Jesus, Man of Prayer (Six Weeks with the Bible) - Softcover

Perrotta, Mr. Kevin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0829423273 ISBN 13: 9780829423273

Publisher: Loyola Press, 2007

Synopsis

Jesus and prayer—two topics that are inextricably linked together. In Jesus: Man of Prayer, we learn about what it means to pray, and how to do it, by studying the way Jesus prayed. Gain a greater understanding of Jesus—and prayer—as you work your way through this helpful and practical Bible study.

A Guided Discovery of the Bible
The Bible invites us to explore God’s word and reflect on how we might respond to it. To do this, we need guidance and the right tools for discovery. The Six Weeks with the Bible series of Bible discussion guides offers both in a concise six-week format. Whether focusing on a specific biblical book or exploring a theme that runs throughout the Bible, these practical guides in this series provide meaningful insights that explain Scripture while helping readers make connections to their own lives. Each guide• is faithful to Church teaching and is guided by sound biblical scholarship
• presents the insights of Church fathers and saints
• includes questions for discussion and reflection
• delivers information in a reader-friendly format
• gives suggestions for prayer that help readers respond to God’s word
• appeals to beginners as well as to advanced students of the Bible
 
By reading Scripture, reflecting on its deeper meanings, and incorporating it into our daily life, we can grow not only in our understanding of God’s word, but also in our relationship with God.

About this title

About the Author

Kevin Perrotta is an award-winning Catholic journalist and a former editor of God’s Word Today. In addition to the Six Weeks with the Bible series, he is the author of Invitation to Scripture and Your One-Stop Guide to the Bible. Perrotta lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

From the Back Cover

A Guided Discovery of the Bible

The Bible invites us to explore God’s word and reflect on how we might respond to it. To do this, we need guidance and the right tools for discovery. This practical series of Bible discussion guides offers both in a concise six-week format. Whether focusing on a specific biblical book or exploring a theme that runs throughout the Bible, the guides in this series provide meaningful insights that explain Scripture while helping readers make connections to their own lives. Each guide

•    is faithful to Church teaching and is guided by sound biblical scholarship
•    presents the insights of Church fathers and saints
•    includes questions for discussion and reflection
•    delivers information in a reader-friendly format
•    gives suggestions for prayer that help readers respond to God’s word
•    appeals to beginners as well as to advanced students of the Bible

By reading Scripture, reflecting on its deeper meanings, and incorporating it into our daily life, we can grow not only in our understanding of God’s word, but also in our relationship with God.

For a complete list of titles in this series, please consult the inside front and back covers. For more information, or to order, call 800-621-1008 or visit www.loyolapress.com/six-weeks.

Kevin Perrotta, series editor, is an award-winning Catholic journalist, the author of Your Invitation to Scripture, and a former editor of God’s Word Today, a magazine for daily reflection on Scripture. He has a master’s degree in theology from the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

