Prayer: The Essential Element
“Prayer is an indispensable condition for being able to obey God’s commandments.”
Paragraph 2098 of the Catechism states “ Prayer is an indispensable condition for being able to obey God’s commandments.” It is impossible to teach anyone how to live or even understand Catholicism if we do not first teach people to pray.
Those of us who are members of the Catholic faith must pray so that we may know Christ as He wants us to know Him. If we are not praying then at best we are trying to hit our mark as we shoot in the dark. We will, in that case, hit our target only as part of the random elements of probability. Praying is essential and as the Catechism explains it is an essential part of living Catholic morality.
The reason for this is simple, as we pray, we learn how to love God more and, therefore, our motivation is in loving God, the source of our morality. If we don’t pray, then our morality is nothing but rules. When some enforce our morality upon others, they see us accurately as the morality police.
Why did Jesus do what he did for us? Out of love for us. He not only died on the cross, he also rejected temptation. That is the source of his morality — His love for us. The source of our morality must be the same. We must be people who learn to love God and His people by knowing Him, loving Him and serving Him. It is not a set of rules we are called to follow. It is a love relationship in which the rules are the minimum standard of how to follow Christ.
Therefore, we have no business teaching our rules to people who do not pray and do not now Christ. We are not the morality police, we are ambassadors of the Kingdom of God inviting people to have dual citizenship, one Earthly and the other Heavenly. Our prayer changes how we live our lives. St Paul called us to use that as the door to evangelization.
Catholicism just cannot be lived without prayer. Christianity begins on Pentecost, after the apostles have a three year one on one internship with the Second Person of the Trinity and received graces directly from the Third. They had a relationship with Christ which changed their lives.
If you want a system of good sayings to follow then seek the wisdom of Socrates, but if you want to experience the fullness of human existence then seek to know Christ personally.
It makes no sense to teach Catholic morality if we are not also teaching prayer.
It is possible that one of the great faults that has led to the current crisis in the Church is the lack of teaching on prayer. As the bishops seek to find one solution or another to the crisis, they will fail if they do not pray and do not encourage all the Catholic faithful to pray. Cardinal Sarah teaches this:
We seek to imitate the organization of big businesses. We forget that prayer alone is in the blood that can course through the heart of the Church.
No one can live the Catholic faith without prayer and no saint ever did.
Photo: A Prece [The Prayer] by Antônio Parreiras [Public domain]