Catechism of the Catholic Church — paragraphs 2701

2701 Vocal prayer is an essential element of the Christian life. To his disciples, drawn by their Master's silent prayer, Jesus teaches a vocal…
2702 The need to involve the senses in interior prayer corresponds to a requirement of our human nature. We are body and spirit, and we…
2703 This need also corresponds to a divine requirement. God seeks worshippers in Spirit and in Truth, and consequently living prayer that rises…
2704 Because it is external and so thoroughly human, vocal prayer is the form of prayer most readily accessible to groups. Even interior prayer,…
2705 Meditation is above all a quest. The mind seeks to understand the why and how of the Christian life, in order to adhere and respond to what…
2706 To meditate on what we read helps us to make it our own by confronting it with ourselves. Here, another book is opened: the book of life.…
2707 There are as many and varied methods of meditation as there are spiritual masters. Christians owe it to themselves to develop the desire to…
2708 Meditation engages thought, imagination, emotion, and desire. This mobilization of faculties is necessary in order to deepen our…
2709 What is contemplative prayer? St. Teresa answers: "Contemplative prayer [ oracion mental ] in my opinion is nothing else than a close…
2710 The choice of the time and duration of the prayer arises from a determined will, revealing the secrets of the heart. One does not undertake…
2711 Entering into contemplative prayer is like entering into the Eucharistic liturgy: we "gather up" the heart, recollect our whole being under…
2712 Contemplative prayer is the prayer of the child of God, of the forgiven sinner who agrees to welcome the love by which he is loved and who…
2713 Contemplative prayer is the simplest expression of the mystery of prayer. It is a gift, a grace; it can be accepted only in humility and…
2714 Contemplative prayer is also the pre-eminently intense time of prayer. In it the Father strengthens our inner being with power through his…
2715 Contemplation is a gaze of faith, fixed on Jesus. "I look at him and he looks at me": this is what a certain peasant of Ars in the time of…
2716 Contemplative prayer is hearing the Word of God. Far from being passive, such attentiveness is the obedience of faith, the unconditional…
2717 Contemplative prayer is silence , the "symbol of the world to come" or "silent love." Words in this kind of prayer are not speeches; they…
2718 Contemplative prayer is a union with the prayer of Christ insofar as it makes us participate in his mystery. The mystery of Christ is…
2719 Contemplative prayer is a communion of love bearing Life for the multitude, to the extent that it consents to abide in the night of faith.…
2720 The Church invites the faithful to regular prayer: daily prayers, the Liturgy of the Hours, Sunday Eucharist, the feasts of the liturgical…
2721 The Christian tradition comprises three major expressions of the life of prayer: vocal prayer, meditation, and contemplative prayer. They…
2722 Vocal prayer, founded on the union of body and soul in human nature, associates the body with the interior prayer of the heart, following…
2723 Meditation is a prayerful quest engaging thought, imagination, emotion, and desire. Its goal is to make our own in faith the subject…
2724 Contemplative prayer is the simple expression of the mystery of prayer. It is a gaze of faith fixed on Jesus, an attentiveness to the Word…
2725 Prayer is both a gift of grace and a determined response on our part. It always presupposes effort. The great figures of prayer of the Old…
2726 In the battle of prayer, we must face in ourselves and around us erroneous notions of prayer . Some people view prayer as a simple…
2727 We must also face the fact that certain attitudes deriving from the mentality of "this present world" can penetrate our lives if we are not…
2728 Finally, our battle has to confront what we experience as failure in prayer : discouragement during periods of dryness; sadness that,…
2729 The habitual difficulty in prayer is distraction . It can affect words and their meaning in vocal prayer; it can concern, more profoundly,…
2730 In positive terms, the battle against the possessive and dominating self requires vigilance, sobriety of heart. When Jesus insists on…
2731 Another difficulty, especially for those who sincerely want to pray, is dryness . Dryness belongs to contemplative prayer when the heart is…
2732 The most common yet most hidden temptation is our lack of faith . It expresses itself less by declared incredulity than by our actual…
2733 Another temptation, to which presumption opens the gate, is acedia . The spiritual writers understand by this a form of depression due to…
2734 Filial trust is tested - it proves itself - in tribulation. The principal difficulty concerns the prayer of petition , for oneself or for…
2735 In the first place, we ought to be astonished by this fact: when we praise God or give him thanks for his benefits in general, we are not…
2736 Are we convinced that "we do not know how to pray as we ought"? Are we asking God for "what is good for us"? Our Father knows what we need…
2737 "You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions." If we ask with a divided heart, we are "adulterers";…
