474 JESUS' ASSOCIATION WITH PRAYER

YOUCAT Lesson 474

YOUCAT the catechism for Catholic youth

474  How did Jesus learn to pray?

Jesus learned to pray in his family and in the synagogue.  Yet Jesus broke through the boundaries of traditional prayer.  His prayer demonstrates a union with his Father in heaven that is possible only to someone who is the Son of God.  [2598-2599]

Jesus  with Mary and Joseph in the Temple  by James Tissot, Brooklyn_Museum. ….. 474

Jesus, who was God and man at the same time, grew up like other Jewish children of his time amid the rituals and prayer formulas of his people, Israel.  Nevertheless, as the story of the twelve-year-old Jesus in the Temple demonstrated (Luke 2:41-45), there was something in him that could not be learned; an original, profound, and unique union with God, his Father in heaven.   Jesus knew, as men hope for, a hereafter in another world, and prayed to God.  At the same time, though, he was also part of that hereafter.  The occasion [of the 12-year old Jesus in the Temple teaching and answering questions of the elders prefigured] that one day people would pray to Jesus, acknowledge him as God, and ask for his grace.

And [the child Jesus said to Mary and Joseph], “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”--Luke 2:49

“To pray means to think lovingly about Jesus.  Prayer is the soul’s attention that is concentrated on Jesus.  The more you love Jesus, the better you pray.”  Blessed Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916)

[2598-2599]

THE REVELATION OF PRAYER 

ARTICLE 2
IN THE FULLNESS OF TIME

2598 The drama of prayer is fully revealed to us in the Word who became flesh and dwells among us. To seek to understand his prayer through what his witnesses proclaim to us in the Gospel is to approach the holy Lord Jesus as Moses approached the burning bush: first to contemplate him in prayer, then to hear how he teaches us to pray, in order to know how he hears our prayer. –Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

Jesus prays

2599 The Son of God who became Son of the Virgin also learned to pray according to his human heart. He learns the formulas of prayer from his mother, who kept in her heart and meditated upon all the "great things" done by the Almighty.( Compare Luke 1:49; Lk 2:19; Lk 2:51.)⁴¹ He learns to pray in the words and rhythms of the prayer of his people, in the synagogue at Nazareth and the Temple at Jerusalem. But his prayer springs from an otherwise secret source, as he intimates at the age of twelve: "I must be in my Father's house."(Luke 2:49.)⁴² Here the newness of prayer in the fullness of time begins to be revealed: his filial prayer, which the Father awaits from his children, is finally going to be lived out by the only Son in his humanity, with and for men.