The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 337: Blessing, Adoration, and Petition

Episode Date: December 3, 2023

Prayer in the age of the Church takes on many different forms. Together, we examine specifically blessing, adoration, and petition. Fr. Mike emphasizes the beauty that all of our prayers of blessing are a response to God’s blessings for us. He also explores how common and spontaneous prayers of petition to our Father in heaven truly are, but in the age of the Church, our petition is full of hope and not lamentation. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2623-2633. This episode has been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Institute on the Catechism, under the Subcommittee on the Catechism, USCCB. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and you're listening to The Catechism in a Year Podcast, where we encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us, revealed in Scripture and passed down through the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in a year is brought to you by Ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church discovering our identity and God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is day 337. We are reading paragraph 26, 23 to 26, 33. As always, I'm using the ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the foundations

of faith approach, but you can follow along with any recent version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. You can also download your own Catechism in a year reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash C-I-Y. And you can click follow or subscribe to your podcast app. That's follow or subscribe in your podcast app to receive daily updates and daily notifications. Today is day three thirty seven. We were reading paragraphs as I said twenty six twenty three to twenty six thirty three. We were on a new article prayer in the age of the church. You know, we talked about prayer in the scripture that in the fullness of time Jesus reveals how to pray and actually marry. Great model of that prayer. Today we're looking at, okay, so now ever since

Pentecost, the Spirit of promise, the Holy Spirit, that Jesus Christ promised, was poured out on all the disciples gathered together in one place. And so what did the prayer of the church look like? And so we're going to talk about, of course, in the Acts of the Apostles, it highlights the fact that the believers, Christians, they devoted themselves to the Apostles teaching and the fellowship, breaking of the bread and the prayers. And so remember what those things mean, the Apostles teaching, so the Magisterium, the teaching of the church, the fellowship, that community, that they belong not only to the Lord, they belong to each other, to the breaking of the bread, which is code for the sacrament of the Eucharist, as well as the prayers. And we're talking about the prayers specifically today. Now, in the next couple of days,

and when we talk about the prayer of the church, we're looking at a couple different kinds of categories, I guess we'll say, of prayer. So today, we're looking at blessing and adoration and petition. So blessing, adoration, petition. Tomorrow, we'll look at the prayer of intercession and thanksgiving. And then the final day of this article, we'll look at prayer of praise. So what's

coming up is today, blessing, adoration, and petition. Then tomorrow, prayers of intercession and thanksgiving, and then lastly, prayer of praise. So just so you know what's coming, what's coming down the road? Today though, we're looking at blessing and adoration and petition. We ask the Lord for his blessings, ask the Lord for his grace, his help in our lives, asking for forgiveness. But also, we realize that our proper posture, the first attitude that we can have before God is acknowledging that we are a creature

and God is the creator, not just the creator, He's our creator. Like, there's an intrinsic relationship between us and the one who made us. And so we adore him in that. So we're looking at those things, blessing, adoration, petition. Let's stay a prayer. Father in heaven, we praise and glorify your name, send your Holy Spirit to teach us how to pray.

Please. Because we do not know how to pray as we ought to. And so fill our hearts with your love, fill our hearts with your spirit, with your truth, and help us to become people of prayer, people who at all times in all seasons and all circumstances. Bless you, adore you, and make our prayers and petitions known to you. We make this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, of Jesus Christ our Lord, amen in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

It is day 337. We are reading paragraphs 26, 23 to 26, 33. Article 3 in the Age of the Church. On the day of Pentecost, the Spirit of the promise was poured out on the disciples gathered together in one place, while awaiting the Spirit, all these with one accord devoted themselves to prayer. The Spirit who teaches the church and recalls for her everything that Jesus said was also to form her in the life of prayer.

In the first community of Jerusalem, believers devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. This sequence is characteristic of the church's prayer, founded on the apostolic faith, authenticated by charity, nourished in the Eucharist. In the first place, these are prayers that the faithful hear and read in the scriptures, but also that they make their own, especially those of the Psalms, in view of their fulfillment in Christ. The Holy Spirit, who thus keeps the memory of, in view of their fulfillment in Christ. The Holy Spirit, who thus keeps the memory of Christ alive in His church at prayer, also

leads her toward the fullness of truth and inspires new formulations expressing the unfathomable mystery of Christ at work in His church's life, sacraments, and mission. These formulations are developed in the great liturgical and spiritual traditions. The forms of prayer revealed in the apostolic and canonical scriptures remain normative for Christian prayer. Blessing and Adoration Blessing expresses the basic movement of Christian prayer. It is an encounter between God and man.

