Passionists Pray
The Holy Spirit Teaches
God gives the gift of prayer to you.
The Holy Spirit,
Our Teacher of Prayer
The Holy Spirit teaches us how to pray.
“The Spirit helps us in our weakness,” St. Paul says, “for we do not know how to pray as we ought.”
How does the Spirit teach us to pray?
At Pentecost, gathering the followers of Jesus, the Holy Spirit taught them to search into their memories of Jesus and the Jewish Scriptures.
They broke bread together, as Jesus had done. They were baptized in water. They prayed.
We follow them, keeping Jesus and his teachings before us, as well as the prayers of the scriptures and of our church.
Above all, we learn from Jesus how to pray.
Pray with Creation
Jesus prayed like his ancestors, Abel and Noah, who lived close to the earth and saw God’s gifts in the fields, the creatures of the earth, and the heavens that sent rain.
They admired and cared for these God-given gifts and praised God for them:”Sun and moon, stars of heaven, fire and heat, all you birds of the air, all you beasts, wild and tame, bless the Lord.” (Daniel 3, 57 ff)
We know our Maker from what he made, so keep your eyes on God’s creation and care for it.
Like Noah, who built an ark to care for all the earth’s creatures, we are called to care for creations.
Caring for creation nourishes the spirit of prayer in you. “Look at the lilies of the field, the birds of the air,” Jesus said.
The created world helps us know God.