How to Use This Guide
You might compare the Bible to a national park. The park is so large that you could spend months, even years, getting to know it. But a brief visit, if carefully planned, can be enjoyable and worthwhile. In a few hours you can drive through the park and pull over at a handful of sites. At each stop you can get out of the car, take a short trail through the woods, listen to the wind blowing through the trees, get a feel for the place.
 In this book, we will read sections of the Gospels that show us Jesus in prayer. Because the excerpts are short, we will be able to take a leisurely walk through them, thinking carefully about Jesus’ prayer and what it means for us.
 This guide provides everything you need to explore the Gospel excerpts in six discussions—or to do a six-part exploration on your own. The introduction on page 6 will prepare you to get the most out of your reading. The weekly sections provide explanations that will help illuminate the meanings of the readings for your life. Equally important, each section supplies questions that will launch your group into fruitful discussion, helping you to both investigate the Scripture readings for yourself and learn from one another. If you’re using the book by yourself, the questions will spur your personal reflection.
 Each discussion is meant to be a guided discovery.
 Guided. None of us is equipped to read the Bible without help. We read the Bible for ourselves but not by ourselves. Scripture was written to be understood and applied in the community of faith. So each week you’ll find background and explanations in “A Guide to the Reading,” which draws on the work of both modern biblical scholars and Christian writers of the past. The guide will help you grasp the meanings of Gospel readings. Think of it as a friendly park ranger who points out noteworthy details and explains what you’re looking at so you can appreciate things for yourself.
 Discovery. The purpose is for you to interact with the biblical readings. “Questions for Careful Reading” is a tool to help you dig into the text and examine it carefully. “Questions for Application” will help you consider what these words mean for your life here and now. Each week concludes with an “Approach to Prayer” section that helps you respond to God’s word. Supplementary “Living Tradition” and “Saints in the Making” sections offer the thoughts and experiences of Christians past and present. By showing what Jesus’ prayer has meant to others, these sections will help you consider what it means for you. Sections after Week 3 and Week 6 look at two Gospel passages on Jesus’ prayer not covered in the weekly sessions.
 How long are the discussion sessions? We’ve assumed you will have about an hour and a half when you get together. If you have less time, you’ll find that most of the elements can be shortened somewhat.
 Is homework necessary? You will get the most out of your discussions if you read the weekly material and prepare answers to the questions in advance of each meeting.
If participants are not able to prepare, have someone read the “Guide to the Reading” sections aloud to the group at the points where they appear.
 What about leadership? If you happen to have a world-class biblical scholar in your group, by all means ask him or her to lead the discussions. In the absence of any professional Scripture scholars, or even accomplished amateur biblical scholars, you can still have a first-class Bible discussion. Choose two or three people to take turns as facilitators, and have everyone read “Suggestions for Bible Discussion Groups” (page 92) before beginning.
 Does everyone need a guide? a Bible? Everyone in the group will need his or her own copy of this book. It contains all the Gospel excerpts discussed in the weekly sessions, so a Bible is not absolutely necessary—but each participant will find it useful to have one. You should have at least one Bible on hand for your discussions. (See page 96 for recommendations.)
 How do we get started? Before you begin, take a look at the suggestions for Bible discussion groups (page 92) or individuals (page 95).
The Blue Thread
In a village in first-century Galilee, a woman suffering from a chronic ailment saw Jesus walking down the street and struggled through a crowd of people to get close to him. The woman was hesitant to introduce herself, but she wanted at least to touch his clothing. She was sure that even indirect contact with Jesus would bring her healing. Coming up behind him, she stretched out her hand to the fringe on his robe—and immediately she felt his healing power. You can read the story in Luke’s Gospel (8:43–48).
 It is interesting to learn that Jesus’ robe had a “fringe” or, perhaps, tassels. This tells us that he followed the common Jewish practice of the time of putting a fringe or tassels on one’s outer garment. (Such tassels are still found on the prayer shawls of Jews today.) Woven into the fringe, or tassels, was a sea-blue thread. If a man could afford to have his robe bleached, the blue thread would stand out vividly against the surrounding white fabric. But the blue thread would stand out even against a background of unbleached gray, for blue was rarely seen in clothing, as blue dye was astronomically expensive.