In blessing, God's gift and man's acceptance of it are united in dialogue with each other. The prayer of blessing is man's response to God's gifts. Because God blesses, the human heart can in return bless the one who is the source of every blessing. Two fundamental forms express this movement. Our prayer ascends in the Holy Spirit through Christ to the Father. We bless Him for having blessed us. It implores the grace of the Holy Spirit that descends through Christ from the Father. He blesses us.

Adoration is the first attitude of man, acknowledging that He is a creature before His creator. It exalts the greatness of the Lord who made us, and the almighty power of the Savior who sets us free from evil. Adoration is homage of the Spirit to the King of glory, respectful silence in the presence of the ever-greater God. Adoration of the Thrice Holy and Sovereign God of Love blends with humility and gives assurance to our supplications. Prayer of petition

The vocabulary of supplication in the New Testament is rich in shades of meaning. Ask, besiege, plead, invoke, entreat, cry out, even struggle in prayer. It's most usual form because the most spontaneous is petition. By prayer of petition, we express awareness of our relationship with God. We are creatures who are not our own beginning, not the masters of adversity, not our own last end. We are sinners who, as Christians, know that we have turned away from our Father.

Our petition is already a turning back to Him. The New Testament contains scarcely any prayers of lamentation, so frequent in the Old Testament. In the risen Christ, the church's petition is buoyed by hope, even if we still wait in a state of expectation and must be converted anew every day. Christian petition, in what St. Paul calls groaning, arises from another depth, that of creation in labor pains, and that of ourselves as we await for the redemption of our bodies, for in this hope we were saved.

In the end, however, with size, too deep for words, the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with size too deep for words. The first movement of the prayer of petition is asking forgiveness, like the tax collector in the parable, God be merciful to me, a sinner. It is a prerequisite for righteous and pure prayer. A trusting humility brings us back into the light of communion between the Father and His Son Jesus Christ and with one another, so that we receive from Him whatever we ask.

Asking forgiveness is the prerequisite for both the Eucharistic liturgy and personal prayer. Christian petition is centered on the desire and search for the kingdom to come in keeping with the teaching of Christ. There is a hierarchy in these petitions. We pray first for the kingdom, then for what is necessary to welcome it and cooperate with its coming. This collaboration with the mission of Christ and the Holy Spirit, which is now that of the Church, is the object of the prayer of the Apostolic community. It is the prayer of Paul, the Apostle Par excellence, which reveals to us how the divine solicitude

for all the churches ought to inspire Christian prayer. By prayer, every baptized person works for the coming of the kingdom. When we share in God's saving love, we understand that every need can become the object of petition. Christ, who assumed all things in order to redeem all things, is glorified by what we ask the Father in His name. It is with this confidence that St. James and St. Paul exhort us to pray at all times. Right, there we have it, paragraphs 26, 23,

to 26, 33. What a gift, this is just incredible, honestly, this is amazing. So as we mentioned already, we talked at how did Jesus pray, how they pray in the old covenant, how did Jesus pray, how does Jesus teach us how to pray, and now here's prayer in the age of the church. This is just remarkable.

I love this 26, 25 highlights this. It says, in the first place, these are prayers at the faithful here and read in the scriptures, but also that they make their own, especially those of the Psalms in view of their fulfillment in Christ. And I think that's remarkable.

Here we have been giving this patrimony, right? This inheritance that he keeps saying when it comes to the Old Testament, in particular, the prayers of the Psalms, that we get to make our own. The church makes these Psalms, which are so remarkable in gifts of the Lord. We make them our own, especially in view of their fulfillment in Christ. I love this, keeps going on. It says, the Holy Spirit, who thus keeps the memory of Christ alive in his church at prayer, also leads her toward the fullness of truth and inspires new formulations, expressing the unfathomable mystery of Christ

at work in his church's life, sacraments and mission. That's a lot, that's a lot, that's a lot for one sentence. Basically, the Holy Spirit, again, who teaches us to pray, because they don't know how to pray as we ought, who reminds us of all things. The Holy Spirit, he keeps the memory of Jesus Christ alive in his church when we pray. And also the Holy Spirit leads us to the fullness of truth and inspires these new formulations expressing the unfathomable mystery of Christ at work in the church's life. And just amazing and remarkable.

And then that's how the catacombs are here. Introduces the next section, as we talked about today Today is blessing and adoration and then also prayer petition. And so there's something remarkable when it comes to the fact that we get to bless and adore God. In fact, 26-26 says, blessing expresses the basic movement of Christian prayer. It is an encounter between God and man. How does that work? Well, it says this. It says in blessing, God's gift and man's acceptance of it are united and dialogue with each other. So when we talk about blessing, that's what we mean.

