic words that marked the tenor of prophecy before Jesus: "To obey is better than sacrifice; to heed is better than the fat of rams" (1 Sam. 15:22).
Furthermore, Christian prayer, insofar as it is prayer with Jesus Christ, is always anchored in the Eucharist, leading to it and taking place within it.
The Eucharist is a prayer that encompasses one's entire being. It is the critical synthesis of cult and true worship.
In it, Jesus definitively rejected mere words and animal sacrifices, replacing them with the profound "yes" of His life and death.
Thus, the Eucharist represents a definitive critique of cults and the cult in the broadest sense. The Fathers of the Church rightly characterized it as the end of paganism, as consuetudo [=custom, way of life]. They also characterized Christianity itself as prayer. We ought to reflect much more deeply on this fundamental opposition.
The fundamental orientation of Jesus' dramatic history of prayer enables us to understand the realism with which he proclaimed the gospel. The parable of the man who did not want to get up and give bread to his friend makes it clear that prayer always involves overcoming our inertia, which inspires many excuses for not rising.
Prayer means pushing against this inertia of the heart. It also means humbly bringing the small things of our daily life before God and asking for His help.
One final point: The realistic and humble way of praying is often presented as an objection to petitionary prayer: adequate prayer should be praise of God, not continual begging. This objection is foolish because God is not bothered by our small concerns.
In our daily lives, however, we must think of ourselves. Yet, we need God to live our everyday life starting from and oriented toward Him.
The Lord’s Prayer consists of seven petitions precisely because we trust in our Father.
Asking God means purifying our desires so we can present them to Him and incorporate them into the "we" of Christ's family.
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