Love unveiled summary10/31/2023 ![]() Only later does Abraham's first prayer in words appear: a veiled complaint reminding God of his promises which seem unfulfilled. Abraham's prayer is expressed first by deeds: a man of silence, he constructs an altar to the Lord at each stage of his journey. Such attentiveness of the heart, whose decisions are made according to God's will, is essential to prayer, while the words used count only in relation to it. It unfolds throughout the whole history of salvation.Ģ570 When God calls him, Abraham goes forth "as the Lord had told him" 8 Abraham's heart is entirely submissive to the Word and so he obeys. Through words and actions, this drama engages the heart. As God gradually reveals himself and reveals man to himself, prayer appears as a reciprocal call, a covenant drama. In prayer, the faithful God's initiative of love always comes first our own first step is always a response. Man may forget his Creator or hide far from his face he may run after idols or accuse the deity of having abandoned him yet the living and true God tirelessly calls each person to that mysterious encounter known as prayer. ![]() All religions bear witness to men's essential search for God. "Crowned with glory and honor," man is, after the angels, capable of acknowledging "how majestic is the name of the Lord in all the earth." 1 Even after losing through his sin his likeness to God, man remains an image of his Creator, and retains the desire for the one who calls him into existence. In the act of creation, God calls every being from nothingness into existence. It is the action of God and of man, springing forth from both the Holy Spirit and ourselves, wholly directed to the Father, in union with the human will of the Son of God made man.Ģ566 Man is in search of God. It is the place of encounter, because as image of God we live in relation: it is the place of covenant.Ģ564 Christian prayer is a covenant relationship between God and man in Christ. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives. If our heart is far from God, the words of prayer are in vain.Ģ563 The heart is the dwelling-place where I am, where I live according to the Semitic or Biblical expression, the heart is the place "to which I withdraw." The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully. ![]() According to Scripture, it is the heart that prays. But in naming the source of prayer, Scripture speaks sometimes of the soul or the spirit, but most often of the heart (more than a thousand times). 11Ģ562 Where does prayer come from? Whether prayer is expressed in words or gestures, it is the whole man who prays. ![]() 8Ģ561 "You would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." 9 Paradoxically our prayer of petition is a response to the plea of the living God: "They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water!" 10 Prayer is the response of faith to the free promise of salvation and also a response of love to the thirst of the only Son of God. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God's thirst with ours. Jesus thirsts his asking arises from the depths of God's desire for us. It is he who first seeks us and asks for a drink. "Man is a beggar before God." 6Ģ560 "If you knew the gift of God!" 7 The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water: there, Christ comes to meet every human being. Only when we humbly acknowledge that "we do not know how to pray as we ought," 5 are we ready to receive freely the gift of prayer. 2559 "Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God." 2 But when we pray, do we speak from the height of our pride and will, or "out of the depths" of a humble and contrite heart? 3 He who humbles himself will be exalted 4 humility is the foundation of prayer.
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