This is the gift of God's, God blesses us through giving us his gifts. And then when we accept it, we in turn bless God. Right, so it says, it goes on to say, the prayer of blessing is man's response to God's gifts. Because God blesses the human heart, can it in return bless the one who is the source of every blessing? Isn't that? I think there's something just so beautiful about this because it reminds us of the fact that, remember, remember, every time we pray, it's always a response.

God initiates and we get to respond. So in blessing, it's always a response. God initiates, and we get to respond. So in blessing, it's the same thing. God blesses us, and then what we can do in return is bless the one who is the source of every blessing. And it's just incredible. And then 26, 28 highlights, adoration. What is adoration? As it says very clearly, adoration is the first attitude of man, acknowledging that he is a creature before his creator.

In this of Remarkable, we can adore the Lord in so many ways. We can adore the Lord in praise, right? In that sense of singing out loud or speaking out loud, we can also adore the Lord in silence. I love this. It says here, Adoration is homage of the Spirit to the King of glory, respectful silence, in the presence of the ever-greater God. And just add this adoration and praise that we get to give God is remarkable. But the heart of it, right, is our attitude, acknowledging that we are a

creature before God who is the Creator. And that's that adoration. So when you go in, you know, typically Catholics, we talk about adoration. And what we can mean sometimes is we can mean time in front of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, right? You go into the church or maybe have our Lord in the monstrance where you can see him in the Eucharist on the altar or even simply in the Blessed Sacrament or in the Tabernacle, the Blessed Sacrament in the Tabernacle. So whether it's, you know, some people say, whether it's behind glass or behind brass, like we get to adore the presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.

So that kind of adoration, one of the first movements of that kind of adoration is acknowledging, Lord, you are God, I'm not. It's repeating those words of St. Thomas the Apostle who fell down before Jesus, Christ, risen from the dead, right? That one week after he had risen from the dead after the resurrection, and he says those words,

my Lord and my God, that kind of adoration is what we do when we come before the Lord in the Eucharist. We adore Him, my Lord and my God, you are God, and I am not. Now, we have blessing, and I am not. Now we have blessing. We have adoration, and today we have also the prayer of petition. In the next kind of prayer in paragraph 2629 is the prayer of petition. After we talk about blessing and adoring, there's this reality that we get to petition

the Lord. And the vocabulary, it says in 2629, is rich in the New Testament, in its shades of meaning, right? We can have petition can mean anything like ask or beseech. It can also mean to plead or to invoke, to entreat, to cry out even struggle in prayer. Petition can mean struggle in prayer, which I think is just remarkable.

And usually petition is so common because it's really spontaneous. Basically, when we express our awareness of our relationship with God that he is good, that he is our father, that he is a provider, that makes sense, that we would come before our God, to come before our father and ask. And that's so good. We are told by Jesus Christ to ask, right? To ask, to seek, to knock. And this is so good. When we respond this way, it is, we're responding at, hopefully, we're praying as God's sons and daughters. We're praying to our Father that when we ask, when we visit each, when we plead and vote and treat, when we cry out, when we struggle and prayer, we're talking to our Father.

And that is so remarkable that I love these last two sentences of paragraph 2629. We're sinners who, as Christians know, that we have turned away from our Father, our petition is already turning back to him. That's what petition is. We're already turning back to the Lord. But there is this note that is made in paragraph 2630 that I had never noticed before. I'd never paid attention to before. And it says this, it says, the New Testament contains scarcely any prayers of lamentation so frequent in the Old Testament. I never thought, I mean, I always highlight the fact

that in my prayer, or even when I'm talking about the different kinds of scriptures that there are, different kinds of ways people pray throughout the Bible, I know the prayers of lamentation. Because I just think again, like any good Catholic, any good Christian, the old and New Testaments are both incredibly relevant. They're both the Word of God, the whole thing. And so I just kind of, I don't want to say it like this, but kind of conflate them.

And like, of course, we have lamentation because we have the Old Testament and the Book of Lamentations and other kinds of prayers there that are like that. But I didn't notice that the New Testament contains scarcely any prayers of lamentation. And it goes on to say, in the risen Christ, the church's petition is buoyed by hope, even if we still wait in a state of expectation and must be converted a new every day.

There's, it's not lamentation, it's something else. Because this lament is this cry of desperation out to God that doesn't have the same aspect of Christian hope that is present in when people cry out in the new covenant. And I think that there's something remarkable. We still do cry out, obviously, St. Paul says, we've grown in labor pains as we await for the redemption of our bodies in this hope we were saved.

And yes, we have size too deep for words, but there is something different. There's a different kind of quality in the Christian prayer of struggling in prayer or crying out to the Lord. That quality is hope and new kind of hope. I've just never thought of that. In paragraph 26, 30 highlights, that's I'm going to take that to prayer. I think quite a bit. Moving on, the last three notes that are made in 26, 31 to the end is, first is that the first movement of the prayer petition is asking forgiveness. Like the first thing we ask for is asking for forgiveness.

