"Có Thần Khí giúp đỡ chúng ta là những kẻ yếu hèn, vì chúng ta không biết cầu nguyện thế nào cho phải; nhưng chính Thần Khí cầu thay nguyện giúp chúng ta bằng những tiếng rên siết khôn tả".
As Christians, we never stop learning to pray. By now, you probably know many prayers. You may have some special prayers that your parents or your grandparents taught you when you was very little.
In this lesson, we will learn how Jesus prayed. From Jesus, we learn how to pray and how our personal prayer effects who we are as Christians.
The first thing we notice that Jesus was a man of prayer. When he was a child, Jesus lived in a family that prayed. In the Gospel of Luke, we saw Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to Jerusalem every year to pray in the temple.
When he began his ministry of preaching the Kingdom of God, Jesus went to the desert for forty days praying with his Father. Throughout his years of ministry, Jesus often went off alone to pray.
In the Gospels we also heard the tale of Jesus prayed aloud at different times. For examples, Jesus always prayed with God before important event such as when he healed someone or feed the people.
Not only that, Jesus also praised his Father and thanks God for reveals the Kingdom of God not to the wise and learned but to the smallest. Not only Jesus prayed for himself, he also prayed for his disciples and the people.
When Jesus disciples wanted to learn how to pray, he taught them to pray with his Father. The pray that we still pray it today – It is the Lord’s Prayer.
After Jesus ascended into heaven, his disciples did not stop learning how to pray. In fact, they gathered to pray as Jesus had taught them during his years on earth. Do you remember the story that Jesus’ disciples gathered to pray in the Acts of the Apostles? After Jesus ascended into Heaven, his disciples were together praying in a locked room with Mary. The Holy Spirit descended upon them and gave them the power as Jesus promised before he ascended into heaven.
Over the years, the Church has added new prayers as people gathered together. We can recognize several basic forms of prayers that the Church continues encourage us to do. We can summarize into five forms of prayers: Blessings, petition, intercession, thanksgiving, and praise.
Blessings: We bless God because everything we have comes from him. So in return we bless God’s holy name and tell how wonderful God is.
Petition is prayer for ourselves. When we pray in the form of petition, we asks God for things that help us to praise and adore God.
Intercession: In this prayer, we ask God to help others who are in great need or who are in trouble.
Thanksgiving: In thanksgiving, we let God know how grateful we are for all he has done for us and has given us.
Praise: we proclaim that he is our God because he has loved us and take away our sins.
Our belated Pope John Paul II often rose up early in the morning at 5:30 AM everyday and prayed in front of the Blessed of Sacrament before he started his day full of works. Often we saw him also prayed in front of the Blessed Mother when he visited countries. Especially, in the year 2000, he invited many Christian and non-Christian leaders come to the city where St. Francis Assisi was born to pray.
Probably many of you have visited Carthage Missouri at least one time in your life during the month of August. During this time, Vietnamese people gather with Mary to give thanks and praise God. This gathering calls Marian Days.
Another example is right in your parish. Often before the Mass starts, you can see many people knee and pray the rosary. They often pray aloud in chant asking Mary, our Mother, to intercede with God for us.
At home, you might see your family gather either every night or occasionally to pray.
When we pray to God, we usually say we are praying to the Father, through the Son, and in unity with the Holy Spirit. The prayer of the Church is a living tradition, so it changes in style and form depending on the times and the culture of the people praying.
As Christians, we pray everyday. We can go to Church to pray. We also pray at home or while we are traveling. We can also pray when we begin something new or finish a project.
For our own time and our Vietnamese Youth heritage, we can begin our day with Morning Offering - Kinh Dang Ngay and thanking God for keep us safe throughout the night. We also ask God to bless us as we start our day. At night, before we go to bed, we can Say Nigh Offering Kinh Dang Dem and offer up everything that happened throughout the day. We take time to thanks God for the day and ask God to forgive all the things that we had done wrong to God, our friends, and ourselves.
Another way we can apply prayer to our own life is to say the Lord’s Prayer with reverence and respect.
We don’t have to go very far to learn how to pray. We can look at Jesus and his life as an example of how to pray. Jesus always prayed before he began something new or cured somebody. He often prayed with His Father and praised God. He also taught his disciples how to pray. After Jesus went back to heaven, his disciples continued to follow Jesus’ prayer pattern. Today in the Church, people have many different ways to pray. However, all sum up to five forms of prayers. They are blessings, petition, intercession, thanksgiving, and praise.
Lạy Cha nhân từ, chúng con tin thật Ba Ngôi Thiên Chúa đang hiện diện nơi đây với chúng con để đón nhận chúng con đi sâu vào trong tương quan với gia đình Thiên Chúa. Xin Cha dìm chúng con vào trong tương quan huyền diệu ấy để tất cả chúng con tuy nhiều, tuy khác biệt nhưng được hiệp nhất nên một với nhau trong Chúa Cha, Chúa Con và Chúa Thánh Thần.
Lạy Mẹ Ma-ri-a, Thánh cả Giu-se, xin nâng đỡ và dẫn đưa chúng con theo các ngài đi vào trong sự hiệp nhất với Thiên Chúa.