Prayer Is the Path to Real Freedom

Prayer also becomes our fuel, the wind in our sails.

Jesus said to his disciples: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

CHESAPEAKE, VA. (Catholic Online) - Jesus the Lord regularly instructed his disciples concerning prayer. I begin with one example found in the Gospel of St. Matthew:

"Jesus said to his disciples: "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened."

"Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asked for a loaf of bread - or a snake when he asked for a fish? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him. Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the law and the prophets." (Matt 7:7-12)

St. Luke's account of this same teaching follows after the disciples find Jesus in prayerful communion with His Father. He demonstrates for them the very kind of prayer which he is teaching them about. In His Sacred humanity, Jesus also showed them the way of life into which they would be initiated.

Through the salvation Jesus won for us on Golgotha's Hill - and the defeat of death demonstrated by the empty tomb - a path to real freedom is possible for all who choose to follow Him. In His earthly ministry, He also showed us that walking the way of life He invites us into will not be easy - and requires real prayer. Luke adds an additional parable to communicate to us that prayer involves persistence:

"And he said to them, "Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him'; and he will answer from within, `Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything'?" I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him whatever he needs. "

"And I tell you, Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks, receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?  If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" (Luke 11:5-13)

Prayer leads us into communion with the living God. Prayer then becomes our fuel, the wind in our sails. When we were baptized into Jesus Christ, we were invited to live our lives in Him, by living them in His Body, the Church, of which we are made members. (1 Cor. 12:27) We need more and more of the Holy Spirit to respond to that ongoing invitation. He gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask, knock and seek. The call to live in Him invites our continual and willing response to His grace. Without prayer, it simply is not possible to make progress on the way of life called Christianity. 

The intimate communion with the Father the disciples witnessed when they came upon Jesus in prayer can become our experience, if we choose to pray and learn the way of life associated with it. We are adopted sons and daughters of "His Father and Our Father". (John 20:17). The ongoing instruction which the disciples received as they walked with Him daily can also become ours, because when we walk with Him, and listen to Him, he instructs us.

The Jesus who instructed them in these accounts is still alive with us today. He has been raised from the dead. We need the eyes of living faith to see Him and the spiritual courage to accompany Him on the Way. Through Jesus Christ, we are now made capable of living an entirely new way of life. (2 Cor. 5:17) In the words of the Apostle Peter, we can become "partakers of the divine nature." (2 Peter 1).

It is by learning to live in the communion of real prayer that we continually receive this divine life, which is called grace. It is mediated to us through the Sacraments, which are the continuing ministry of the Risen Jesus through His Body, the Church. Grace also comes and forms us through the Word of God, as broken open in prayer. The wisdom of the ongoing teaching office of the Church, continues the apostolic instruction which assists us on the way. Grace recreates us into the Image and likeness of God, as fully revealed in Jesus Christ.

However, this ongoing offer of grace invites our ongoing response.

God created us in His Image for a loving, relational conversation of life with Him, a communion of love. Understanding what it meant to be created in His Image, and then to fall, requires us to reflect upon human freedom. The Catechism reminds us that "In man, true freedom is an outstanding manifestation of the divine image. (CCC #1712). Our capacity to choose what is true and good was fractured as a result of sin.We were separated from God.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains the consequence of this fracture, "Man, having been wounded in his nature by original sin, is subject to error and inclined to evil in exercising his freedom". It also explains the remedy and path we are to follow to find fulfillment and freedom, " He who believes in Christ has new life in the Holy Spirit. The moral life, increased and brought to maturity in grace, is to reach its fulfillment in the glory of heaven." (CCC #1714, 1715)

Our relationship with God was broken by what is called original sin. It was a misuse of the freedom given to our first parents because they were created in the Image of God. That freedom was  corrupted by pride and self-sufficiency, as they chose to turn away from His loving plan.

Our ability to exercise our freedom by directing our capacity for free choice always toward the good, is now impeded because of the fall of our first parents; their wrong choice against Gods loving plan. Again, the Catechism summarizes the teaching of the Bible and the Christian tradition well in the following paragraph:

"Man, enticed by the Evil One, abused his freedom at the very beginning of history. He succumbed to temptation and did what was evil. He still desires the good, but his nature bears the wound of original sin. He is now inclined to evil and subject to error: Man is divided in himself. As a result, the whole life of men, both individual and social, shows itself to be a struggle, and a dramatic one, between good and evil, between light and darkness. By his Passion, Christ delivered us from Satan and from sin. He merited for us the new life in the Holy Spirit. His grace restores what sin had damaged in us." (CCC #1707, 1708)

The way to true freedom has been opened for us. By grace we can live in an even fuller communion with God than our first parents had. In Jesus we are being re-created, re-fashioned and redeemed. He now stands at the door of our hearts and knocks. "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me." (Revelations 3:20) When we open the door, He comes to live in us and we learn to live in Him. Prayer is the house where we learn what all of that means and learn to appropriate it in our daily lives.

