Passionists Pray
Jesus Prayed
God gives the gift of prayer to you.
The Prayer of Jesus
The gospels say Jesus prayed from his earliest years in Nazareth. Mary and Joseph taught him the Jewish prayers; he prayed them regularly in the synagogue at Nazareth and on Jewish feasts in Jerusalem.
He often went off to pray alone.
Jesus prayed the psalms, which, along with the words of the prophets, were the ordinary prayers of the Jewish people.
Moreover, these prayers go beyond their Jewish origins, they speak to every age.
“The psalms seem to me to be like a mirror, in which someone using them can see himself, and the stirrings of his own heart; he can recite them against the background of his own emotions” (St. Augustine)
The psalms were the prayers Jesus prayed facing death on the cross.
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” ” I thirst.” “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” “It is finished” “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
Jesus prayed from His heart, a heart vulnerable yet strong, tender toward those He loved, and forgiving those who wronged him.
His last prayer was a wordless cry, a cry from his heart. In His prayers, we hear the human heart speaking to God.
“Lord, teach us to pray,” His disciples said to him, they wanted to learn more than the words he said.
“Go into your inner room,” Jesus told them, ” and there pray to your Father, who hears you.”
“Pray from your heart,” Jesus says, sometimes in words, sometimes just a wordless cry.
Jesus teaches us to pray, not from a distance, but from within us.
He joins his voice to ours, and so we often end our prayers
“through Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, One God, world without end. Amen.”
When should we pray?
Morning and evening, at the beginning and close of the day, are important times.
What prayers should we say?
The church, following the Jewish prayer tradition, the prayer tradition Jesus followed, prays the psalms and other scriptural passages in the Liturgy of the Hours.
Morning and evening prayers based on the church’s prayer immediately follow these reflections.
After the section on morning and evening prayers you’ll find a section called “Commentary” which provides addtional commentary and context on the Morning and Evening Prayers and on other traditional prayers like the Hail Mary and the Rosary.