 Jewish men, and some Jewish women, ornamented their outer robe this way in obedience to a biblical command. The ornamentation reminded them of God’s commandments given to them and his call to them to be holy (Numbers 15:37–41). Since parts of the Jewish high priest’s clothing were blue (Exodus 28:6), the blue thread in ordinary Jews’ clothing was a token that the whole people of Israel was a priesthood in which every member enjoyed the privilege of standing in God’s presence to offer him thanks and praise.
 I like to picture Jesus wearing his fringed robe. The white cloth fittingly symbolizes the purity of his love for God and people. The blue thread I take as a symbol of his prayer. Prayer, in fact, ran like a bright thread through the fabric of Jesus’ life from beginning to end. When we first hear him speaking in the Gospels, at the age of twelve, he is standing in the Jerusalem temple, Judaism’s central place of prayer (Luke 2:41–51). His dying words are fragments of biblical prayers (Mark 15:34; Luke 23:46).
 In this book, we will take up the thread of Jesus’ prayer from his baptism in the Jordan to his death on Golgotha. Jesus’ prayerfulness is a side of his personality that is often neglected. As Christians, we regard Jesus as Lord, Savior, teacher, healer, and bread of life. Our readings will show us that this Lord, who saves, teaches, heals, and feeds us with himself, is also a man of prayer. Observing Jesus in prayer is instructive for our own prayer. There are many men and women in the Christian tradition and in the Church today who can teach us how to pray, but on this subject, Jesus is the guide. In this book, we will learn from Jesus about prayer by considering him as our model. We will not read the sections of the Gospels that contain his teaching about prayer, since those instructions deserve separate attention. For a Six Weeks with the Bible book on the heart of Jesus’ instructions about prayer, see Our Father: The Prayer Jesus Taught Us.
 In our readings from the Gospels, we will follow Jesus in a roughly chronological way, observing him praying in various situations that arose after he emerged from the obscurity of Nazareth. In Week 3, however, we will pause in our chronological exploration to consider his customary forms of prayer—how he prayed in the morning, at meals, and on the Sabbath, both before and during his public life.
 If we had more than six sessions, we could also look at another aspect of Jesus’ customary prayer: his participation in the annual Jewish pilgrimage feasts in Jerusalem (see John 2:13–17; 5:1–18; 7:1–14; 7:53–8:11; 10:22–30). And we could examine other particular occasions on which he prayed (for example, John 11:41–42; 12:27–28). The present book is just a short introduction to Jesus’ prayer in the Gospels and cannot explore all these passages. But perhaps it will spur you to explore them yourself.
 Prayer being such an obviously spiritual activity, we might expect that Jesus’ prayer would especially highlight his divine nature. Yet while Jesus’ prayer draws attention to his divine union with his Father, it also highlights the completeness of his sharing in our humanity. Before the Incarnation, the divine Son offered no prayer to his divine Father. The trinity of divine persons in God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—live always in a total communion of love, unrestricted by anything as limited as prayer. It was only when the Son took flesh that prayer became an essential expression of his love for his Father. Thus, simply to look at Jesus in prayer is to be reminded that he is a man, one of us, a member of our human race.
 Over and over, Jesus’ prayer gives us vivid insights into his humanity. It is notable, for example, that he prays before major undertakings, crucial choices, and significant conversations—as we see in our readings in Weeks 1 and 4. By showing Jesus praying at such pivotal moments, the Gospel writers seem to indicate that he was seeking his Father’s will, as would any devout man or woman facing a challenge or critical decision. Of course, here we are touching on a deep mystery. How could the eternal Son, who knew the Father fully, grow in knowledge of his Father’s plans? Yet, whatever answer we give to this question, we cannot deny that Jesus grew up and matured in a normal way (Luke 2:40). His wisdom increased over time (Luke 2:52). Presumably, even after he reached adulthood, Jesus continued to grow in understanding of his Father’s will. Presumably, prayer played a part in this growth.
