Jesus and the Jewish roots of prayer
Catechism Commentary 67
Jesus participated in the fixed order of prayer observed by the Jewish people. He would have attended the weekly Sabbath worship, and paused three times daily to pray, i.e., at 9 A.M. at 12 noon and at 3 P.M. He would have recited well-known Jewish prayers such as the Shema, Berakah and Kaddish.
The Shema was the Jewish confession of faith made up of three scriptural texts, which, together with appropriate prayers, formed an integral part of the evening and morning services. The name derived from the initial word of the scriptural verse: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord" (Deut 6:4).
The Berakah was a blessing, an expression of praise or thanks which was offered to God at specific points of the synagogue liturgy, during private prayer, or on other occasions. Most blessings began with the words: "Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe."
The Kaddish was a hymn of praise to God that was usually recited in Aramaic at the end of the principal sections of all synagogue liturgy. The key to the prayer was the phrase: "Glorified and sanctified be God's great name throughout the world which He has created according to His will. May He establish His kingdom in your lifetime and during your days." The congregation responded: "May His great name be blessed forever to all eternity." It is not difficult to see how the beginning of the Lord’s prayer was influenced by the Jewish Kaddish.
Not only was Jesus a man of fervent and frequent prayer himself, cf. Lk 6:12, “One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God,” he also spoke on a number of occasions about prayer. He highlighted, in particular, the nature and importance of prayers of supplication. He also made strikingly unambiguous promises about God’s willingness to answer such prayers while mentioning the dispositions that were necessary in order to be worthy of such responses. At this point we will mention some of the general points that Jesus made about praying.
Pray in secret
In Mt 6:5-6 Jesus says: "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
Prayers should be short & sincere
Jesus also said: “And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words” (Mt 6:7). It is the sincerity rather than the length that counts.
Pray Always
In Lk 18:1 we read: “Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should never give up.” Punctuate the day with prayers at different points.
Watchfulness in Prayer
There are three ways of looking at to Jesus’ call to watchfulness in prayer. Firstly, the true disciple is always waiting for the end-times. This is the subject matter of a number of parables. For example, in Mt 24:42 Jesus says: "keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.” There is also watchfulness for the revelation of God in the present and reception of inspirations from God. One has also to be watchful where the illusions and false inspirations of the evil one are concerned. Remember what Jesu said to the sleepy apostles in Gethsemane, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mt 26:41.
In New Testament times it was not uncommon for religious teachers to give their disciples a model prayer. The apostles were so impressed by the prayer life of Jesus that: “one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples" (Lk 11:1). He responded by giving them what is known as the “Lord’s Prayer,” or the “Our Father.” There are two versions in the synoptic gospels, one in Mt 6:9-13 and the other in Lk 11:2-4. However, scripture scholars are of the opinion that the Lukan one, which is the shorter of the two, is probably the oldest and most authentic version. Every line of the Lord’s Prayer echoes Jewish prayers of the first century. Jesus wasn’t inventing his prayer from scratch; he was distilling the heart of Jewish piety into a concise, transformative form, e.g., Jewish prayers, such as the the Kaddish.
