WALKING WITH JESUS, CHRIST MICHAEL - 12 + 1 - PRAYER – JESUS' SPEECH

 

Jesus wrote the Lord's Prayer when he was 15 years old.

Prayer, when it is a sincere supplication and is expressed with true faith, is always a way to increase the soul's capacity for spiritual reception.

In all your prayers remember that filiation with God, or what is the same, being a daughter or son of the Universal Father is a gift.

No boy or girl has to do anything to achieve the status of son or daughter of his or her parents.

In the same way, the child of God comes to grace and new life of spirit by the will of the Father who is in heaven. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven—divine sonship—must be received as a little child would receive it. Righteousness—the progressive development of character—is acquired, but sonship is received by grace and through faith.

In the year 1 B.C. At Jesus' age 6, his parents were concerned for a time about the way Jesus addressed the Heavenly Father in his prayers.

Joseph and Mary saw that the child insisted on addressing the heavenly Father as if he were speaking to Joseph. The less solemn and less reverent form of Jesus' communication with God disconcerted, especially Mary, but there was no way to distance him from that attitude. He would recite his prayers as he had been taught, but afterward he would insist “on having a little talk with my Father in heaven,” he would say.

Already at the age of 12, Jesus was modifying the religious practices of his family, regarding prayers and other customs.

Many of these things could be done in Nazareth because his synagogue was under the influence of a liberal school of rabbis, (other publications speak of “Essenes”) represented by Joseph, the famous teacher of Nazareth.

In the year 9 AD, at the age of 15, Jesus formulated for the first time the prayer that he later taught to his apostles and that is known today as the “Our Father.”

In reality, it was an evolution of family worship that included various formulas of praise along with formal prayers.

After Joseph died, Jesus tried to teach his older brothers to express themselves individually when praying, just as He liked to do, but they could not understand the reason for that thought and ended up repeating the formulas learned from Joseph. memory.

He tried to show them variants and prayer suggestions through guiding ideas until finally, one October night of that year, by the light of a lamp and on a low stone table, Jesus took a polished cedar tablet, about fifty centimeters on each side and with charcoal he wrote the prayer that would henceforth be the family's model of supplication.

In the year 27 AD. Almost 18 years after the event just narrated, in September, Jesus and the 12 were camping in Gilboa, waiting for some events and deepening the teachings about the kingdom and the mission.

They also hoped that the opposition to his work in Judea and Galilee would calm down and what the fate of John the Baptist would be.

Much of that time Jesus was in the mountains in communion with his Father.

A central theme in the discussions that month was prayer and worship.

At Thomas' request, “Teacher, teach us to pray,” Jesus one afternoon gave them a well-known lesson that we will more or less tell below.

"Prayer is an entirely personal and spontaneous expression of the attitude of the soul toward the spirit; prayer should be the communion of sonship and the expression of brotherhood. When prayer is dictated by the spirit, it leads to cooperative spiritual progress. "Ideal prayer is a form of spiritual communion that leads to intelligent worship. True prayer is the sincere attitude of reaching out to heaven to achieve your ideals."

Jesus does not say that what we ask in prayer must be granted to us, but he highlights other benefits that prayer will have on our spirit, even if it does not modify the will of the Father.

  “Prayer is the breath of the soul and should induce you to persevere in your attempt to discover the will of the Father. If any of you has a neighbor and you go to see him at midnight, saying: 'Friend, lend me three loaves, because a friend of mine who is traveling has come to see me, and I have nothing to offer him'; and if your neighbor answers, 'Don't bother me, because the door is already closed and my children and I are in bed; That's why I can't get up to give you bread,' you will insist, explaining that your friend is hungry, and that you don't have any food to offer him. I tell you that, if your neighbor does not want to get up to give you bread out of friendship for you, he will get up because of your importunity and will give you as many loaves as you need. Therefore, if perseverance obtains even the favors of mortal man, how much more will your perseverance in the spirit obtain for you the bread of life from the willing hands of the Father who is in heaven. I tell you again: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks at the door of salvation it will be opened.

"Which father among you, if his son makes an unwise request, would hesitate to give it according to fatherly wisdom, rather than on the terms of the son's mistaken demand? If the child needs bread, will you give him stone simply because he asked for it foolishly? If your child needs a fish, will you give him a water snake simply because one has appeared in the net with the fish, and the child asks for it foolishly?

If you, who are mortal and finite, know how to respond to requests and give your children good and appropriate gifts, how much more will your heavenly Father give the spirit and numerous additional blessings to those who ask him? Men should always pray without being discouraged.

"Let me tell you the story of a certain judge who lived in a wicked city. This judge did not fear God nor had respect for men. Now in this city there was a needy widow who continually went to the house of this unjust judge. , saying: Protect me from my adversary.' For some time he did not want to pay attention to her, but soon he said to himself: 'Although I do not fear God nor have consideration for men, since this widow does not stop bothering me, I will defend her so that she will stop tiring me with her continuous visits.' I tell you these stories to encourage you to persevere in prayer, and not to make you understand that your supplications will modify the just and upright Father in heaven.

In any case, your insistence is not to earn the favor of God, but to change your earthly attitude and increase the capacity of your soul to receive the spirit.”

Jesus taught them that effective prayer must be:

1. Altruistic—not just for himself.

2. Believer—according to faith.

3. Sincere—honest from the heart.

4. Intelligent—light-compliant.

5. Confident—submitted to the infinitely wise will of the Father.

When Jesus spent entire nights praying on the mountain, he did so mainly for his disciples and in particular for the twelve.

The Master prayed very little for himself, although he practiced much worship, the nature of which was a comprehensive communion with his Paradise Father.

James Zebedee, after Jesus' speech told him that more than for them, he would teach them a prayer for the new converts to the kingdom.

When James finished speaking, Jesus said, "If you still desire such a prayer, I will make known to you the one I taught my brothers and sisters in Nazareth":

Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Let your kingdom come; May your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our bread for tomorrow; Liven our soul with the water of life. Forgive us our debts, just as we have also forgiven our debtors. Save us from temptation, deliver us from evil, And make us more and more perfect like yourself.

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