 Jesus’ humanity is also on display in his prayer at times of difficulty and distress. As we watch him dealing with temptations at the beginning of his public life (one of our readings in Week 1) and facing his suffering and death before his arrest (Week 5), we realize that, even though he is the divine Son of the Father, he feels the needs and desires that all humans experience. We see clearly that, while Jesus is totally obedient to his Father, he has a will of his own. He makes human choices to live as the obedient Son of God—and the choosing is not always easy for him. His eternal bond with the Father is never diminished, yet he must decide to place his human desires and will in his Father’s hands. Like us, Jesus maintains his trust in his Father and his obedience to the Father only with some degree of struggle. And, as in our lives, the struggle is played out in prayer. Of all Jesus’ prayers, his last one gives the most astounding evidence of his humanity (our reading in Week 6). As he dies on the cross, Jesus expresses to his Father his profound grief at being abandoned to the power of his tormenters. The deep mystery of the divine Son’s humanity demonstrated in Jesus’ dying prayer led Origen, a great Egyptian theologian of the third century, to remark:
When we see in him some things so human that they appear in no way to differ from the common frailty of mortals, and some things so divine that they are appropriate to nothing else but the primal and ineffable nature of deity, the human understanding with its own narrow limits is baffled, and struck with amazement at so mighty a wonder.
As we read about Jesus man of prayer, it is important to keep both sides of the paradox of his divine and human natures in view. The Gospel writers often tell us that Jesus prayed, but they rarely give us information about the content of his prayer. They seem to imply that the prayerful communion of the divine Son with the Father is a mystery into which we may not intrude. Presumably, in his prayer, Jesus experienced incomprehensible union with his Father. Yet the aspects of Jesus’ prayer that the Gospel writers do show us reveal his thoroughly human qualities: devotion, joy, fear, perseverance, courage, grief. Thus, perhaps unexpectedly, Jesus seems especially close to us when he is praying, even though the inner reality of his prayer—the infinite love of the eternal Son for the eternal Father—is hidden from our eyes.
 The combination of divine and human dimensions in Jesus is expressed very simply and profoundly in the way he characteristically addressed God: he called him “Father.” By taking the position of Son speaking to his Father, Jesus gave us the deepest metaphor, drawn from common human experience, for understanding the relationship between the first and second persons of the Trinity: they are like Father and Son. No human concept can enable us to comprehend the inner life of God. But in his prayers recorded in the Gospels, Jesus gives us “Father” and “Son” as the most precious and revealing terms by which we can know these persons of the Trinity.
 At the same time, could any term for God be more resonantly human and down-to-earth than Father? There is a totally human tone of reverence, affection, obedience, and trust in Jesus’ address to God as “Father.” The Jesus who addresses God as Father is no partly incarnated divine being merely wearing a mask of flesh. As he prays to God as Father, we glimpse Jesus’ heart and see that it is as human as ours. His prayer shows him to be a man like us—a person whose divine nature has taken on our humanity in every respect.
 This point is especially prominent in Mark’s account of Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane before he dies (Mark 14:36). Mark, who writes in Greek, leaves untranslated the Aramaic word that Jesus, a native Aramaic speaker, used in his prayer: Abba, that is, “Father!” This Aramaic word reminds us that, like every one of us, Jesus lived in a particular time and place, belonged to a particular culture, spoke a particular language, and experienced particular desires, fears, sorrows, and joys.
 Jesus gave his first disciples the opportunity to be with him as he prayed. Through the Gospels, he extends that opportunity to us. To take advantage of it, we need to complete our process of reading, reflection, and discussion with prayer. I hope that as you observe Jesus praying in the Gospel readings, you will take time to be alone with him and speak to him about prayer. In prayer, each of us can reach out to him, as did the woman in the Gospel story. Stretch out your finger to Jesus’ robe, touch the blue thread of prayer running through his life, and experience his life-creating power, his love for his Father.
A Prayer to Begin
  Lord Jesus,
Son of the Father
and Son of Mary,
thank you for all your prayers—
in Nazareth
and in Jerusalem,
on lonely hilltops
and with your disciples,
in synagogues and in the temple,
in moments of anguish
and of joy.
Praise to you for incarnating
  your love for the Father
in this human way.
Lord Jesus, as we read the
  Gospel accounts of your prayer—
and pray in response to these
  readings—
lead us more deeply
