Besides the usual forms of suffering we all have to endure in everyday life, there is the added problem, at the moment, of the hardship we are experiencing during the current economic downturn. Unfortunately there are prophetic intimations that in the not too distant future we may have to cope with even greater problems such as social unrest and violence. In these circumstances, how should we Christians pray? Here is one suggestion.

The gospels make it clear that in his teaching on prayer, Jesus focused almost exclusively on the petitionary kind. It would be a mistake to think that, unlike praise and thanksgiving, it focuses primarily on human desires and only in a secondary way upon the Lord. Instead of looking at God from the point of view of human needs, authentic Christian prayer looks at human needs from the point of view of a trusting relationship with a benevolent and generous God. This was particularly obvious during the agony of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. On that occasion he implored: “Abba, Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will” Mk 14:36. This archetypal prayer can be looked at from four interrelated points of view:

1) Address: “Abba Father.”
2) Declaration of divine omnipotence: “Everything is possible for you.”
3) Petition: “Take this cup away from me.”
4)Submission: “Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

1. Address

The supplication of Jesus was centred on God rather than himself. That is why he began with the words, “Abba Father.” Jesus was vividly aware, not only that his Father loved him with an incomprehensible love, he was also conscious that his benevolent favour rested upon him, and that his Father was constantly assuring him that: “everything I have is yours” Lk 15:31. As Jesus said to the disciples on one occasion, “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” Matt 7:11. Recently I recalled these words when I heard a man saying on the radio that, during the troubles in Northern Ireland he lost his sight as a result of being hit by a rubber bullet. He recounted that when he was rushed to hospital he heard his dad say to the doctors, “Can I give him my eyes?” Evidently, he would have been willing to suffer blindness himself if only his ten year old could regain his sight. Jesus was well aware that imperfect parents could be extraordinarily generous to their children. Parental kindness, he observed, is only a pale reflection of the generosity of a perfectly loving God. As Paul was to say sometime later, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him?” Rom 8:32-33.

2. Omnipotence of God

Because of their belief in a closed universe governed by the unchangeable laws of physics, many people nowadays do not subscribe to the belief that God can do impossible deeds of a supernatural nature. It wasn’t much different in the first century in either the Greco-Roman or Jewish worlds. For example, the Stoics not only believed that God was apathetic and therefore unmoved by human suffering, they also maintained that the world was governed by inexorable fate of an impersonal nature. For their part, the Jews were divided about the possibility of divine intervention in human affairs. The Sadducees, for example, didn’t believe that God could work miracles, while the Pharisees did (cf. Acts 23:6-10).

Echoing what the angel Gabriel had said to his mother at the annunciation (cf. Lk 1:37), Jesus asserted on a number of occasions his heartfelt conviction that nothing was impossible to God. For example, when the apostles observed that rich people would not be able to enter heaven, Jesus responded, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” Mt 19:26. Time and time again, during his public ministry, he had demonstrated the soundness of that belief when he performedThealings, miracles and exorcisms. In Gethsemane it was no different. Jesus stated once again that he was convinced that nothing was impossible to His Father.

3. Petition

From a human point of view, the prospect of having to endure the mind numbing sufferings of passion week was almost too much for Jesus to bear. As the scripture recounts: “During the days of his life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death” Heb 5:7. In a way this is surprising for two main reasons. Firstly, on more than one occasion Jesus had spoken about his impending passion as an expression of the divine will. We can recall how he reprimanded Peter when he tried to dissuade him from meeting such a fate in Jerusalem while accusing him of being an agent of Satan! Secondly, when Satan had tempted Jesus to jump from a tower while trusting that angels would save him in a miraculous way, He rejected the temptation (cf. Mt 4:6). While he did not refuse to do God’s will in the garden, Jesus did express his anguished hope that the Father might change his plans by ushering in the kingdom without him having to suffer. This would indicate that as man Jesus had a will and desires of his own, which seemed on this occasion to be in conflict with those of God.

4. Submission

Having poured out his human feelings, Jesus remained Godorientated when he said: “Yet not what I will, but what you will.” This was an echo of another prayer he had uttered some time before: “Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour” Jn 12:27. While the Father often revealed his will to Jesus by means of inner inspirations, on this occasion there was no apparent communication. Instead, God was silent. His purposes were only manifested to Jesus in and through the unfolding events of the passion. Our Lord courageously embraced the providential plan of God. As He testified, “For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me” Jn 6:38. Afterwards, the author of Hebrews was to observe, “Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered” Heb 5:8.

Some Christian Implications

I would suggest that all we need to know, about petitionary prayer is contained in this important incident. Sooner or later, all of us have to endure sufferings of one kind or another. For instance, yesterday I received an email from a distraught woman who described the distressing physical sufferings which her aged mother has to endure and the stress it is putting on her daughters who are trying to nurse her. The writer said that she believed in the power of a loving God and asked me to pray with and for her mother.

Needles to say, as a believing Christian I want to affirm that God is our loving Father, that nothing is impossible to him, and that it is good to pray to him in time of need, e.g., for the old lady’s healing. But our attitude has to be like that of Jesus in Gethsemane. It is well expressed in the novena of grace in honour of St. Francis Xavier. It could be adapted to read, “Lord I ask you to grant the special favour I request. Although from a human point of view I ardently desire this favour, I am fully resigned to your loving and benevolent will in the knowledge that you want what is best for me and the people I care about. I desire to obtain only that which is most conducive to your greater glory and the greater good of my soul, or soul of the person I am concerned about. If it is your mysterious will that I, or the person I love, continue to endure this suffering give me the strength to embrace your will in the knowledge that we fill up in our flesh what is still lacking in your afflictions, for the sake of your body, which is the church” (cf. Col 1:24).

Fr Pat Collins CM is a prolific writer and a respected retreat leader based in Dublin, Ireland.