Teach Us To Pray

Gospel: Luke 11: 1-4

The disciples of Jesus had been taught prayers since childhood.  They recited the Psalms, prayed the Shema every morning, and took part in communal prayer at synagogue and Temple regularly.  They clearly had experience with prayer.  And yet, the disciples come to the Lord asking him to teach them how to pray as if they had never done so previously, as if something were missing in what they had been doing for so long.

We too have been taught our prayers at an early age, including the prayer Jesu gives today in the Gospel portion.  We have recited our prayers, and we have regularly attended Mass and other communal prayer services regularly in our lives.  Still, we come to a moment in our lives not unlike this one for the disciples.  We find ourselves approaching the Lord asking for help to pray as if it were an unknown activity to us.  

But this request of ours is perhaps the most honest prayer we have ever made before God.  We need help even to pray.  That is how fragile the human condition is before God.  In that moment of request of God will come for each of us the most important answer from God, the information we need most in our life.  Once we begin to speak with God as we need, our progress in the spiritual life will surely come.