into your Father’s love.  
Week 1
True Son of His Father
Questions to Begin
15 minutes
Use a question or two to get warmed up for the reading.
 1 What is one trait or habit—
large or small—that you’re happy you picked up from your mother or father?
 2 When was the last time you made a major new start in life?
Opening the Bible
5 minutes
Read the passage aloud. Let individuals take turns reading paragraphs.
The Background
In two excerpts from Luke’s Gospel, we see Jesus making the transition from private to public life. In the first reading, Jesus has traveled from his hometown, Nazareth, in the hill country of Galilee, down to the place along the Jordan River where a prophet named John—commonly called “the Baptist”—has been calling on people to repent of their sins. John expects that God will soon bring judgment on the world; he offers to baptize people as a sign of their repentance and preparation for God’s coming. Jesus is sinless, but he accepts baptism from John as a token of his approval of John’s call to repentance—even though Jesus has come to bring God’s forgiveness rather than immediate judgment. The episode in our second reading occurs immediately after Jesus’ baptism. Jesus goes into the barren region near the Jordan River for a time of solitude before beginning his ministry of teaching, healing, and gathering disciples.
The Reading: Luke 3:21–22; 4:1–14
Prayer at the River
3:21 Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, 22 and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
Prayer in the Wilderness
4:1 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, 2 where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished.
 3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.”
 4 Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’”
 5 Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.”
 8 Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’”
 9 Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10 for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ 11 and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’”
 12 Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
 13 When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.
 14 Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country.
Questions for Careful Reading
10 minutes
Choose questions according to your interest and time.
 1 The dove in Luke 3:22 was visible: (1) only to Jesus, (2) only to the people around him, (3) to both, (4) can’t tell.
 2 In Luke 4:8–12 the Devil and Jesus both quote Scripture. Do they have different ways of interpreting Scripture?
 3 During his public ministry, Jesus uses his divine power to drive the Devil away from people (4:33–35; 8:1–2, 26–39). When the Devil tempts Jesus, why doesn’t Jesus just drive him away?
 4 From Luke 4:1–13, or other passages in the Gospels, would you say that it was easy for Jesus to resist temptations?
 5 Jesus quotes Scripture in Luke 4:4, 8, 12. Does he direct his quotations to the Devil or to himself?
 6 What is Jesus’ strategy for overcoming temptation? Does he use any power not available to the rest of us to overcome temptations?
A Guide to the Reading
If participants have not read this section already, read it aloud. Otherwise go on to “Questions for Application.”
3:21–22. Because he is God’s Son, Jesus is filled with the Holy Spirit from the beginning of his human life. Yet as he goes through stages of growth and comes to turning points and crises (see 2:40, 52), the Spirit becomes active in him in new ways. Here we see the Father giving Jesus the Spirit more deeply to empower him for the work he is about to begin.
 Along with this outpouring of the Spirit, the Father gives Jesus an assurance of his affection and approval: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” God does not speak to Jesus about his mission but about their relationship with each other, which is the foundation of the mission. It is only because Jesus is God’s Son that he will be able to reconcile men and women to God.
 The renewed gift of the Spirit and the Father’s words of love come to Jesus as he prays. This suggests the importance of prayer in his relationship with his Father. Jesus knows the Father continuously in the depths of his being, yet this knowledge does not make prayer unnecessary for him. In fact, here we see that prayer is a special occasion for Jesus to experience his divine sonship and his sharing in the Spirit.
 4:1–2. As the divine Son, Jesus knows his mission. As a man, however, he may well need to reflect on the nature of that mission—and its personal cost—before setting out on it. Jesus’ fasting is a clue that reflection on his mission is a reason for his time in the wilderness, since fasting is an aid to discerning God’s will and preparing for action (Acts 13:1–3). Luke does not mention prayer during Jesus’ forty-day retreat, but it goes without saying that this was a time of prayer.