2738 The revelation of prayer in the economy of salvation teaches us that faith rests on God's action in history. Our filial trust is enkindled…
2739 For St. Paul, this trust is bold, founded on the prayer of the Spirit in us and on the faithful love of the Father who has given us his…
2740 The prayer of Jesus makes Christian prayer an efficacious petition. He is its model, he prays in us and with us. Since the heart of the Son…
2741 Jesus also prays for us - in our place and on our behalf. All our petitions were gathered up, once for all, in his cry on the Cross and, in…
2742 "Pray constantly . . . always and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father." St. Paul adds,…
2743 It is always possible to pray : The time of the Christian is that of the risen Christ who is with us always, no matter what tempests may…
2744 Prayer is a vital necessity . Proof from the contrary is no less convincing: if we do not allow the Spirit to lead us, we fall back into…
2745 Prayer and Christian life are inseparable , for they concern the same love and the same renunciation, proceeding from love; the same filial…
2746 When "his hour" came, Jesus prayed to the Father. His prayer, the longest transmitted by the Gospel, embraces the whole economy of creation…
2747 Christian Tradition rightly calls this prayer the "priestly" prayer of Jesus. It is the prayer of our high priest, inseparable from his…
2748 In this Paschal and sacrificial prayer, everything is recapitulated in Christ: God and the world; the Word and the flesh; eternal life and…
2749 Jesus fulfilled the work of the Father completely; his prayer, like his sacrifice, extends until the end of time. The prayer of this hour…
2750 By entering into the holy name of the Lord Jesus we can accept, from within, the prayer he teaches us: "Our Father!" His priestly prayer…
2751 Finally, in this prayer Jesus reveals and gives to us the "knowledge," inseparably one, of the Father and of the Son, which is the very…
2752 Prayer presupposes an effort, a fight against ourselves and the wiles of the Tempter. The battle of prayer is inseparable from the…
2753 In the battle of prayer we must confront erroneous conceptions of prayer, various currents of thought, and our own experience of failure.…
2754 The principal difficulties in the practice of prayer are distraction and dryness. The remedy lies in faith, conversion, and vigilance of…
2755 Two frequent temptations threaten prayer: lack of faith and acedia - a form of depression stemming from lax ascetical practice that leads…
2756 Filial trust is put to the test when we feel that our prayer is not always heard. The Gospel invites us to ask ourselves about the…
2757 "Pray constantly" ( 1 Thess 5:17). It is always possible to pray. It is even a vital necessity. Prayer and Christian life are inseparable.
2758 The prayer of the hour of Jesus, rightly called the "priestly prayer" (cf. Jn 17), sums up the whole economy of creation and salvation. It…
2759 Jesus "was praying at a certain place, and when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, 'Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his…
2760 Very early on, liturgical usage concluded the Lord's Prayer with a doxology. In the Didache , we find, "For yours are the power and the…
2761 The Lord's Prayer "is truly the summary of the whole gospel." "Since the Lord . . . after handing over the practice of prayer, said…
2762 After showing how the psalms are the principal food of Christian prayer and flow together in the petitions of the Our Father, St. Augustine…
2763 All the Scriptures - the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms - are fulfilled in Christ. The Gospel is this "Good News." Its first…
2764 The Sermon on the Mount is teaching for life, the Our Father is a prayer; but in both the one and the other the Spirit of the Lord gives…
2765 The traditional expression "the Lord's Prayer" - oratio Dominica - means that the prayer to our Father is taught and given to us by the…
2766 But Jesus does not give us a formula to repeat mechanically. As in every vocal prayer, it is through the Word of God that the Holy Spirit…
2767 This indivisible gift of the Lord's words and of the Holy Spirit who gives life to them in the hearts of believers has been received and…
2768 According to the apostolic tradition, the Lord's Prayer is essentially rooted in liturgical prayer: [The Lord] teaches us to make prayer in…
2769 In Baptism and Confirmation , the handing on ( traditio ) of the Lord's Prayer signifies new birth into the divine life. Since Christian…
2770 In the Eucharistic liturgy the Lord's Prayer appears as the prayer of the whole Church and there reveals its full meaning and efficacy.…
2771 In the Eucharist, the Lord's Prayer also reveals the eschatological character of its petitions. It is the proper prayer of "the end-time,"…
2772 From this unshakeable faith springs forth the hope that sustains each of the seven petitions, which express the groanings of the present…
2773 In response to his disciples' request "Lord, teach us to pray" ( Lk 11:1), Jesus entrusts them with the fundamental Christian prayer, the…
2774 "The Lord's Prayer is truly the summary of the whole gospel," the "most perfect of prayers." It is at the center of the Scriptures.
