Sons’ Prayer: Performance or Listening?

(Mt 6:7-15)

In the communities of Mt and Lk the "prayer" of the sons - the "Our Father" - does not originate as prayer, but as a formula of acceptance of the Beatitudes (in its scans: invocation to the Father, human situation and advent of the Kingdom, liberation).

In any case, the full difference between religious prayer and expression animated by Faith lies in the distinction between: Performance or Perception.

[As Pope Francis says: "To pray is not to talk to God like a parrot". "Our God does not need sacrifices to win his favour! He needs nothing'].

In religions - in fact - it is the praying subject who 'prays', making requests, expounding himself, praising, and so on.

Still in Thomism, the virtue of religion was considered to be an aspect of the cardinal virtue of Justice. As if to say: man's rightful position before God is that of one who recognises a duty of worship (worship that is directed from him) towards the Creator; and man - the subject of prayer - would fulfil it.

Conversely, the child of God in Christ is a "hearer" of the Logos: he is the one who tends his ear, perceives, welcomes: in short, the authentic Subject who expresses himself is God himself.

He reveals Himself through the Word, in the reality of events, in the folds of universal and personal history, in the particular Calling He grants us, even in intimate images.

They become plastic expressions of Mystery (and personal Vocation) that wave upon wave even guide the soul.

"When you pray, do not babble like the pagans, for they think they are heard because of their wordiness" (Mt 6:7; cf. Lk 11:1).

In the Faith we participate in the authentic prayer of Jesus Himself - Person in us - addressed to the Father, first of all "listening" to His providential proposals: as if united to the Friend and Brother we enter into this Dialogue - full of even figurative suggestions.

But it is the Only-begotten who prays; we are not the great protagonists. Only in this sense can the act of praying be defined as 'childlike' or 'Christian'.

Our prayer life is not an ascetic exercise - let alone a duty, nor a shopping list - because God does not need to be informed about something He had not thought of before.

As the Master says, the Father knows what we need (Mt 6:8). So to turn to Him does not require any effort [ lacerating effort to centre oneself and step outside oneself]. Nor does it force us into too many (or the right) words.

Authentic prayer is not a tracing, nor a leap into outer darkness, but an excavation and sifting, given. It is a plunge into our being, where the intimacy of the Understanding aims to understand the Author's signature at the heart of events; even emotions.

The prayer of the man of Faith does not aim to introduce God's will and the reality of situations into narrow horizons and judgments that are already comprehensible, as if pushing it into unnatural attunements.

Prayer is a perceptive leap without repetitive identities, from one's own Core - which clears away mental toxins; and so it becomes an experience of fullness of being, in search of global and personal meaning.

The praying man is not even prey to some excited paroxysmal state (ridiculous or soporific): he is welcoming an Action - a Work of paradoxical suspension, on the path towards his own Bliss.

Prayer is even a gesture of aesthetic order in Christ. Precisely because it tends to rake our everyday imagery so that it is shaped according to the guiding vision it inhabits. It shifts and almost directs the eye of the soul, and the ecclesial experience.

A virtue-event that gradually chisels that very personal image that brings to awareness a goal or a communal reality of praise, that is, an innate narrative Voice of unknown energies, for important changes.

Step by step, this perception and dialogue that emerges induces us to internalise hidden flashes of the pathway that belongs to us: a missionary spirit that seeks harmony, the creation of a living environment, and so on. Even destabilising.

Only in this sense is prayer in order to our benefits.

Nor can it be reduced to a group badge, because although we recognise ourselves in certain knowledge, each one has its own language of the soul, a relevant history and sensitivity, an unprecedented iconic world (also in terms of micro and macro dream relationships), as well as an unrepeatable task of salvation.

For this reason too - albeit in terms of the community of reference - the Symbol of the reborn in Christ turning to the Father has come down to us in different versions: Mt, Lk, Didaché ["Teaching" perhaps contemporary with the last New Testament writings, a kind of early Catechism].To introduce us to specific considerations, it is appropriate to ask: why did Jesus not attend places of worship to recite traditional formulas, but to teach?

And never does it appear that the apostles pray with Him: it seems that they only wanted a formula to distinguish themselves from other rabbinical schools (cf. Lk 11:1).

The Lord only holds fast to the mindset and lifestyle: He proceeds on fundamental options - and insists on the perception of welcoming, rather than our saying and organising (which are not very steeped in well-founded eternity).

Father

The God of religions was named with an overabundance of high-sounding honorary epithets, as if he craved ever-growing ranks of incense-givers.

The Father is not accompanied by prestigious titles. A son does not address his parent as high, eternal or lofty, but as the one who imparts life to him.

And the son does not imagine that he has to give external shout-outs and accolades - otherwise the superior and master would admonish and chastise: the Parent looks at needs, not merits.

The God of religions governs his subjects by enacting laws, as a sovereign does; the Father transmits his Spirit, his own Life, which elevates and perfects both personal listening skills and the noticing (e.g. of brothers).