 Although Luke does not say so explicitly, we may well believe that Jesus’ prayer after his baptism was a moment of exaltation. Yet his prayer in the wilderness does not seem to be saturated in glory. Over a period of six weeks, Jesus struggles against temptations to turn away from his Father: “For forty days he was tempted by the devil” (4:2). We may assume that the temptations are as real for Jesus as his hunger pangs. Each of the temptations contains something that he might find appealing. At the same time, however, we must admit that we touch on a mystery here. For while Scripture speaks of Jesus being tempted, it makes it clear that there was no sin in him (Hebrews 4:15). As the Son of God and the perfect human being, Jesus experienced absolutely none of the tendency toward sin that we experience as a consequence of original sin. In any case, without trying to comprehend Jesus’ inner experience of his temptations, we can learn a great deal by observing how he handles them.
 On one level, the temptations touch on issues concerning how Jesus will conduct his ministry. Will he use flashy miracles that pander to people’s earthly desires (the first temptation)? Will he employ military and political power to achieve his ends (the third)? At a deeper level, the temptations touch on his relationship with God. Each temptation poses the question “Will you, or will you not, live your human life as the loving, faithful, trusting Son of your Father?”
 A side note: it is probably futile to try to determine what the Devil knows or doesn’t know about Jesus. The only evidence of the Devil’s thinking is his own words, and he is not committed to expressing his thoughts truthfully. He says whatever serves his purposes. His quoting of Scripture, for example, does not indicate that he believes God’s word; on the contrary, he quotes Scripture in order to cast a doubt on it (4:9–11).
 4:3–4. In the first temptation, the Devil proposes that Jesus transform a stone into a loaf of bread. Jesus might well be inclined to do exactly that, since he hasn’t eaten for weeks. In response, however, Jesus quotes Scripture: “One does not live by bread alone” (4:4). This statement appears in the book of Deuteronomy, where it is followed by the words “but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 8:3). The Deuteronomy passage is discussing the Israelites’ travels in the wilderness, during which they treated earthly bread as more important than the “bread” of knowing and doing God’s will. Jesus refuses to make this mistake. He gives top priority to God’s word. As we know, the Father just recently said to Jesus, “You are my Son” (3:22). This is the word on which Jesus lives (see John 4:32–34).
 Why would it be contrary to his Father’s will for Jesus to turn a stone into a loaf of bread? Soon Jesus will miraculously bring many loaves of bread into existence (9:12–17). Here, however, Jesus is urged to use his extraordinary power for himself: “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread,” the Devil says, assuming that anyone who possesses extraordinary powers will use them for his or her own benefit. But because Jesus is the Son of God, he will not use his miraculous powers to satisfy himself. Being God’s Son does not mean being in the position of directing everything to his own benefit. Quite the contrary. Divine sonship is a matter not of grasping but of giving—of self-giving love (Philippians 2:6–8). Jesus expresses his divine sonship by being totally focused on carrying out his Father’s plans for the good of his fellow human beings, by using his extraordinary powers not for himself but for others. From the beginning to the end of his ministry, Jesus never works a miracle solely for his own benefit. He refuses to serve himself.
 By refraining from using his extraordinary powers to make his own life easy, Jesus remains within the limitations of the human condition. Only in this way can he be a model for us, who lack miraculous powers.
 4:5–8. The second temptation is to have earthly rule and its advantages. In his response to the Devil, Jesus does not indicate that he thinks that earthly power is wrong. And, obviously, Jesus would make an excellent ruler. Nevertheless, he refuses the Devil’s offer. To gain this power, he would have to worship the Devil. If satisfying a desire or attaining a goal involves total devotion to anyone or anything besides God, Jesus rejects it.
 The heart of Jesus’ mission will be to make God known and loved, to establish God’s kingdom—God’s rule—in people’s lives. Jesus has come to lead us out of the rebellion of sin and into an acceptance of God’s fatherly love and will for our lives. Here we see that he promotes this way of living by living this way himself.
 4:9–13. What is the nature of the third temptation? Is Jesus being tempted to display himself as the Messiah by flying through the air? Perhaps, although flying through the air was not an expected sign of the Messiah, so it might not convince people of his messiahship.