2775 It is called "the Lord's Prayer" because it comes to us from the Lord Jesus, the master and model of our prayer.
2776 The Lord's Prayer is the quintessential prayer of the Church. It is an integral part of the major hours of the Divine Office and of the…
2777 In the Roman liturgy, the Eucharistic assembly is invited to pray to our heavenly Father with filial boldness; the Eastern liturgies…
2778 This power of the Spirit who introduces us to the Lord's Prayer is expressed in the liturgies of East and of West by the beautiful,…
2779 Before we make our own this first exclamation of the Lord's Prayer, we must humbly cleanse our hearts of certain false images drawn "from…
2780 We can invoke God as "Father" because he is revealed to us by his Son become man and because his Spirit makes him known to us. The personal…
2781 When we pray to the Father, we are in communion with him and with his Son, Jesus Christ. Then we know and recognize him with an ever new…
2782 We can adore the Father because he has caused us to be reborn to his life by adopting us as his children in his only Son: by Baptism, he…
2783 Thus the Lord's Prayer reveals us to ourselves at the same time that it reveals the Father to us. O man, you did not dare to raise your…
2784 The free gift of adoption requires on our part continual conversion and new life . Praying to our Father should develop in us two…
2785 Second, a humble and trusting heart that enables us "to turn and become like children": for it is to "little children" that the Father is…
2786 "Our" Father refers to God. The adjective, as used by us, does not express possession, but an entirely new relationship with God.
2787 When we say "our" Father, we recognize first that all his promises of love announced by the prophets are fulfilled in the new and eternal…
2788 Since the Lord's Prayer is that of his people in the "end-time," this "our" also expresses the certitude of our hope in God's ultimate…
2789 When we pray to "our" Father, we personally address the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. By doing so we do not divide the Godhead, since…
2790 Grammatically, "our" qualifies a reality common to more than one person. There is only one God, and he is recognized as Father by those…
2791 For this reason, in spite of the divisions among Christians, this prayer to "our" Father remains our common patrimony and an urgent summons…
2792 Finally, if we pray the Our Father sincerely, we leave individualism behind, because the love that we receive frees us from it. The "our"…
2793 The baptized cannot pray to "our" Father without bringing before him all those for whom he gave his beloved Son. God's love has no bounds,…
2794 This biblical expression does not mean a place ("space"), but a way of being; it does not mean that God is distant, but majestic. Our…
2795 The symbol of the heavens refers us back to the mystery of the covenant we are living when we pray to our Father. He is in heaven, his…
2796 When the Church prays "our Father who art in heaven," she is professing that we are the People of God, already seated "with him in the…
2797 Simple and faithful trust, humble and joyous assurance are the proper dispositions for one who prays the Our Father.
2798 We can invoke God as "Father" because the Son of God made man has revealed him to us. In this Son, through Baptism, we are incorporated and…
2799 The Lord's Prayer brings us into communion with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. At the same time it reveals us to ourselves (cf.…
2800 Praying to our Father should develop in us the will to become like him and foster in us a humble and trusting heart.

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