The only request is to extend our missionary resources and feed on the Father-Person who reshapes us on his own virtues, according to what we should be, and could perhaps already have been.

One reality within our reach is the cancellation of material debts that our neighbour has incurred in need.

There is no witness to God-Love that does not pass through a fraternal community, in which we experience the communion of goods.

The security of being right with God is in the joy of living together and sharing.

In religious belief, material blessings are often confused with divine blessings, which accentuates the competitions, artificial primacy and inconveniences of real life.

Conversely, the spirit of the Beatitudes is made manifest in a people where distinctions between creditors and debtors are abolished.

"Do not induce us": ancient Prayer of the children, in real life

Essence of God is: Love that does not betray or forsake; useless, confusing and blasphemous to ask a Father: 'Do not forsake me' [cf. Greek text]. Although it may be impressive to the outer ear.

The false mysticism of the forsaken Jesus (even by the Father!) does not educate; perhaps it fascinates, certainly confuses - and plagues.

Only the Spirit is guaranteed in prayer: the lucidity to understand the fruitfulness of the Cross, the gain in the loss, the life not in triumph but in death. And the strength to be faithful to one's own Calling, despite persecutions, even "internal" ones.

The community and individual souls, however, ask not to be placed in the extreme conditions of trial, knowing their own limit, their personal invincible precariousness, albeit redeemed.

This is the threshold that distinguishes religiosity and Faith: on the one hand, the 'safe' formula of the convinced and strong; on the other, a resigned and expectant prayer: of the unsteady, redeemed by love.

"Non c'indurre" is precisely (in the Latin and Greek sense: "to introduce to the end") an ancient Symbol of the reborn in Christ, in the experience of real life.

In religions, there are clearly opposed demons and angels: disordered and dark powers, opposed to the bright and 'proper' ones.

But by dint of pushing the former back, the worse ones continually resurface, until they win the game and run rampant.

In the lives of the saints, we see these great men strangely always under temptation - because they disdain evil, therefore they do not know it. Gradually, however, the constant nagging becomes uncontrollable droves.

The woman and man of Faith do not act according to rushed and superficial predetermined models, not even religious ones; they are aware that they are not heroes or paradigm phenomena.

That is why they trust. They let their intimate problems pass them by: they have understood their power!

This is the meaning of the formula of the Lord's Prayer, in its original sense: 'do not carry us through the trial to the end, for we know our weakness'.

Such attention arises so that sin itself - by dint of denying it, then disguising it - does not paradoxically become the hidden protagonist of our path. The pivot of attention, which unfortunately engulfs thoughts, blocking the internal processes of spontaneous growth, perception of Grace and self-healing [in order to one's own unrepeatable Calling].

This would be the opposite of Redemption and Freedom, hence of Love: it is annihilated where there is a superior above - even God.

On the contrary, it is very fruitful to recover its energy, which has put us in contact with our deepest layers, for new horizons. And to take it on by making it our own host, in its own right - to (only then) invest it in an unexpected and wise manner.If, on the other hand, our 'counterpart' becomes a constant afterthought and block, we are done for.

Sorrows, failures, sadness, frustrations, weaknesses, a thousand anxieties, too many downfalls, accustom us to experiencing evil as part of ourselves: a condition to be evaluated, not a 'fault' to be cut horizontally.

In the process of true salvific transmutation, that signal speaks of us: within a deviation or eccentricity there is a secret or knowledge to be found, to be reborn personally.

By casting our gaze on the discomforts and oppositions, we realise that these critical sides of being become like a malleable magma, which more quickly approaches healing. Like through a conversion, permanent, radical... because it involves and belongs to us; not artificial and peripheral, but fundamental, of Seed and Nature.

Absorbed patterns and convictions do not allow us to realise that passionate life is composed of opposing states, of competitive energies - which we must not disguise in order to be considered decent people.

Perceiving and integrating such depths, we lay down the idea and atmosphere of impending danger, devoid of further opportunities, only for death.

We become mature, without dissociation or hysterical states resulting from contrived identifications, nor disesteem for an important part of us.

In short, narrowness and 'crosses' have something to tell us.

They shake the soul at the root, sweep away the absorbed masks, ignite the person, and save life.

In this way, inconveniences and anxieties help us. They conceal capacities and possibilities that we do not yet see.

In the virtue of the shaky yet unique exceptionality of each person, the true path opens up.

Path of the Father and of the heart, Way that wants to guide us towards alternative trajectories, new dimensions of existence.

The difference of the Faith, compared to ancient religiosity [in the sense of the cross within]?

It is in the awareness that only the sick heal, only the incomplete grow.

Only the lame regain expression, evolve. And falling, they move forward.

Cf. Jn 16:23-28: Prayer in the Name: comm. quotid. Saturday 6th Easter

Cf. Mt 11,25-27: The only prayer of Jesus ever taught Wednesday 15.a