 In fact, however, the Devil does not suggest to Jesus that he fly. He suggests that Jesus throw himself from the top of the wall around the temple and give God a chance to fulfill his promise of protection contained in Psalm 91. A person who doubts God’s trustworthiness might feel tempted to resolve his or her doubts by putting God’s promises to the test. Thus, the temptation here is for Jesus to satisfy any doubts he may have about God. As in the first temptation, the Devil poses this one with the words “If you are the Son of God.” Apparently, the Devil assumes that every human being—even one who is especially close to God—would have doubts about God’s faithfulness.
 As the eternal Son, Jesus could not doubt his Father’s faithfulness. But perhaps, in his human nature, he could be assailed by such a temptation (see St. Ambrose’s comment on Jesus’ final prayer on page 76). But Jesus rejects the suggestion of putting God’s promises to the test. In Jesus’ view, God’s promises to human beings are an invitation to trust God. To use one of God’s promises as a tool for probing God’s trustworthiness would be the very opposite of faith in God.
 At the Jordan River, the Father declared that he was well pleased with the Son. In the wilderness, the Son has now demonstrated that he is totally dedicated to the Father. Luke has not described the inner dimensions of Jesus’ prayer in the desert—the words he spoke to his Father, the manner in which he experienced the Father’s love, or the movement of the Spirit within him. Rather, Luke has shown us Jesus resisting every temptation to depart from faithfulness to his Father. In the wilderness, Jesus declines to satisfy his own needs but insists on putting his entire strength into doing his Father’s will. He refuses to shift his devotion to anything or anyone besides his Father. He resists any doubt about his Father’s faithfulness and love. Thus Luke has shown us the bedrock on which Jesus stood in prayer: his love for his Father.
Questions for Application
40 minutes
Choose questions according to your interest and time.
 1 Reread Luke 3:21. When you pray, does heaven seem to open up? Have there been moments in prayer when you have felt especially close to God? If so, what impact have these experiences had on you? How important—or unimportant—are such moments for a person’s relationship with God?
 2 Besides praying the Our Father, do you pray to God as your Father? Why or why not?
 3 How important is prayer in getting to know God?
 4 At present, are you making some new start in life? If so, how could you seek the presence and power of the Holy Spirit for this new beginning?
 5 Have you ever taken a retreat to seek God’s guidance and help for the next stage in your life? If so, what did it accomplish? Would you do it again?
 6 What are your temptations to use your talents and resources for yourself rather than for others? How could you direct some ability or resource of yours toward serving someone else’s needs?
 7 What is the situation in which you are most tempted to doubt God’s love for you? How could you affirm your trust in God in this situation?
 8 How do this week’s readings give you a deeper understanding of Jesus?
 9 What encouragement or guidance for your own prayer do you find in Jesus’ prayer in this week’s readings? How will you respond?
Approach to Prayer
15 minutes
Use this approach—or create your own!
 ♦ The Devil quotes Psalm 91 to Jesus (Luke 4:10–11) to stir up doubts about God. Pray Psalm 91 together as an expression of trust in God. Pause for silent reflection. End with a Glory to the Father.
A Living Tradition
Calling On the Spirit
This section is a supplement for individual reading.
The Holy Spirit descended on Jesus at his baptism. Jesus urges us, his followers, to seek the coming of the Holy Spirit (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4–5). To help you in seeking the Spirit, here are three prayers widely used by Christians in the Byzantine tradition.
 
A hymn to the Holy Spirit
O Holy Spirit,
 Mighty defender,
To all who love you
 Comfort you give.
Everywhere present,
 Fountain of virtues,
Without your kindness,
 No one could live.
O Holy Spirit,
 Treasury of blessings,
Come, as was promised,
 Life-giving flame.
Come, dwell within us,
 Quicken our cool hearts,
Strengthen our purpose
 To praise your name.
Prayers to the Holy Spirit at the beginning of work
O God, author and creator of all things,
With your blessing guide this work,
Which is being undertaken for your glory.
Deliver us from every evil,
For you alone are almighty
And love mankind.
O Lord, you are prompt to defend
And mighty in your help.
Be present now through the grace of your power.
Bless us and give us strength
And bring to completion
The intentions of your servants to do good works,
For you can, as the Almighty God,
Do everything you wish.

Edition details

• Publisher: Loyola Press
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0829423273
• ISBN 13: 9780829423273
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 96
• Editor: Perrotta Mr. Kevin