And this is, again, this is just a key for all of us in our prayer that sometimes we launch into petition and again, Jesus told us, ask, seek, knock. But what's the first thing that we ask for? What is the first thing that we invoke or plead the Lord to give us? And the first thing should be asking forgiveness, asking for his mercy. And it's one of those kind of first things, first kind of situations here in paragraph 2631. The first thing we ask for is forgiveness and 2632 highlights that the first thing we seek

should be the kingdom to come and keeping with the teachings of Jesus. That first we pray for the kingdom. So again, ask for forgiveness. And then the higher he is, then we first pray for the kingdom. And then for whatever is necessary to welcome it and cooperate with it's coming. Right? So that sense of like, it's so important for us to get the first things first and get, you know, number one thing, number one and number two thing, number two, number three, you

know, going on. So the first, we ask forgiveness. Second, we search for the kingdom of God. And then for whatever is necessary for that kingdom of God, we recognize that then we continue to pray for the whole community. And that's so remarkable. The last thing is paragraph 26-33. And I just think there's a depth here that let's read the whole thing one more time just because it's so powerful. It says, when we share in God's saving love, we understand that every need can become the object of

petition. That Christ who assumed all things in order to redeem all things is glorified by what we ask the Father in his name. Have you ever considered that the Father is glorified when we come before him in prayer and ask him for what we want? There is something that actually, let me think about when you treat your father like he's your father, do you honor him? You treat your mother like she's your mother, you honor her. And yes, of course, our parents aren't just, we don't wallets, you know, or they have the checkbook, whatever the credit card or whatever it is.

And we don't just come to them in the way of utility. Similarly, we don't come to our father in heaven with just this simply looking for a handout or looking for the next good thing for him to give us. That's not the only relationship we have with our father. And yet at the same time, when we actually share in God's saving love, we understand that every need we have, we can pray for everything. Every need we have can become an object of petition. So I don't know how often you or I have failed to bring something before God, something we really cared about, something that we were desperate for, because maybe we were just nervous and like, God doesn't care about this. But when we're sharing God's love, we understand that every need can become the object

of petition. One example that's maybe, maybe it's a silly example, but net stands for the national evangelization teams. And based on the same Paul Minnesota, but they go all over the country and in Canada and Ireland and I think maybe even Australia. But there's this team of anywhere from nine to 12, I don't know, teenagers or young adults

who live in a van and travel all over the place and they put on retreats. Well, we have a student who for a while, she was a net missionary. And at one point, she shared how they were so in love with Jesus and they were so confident with the fact that God just loved them, she and her teammates. It was confident that they could bring anything before the Lord, that one day,

one of her teammates decided, you know what they're going to pray for, they're going to pray for tacos that night. You know, they just basically eat whatever people feed them. They wanted to go from town to town or house to house. They just take whatever, except whatever. And she said, one night it was like one day they were saying, you know, Jesus We just we really want tacos and just please Jesus give us some tacos today And it was one of the situations where it whether it was lunch or supper that night They were served tacos and it was one of those moments that we might look at that and say and that's ridiculous That's kind of silly But I don't think it is silly. I don't think it is ridiculous. I think it's a situation where

They were so confident in God's love for them. That they weren't going to edit themselves when it came to what they prayed for. If the thing that they needed was a wanted Western word tacos, Jesus, I'm going to ask you for tacos. Why? Because again, what it says in that very first line, when we share in God's saving love, when we know that God loves us, then everything we need can become an object of petition. That Christ who assumed all things in order to redeem all things is glorified, but what we buy what we ask the Father in His name. And I just

I it was a symbol, a sign for her and for her team. Not that, okay, God's gonna give us everything. Every time we pray for tacos or every time we pray for any healing or whatever the thing is, God's just gonna automatically do that for us. But it was a sign and a reminder to them that actually God cares. And he's close.

And he hears your prayers. and you can bring him anything. You can bring him even what you think might be silly. You can bring him what you think is what you know is sinful. Say, God, please forgive me for these things. When we share in God's saving love, we understand that every need can become the object of petitions. So the question is, are you editing your prayer? Is there any times where you stop sharing with God what it is that you desire? Because you don't need to hear about that because I'm not trusting in his love. That could be the case because all of us, any of us, can find ourselves in that love. That could be the case, because all of us, any of us, get to find ourselves

in that place. But to not edit your prayer is a great gift. I think it's a great gift of the Holy Spirit. To not edit yourself in prayer, but to simply bring before our father whatever it is that is in your heart. And I hope that you did that today. I'm praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.