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How Did Jesus Pray?


This is an address to the 3 in 1 group, given by John Franklin on July 2, 2023


How did Jesus pray? The gospel sources preserve a memory that deeply impressed them. Jesus withdrew to pray. But we know that while he prayed the prayers of his people, he sought intimate solitude with his Father. His silent waiting on God was the well he drew from.

 

Jesus was born into a people who knew how to pray.

They were not like others in the Empire who didn’t know which god to trust; they made altars to them all;

to get a hearing, they tried to wear them out; they threatened, scorned them. But this way was not the way of Israel. Their day began and ended, with the Shema; ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, you mind.’ And it was followed by number of blessings, the Barochah 

 

Some examples:

‘Cure us, O Lord our God, of all the wounds of our heart.  Remove sadness and tears from us.  Blessed are you who cure our wounds.’

 

‘You alone reign over us.  Blessed are you O Lord who love justice.’

 

‘Hear O Lord, the voice of our prayer.  Show us your mercy, for you are a good and merciful God.  Blessed are you O Lord who hear our prayer.’

 

‘Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has kept us alive and preserved us and enabled us to reach this season.’

These, prayers, even today, are all said in order. There is a lovely story of man who found himself lost in the woods at prayer time, and he was without his prayer book. He reminded God that he couldn’t remember the prayers, so he told God, “I will recite the letters of the alphabet, O Lord, and you can put the prayers together.”  This tells me that it is the intention of our hearts that authenticates prayer.  

Jesus will have known the prayers by heart, and like all his people, he will have prayed standing, with head up, though he threw himself on the ground in Gethsemane.

 

We see him praying through the day: he cures the sick with prayer, he blesses little children, he thanks the Father for showing things to infants rather than the wise. In it all, we see his absolute trust in God, and his communion with God. But the real source of his life and ministry is his silent waiting on God; his openness to God; his seeking his Father’s will. He is centred in God – God who is love, is goodness.

 

You may remember the Dusty Springfield 1963 song:

“I only want to be with you.” It echoes “As the deer longs for flowing waters…” “Be still and know… Sink down and know that I am God” “Into your hands O Lord…  Wait…”  And Zephaniah says God rejoices over us with singing. Was Jesus listening to the song?  Can we?

 

‘Wait on the Lord’. The Psalms say it 25 times, Isaiah 11, and there are 116 in total. Wait on the lord, so that, as Paul says, we may be strengthened in our inner/hidden self, that Christ may dwell in our hearts, that we may be being rooted and grounded in love, transformed by the renewing of our minds.

 

So how can we be like Jesus, open and available to the Holy Presence? How, like Jesus, can we be available to the healing, restoration, enlivening of God? Centering Prayer answers the how. Centering Prayer is about waiting. We wait on God.

Ps 62:5

‘For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from him’.

It’s about being there, like a lady/gentleman in waiting. It’s taking a vacation from yourself says Thomas Keating.  It’s making room for the promised fullness of joy. It’s being present, in the present, with the Holy Presence.

 

Centering Prayer has origins in the desert fathers. It’s in the 13th century Cloud of Unknowing. In our day, Thomas Keating has brought it to us, followed by people like Cynthia Bourgeault. So what is it?  Some of you will know it. It is putting stick in spoke of the wheels of the constant revolving of our minds. It’s making space so we are not constantly thinking, 

running around caught in thought after thought.

Centering Prayer shows how to release, not get caught. A thought comes and calls, but there’s no need to grab it, or let it grab us. Centering Prayer is the practice of un-grabbing

 

A lot of meditation practices give you something to do, something to focus your mind on like breathing, saying a mantra like Maranatha etc. Centering Prayer doesn’t work that way. Centering Prayer recognises that we get caught by thought after thought, and it shows you how to release them, to make space for God. They are there, but Centering Prayer is about not holding on to them

.

A thought is anything that brings your attention to a focal point. It can be an idea, emotion, memory, noise, discomfort.  They are all thoughts. Centering Prayer is about releasing the thought and making room for God. It is not renouncing, fighting, but releasing, letting go. And another will come. But we release attachment – not my will, but yours. In it all we are consenting to the action and presence of God.

 

So every time to you let go of a thought, you are consenting to the action and presence of God. 

And whether you know it or not, you are receiving help, support, solidarity, grace and mercy and love that is beyond you, yet wants to be in you.

 

So Cynthia Bourgeault tell us to note three things.

1.   Intention

Centering Prayer is not done with attention but with intention. This is central to Centering Prayer. Don’t bring your attention to a focal point like following your breath, a mantra – it is all a thought. This is about letting go. Intention holds us.

So what is your intention? If it is to be totally

available to the divine presence, the now, to God;

if it is to be deeply available to what is deeper, richer, than all the usual thoughts and emotions, then you are on the right track.  

Don’t intend to make yourself still and empty, it’s not going to happen. It’s not about getting peace, finding joy, lowering your blood pressure and all.  There are fruits to be had from the practice of Centering Prayer, 

but they are not our intention. Our intention is to centre ourselves in the Love, to be deeply available to this life-giving, deeper current of presence.

 

2.   Let the thought go.

We come with the deep intention to be totally available to God, and a minute or two later you are wondering about what to have for dinner, when the car needs a WOF, how you are going to answer that email. Catch yourself thinking, let the thought go.  

Don’t worry about whether you will be able to do this. You will know, there will come a moment when you see I am thinking. That’s the point when you gently let the thought go – without judging yourself, without recrimination. The only thing you can do wrong, says Thomas Keating, is to get up and go. 

 

3.   Sacred Word.

To help you remember your basic intention, to help release thoughts, use what’s called a scared word.

Choose a word. It can be anything.  Words like love, still, peace.  It could even be wind, air, or sun because it doesn’t have to mean anything. It is a tool, there to symbolise to yourself your intention, your desire to be open to the action and presence of God. But what makes it different from a mantra is you don’t recite constantly. It’s just there, like a reminder note you make yourself.  It’s there to remind you of what you are doing, to release the thought and make space for God.

Four ‘R’s…

Resist no thought

Retain no thought 

React to no thought

Return to the sacred word

I notice I am thinking, I use my word to let the thought go. And like falling asleep, the word will fall away from time to time, and you are just there.

So, sit comfortably, eyes closed, head up like a balloon and spine like the string as Kelvin says. Make space at the beginning to relax your body. And as St Ignatius says, bless the space you are coming to as you enter. Collect yourself into your intention.

I am opening to the presence and action of God.

I am here, you are here. And thoughts will come.

Each time you let them go you are returning to God, to consent. 

 

Once, in a Centering Prayer workshop, an elderly woman told Thomas Keating she couldn’t do it.  She had 10,000 thoughts in 10 minutes! “Beautiful, he said. 10,000 opportunities to return to God.”  So don’t try to make your mind quiet, instead look joyfully that every thought offers the opportunity to let go and return to God.

 

The invitation of Centering Prayer is to pray like Jesus, to wait on God in silence, with the intention of being open and available to his presence and action.

 

Our 3 year old granddaughter in Wellington came home from St Mark’s preschool the other day and announced, “My body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.”

Centering Prayer is about making space in the temple.

 

‘And so the yearning strong, 

with which the soul will long,

will far out pass the power of human telling;

for none can guess its grace, 

till they become the place, 

wherein the Holy Spirit makes his dwelling.’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

         

 

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