Through prayer, daily life can become a classroom of communion. In that classroom we can learn the truth about who we are - and who we are becoming - in Jesus. Through prayer, we can receive new glasses through which we will see the true landscape of our life. Through prayer, darkness can be dispelled and the path of progress illuminated, by the Holy Spirit. Prayer is the lifeline of a Christian.

Yes, we will still struggle with our own disordered appetites and make wrong choices. However, through the prayer of repentance we can find a way through and even grow through them after being forgiven. We can always have a new beginning, if we confess our sin and return to our first love. Prayer can open us up to Revelation, expand our capacity to comprehend its mysteries and equip us to be changed, converted, and made new, by grace.

Through prayer, we are drawn into a deepening relationship with Jesus Christ, whose loving embrace of the world on the hill of Golgotha bridged heaven with earth; His relationship with His Father is now opened up to include us; the same Spirit that raised Him from the dead now gives us new life as we are converted and transformed into His Image and likeness.

Through prayer, heavenly wisdom is planted in the field of our hearts and minds, and we can begin to experience a deepening communion with the Trinitarian God. The work of the Holy Spirit in our lives begins to bear the fruit of our transformation. We truly begin to experience the mystery and meaning in those words of the Apostle and actually become "partakers of the divine nature." (2 Peter 1:4)

Though that ongoing participation in Him will only be fully completed when we are with Him in our Resurrected Bodies, in a New Heaven and a New Earth, it begins now, in the grace of this present moment, as we learn to pray. Prayer opens the floodgates of heaven and elevates our daily lives.

God holds nothing back from those whom He loves. He gives us the Holy Spirit, His life and dynamic energy. We are invited to ask for more and more of His Holy Spirit. Prayer opens our spiritual eyes to behold the Divine Design in our lives and we begin to see that we walk with Jesus Christ. He has been raised from the dead and guides us along a plan and a pattern which will lead us to the fullness of freedom.

For the Christian, the center from which the Divine design of life proceeds is the Cross of Jesus Christ. It is the central patch of cloth from which the pattern of progress proceeds. It is also where the pattern always returns. However, we need new eyes with which to see the loving plan of God. Prayer makes all of that possible.

In prayer, we find the strength to pull ourselves up, after the inevitable falls which accompany daily living. How? By grasping again the wood of the Cross, the door to the new world to come. Our fractured freedom is continually healed by the splint of that Cross and we will learn to love its wood. 

The Early Christians reflected upon the Cross with the kinds of insights which only come from an intimate communion with God. They saw it as the second tree at which the new creation began again in Jesus Christ. It was the antidote for the disease and the undoing of the sin which occurred as a result of the wrong choice made at the first tree in the Garden of Eden.

On that Cross, the Second Person of the Trinity, through whom the whole Universe was created, re-created it anew. He became the Incarnate Word. From His wounded side, His spouse, the Church, was born. The blood and water which flowed from His side is now the fountain of grace offered through the Sacraments which continue His ministry among us.You see, He is not dead, He has been raised!

How did the early Christians discern such deep insights? They were men and women who really  prayed. Because of that, the Holy Spirit was able to open their spiritual eyes. They learned to probe the depths of the mysteries of the Christian faith. So can we. They wrote with such beauty because they lived in an ongoing communion with the Risen Lord who is the source of all Beauty.

Let us reflect upon some of this beauty with which they spoke of the cross of Jesus Christ as we conclude this reflection.Theodore the Studite, an eighth century Abbot of the First Christian Millennium, once wrote:

"How precious the gift of the cross, how splendid to contemplate! In the cross there is no mingling of good and evil, as in the tree of paradise: it is wholly beautiful to behold and good to taste. The fruit of this tree is not death but life, not darkness but light. This tree does not cast us out of paradise, but opens the way for our return."

"This was the tree on which Christ, like a King on a chariot, destroyed the devil, the Lord of death, and freed the human race from his tyranny. This was the tree upon which the Lord, like a brave warrior wounded in hands, feet and side, healed the wounds of sin that the evil serpent had inflicted on our nature. A tree once caused our death but now a tree brings life."

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"Once deceived by a tree, we have now repelled the cunning serpent by a tree. What an astonishing transformation! That death should become life, that decay should become immortality- that shame should become glory!"

A fourth century Deacon named Ephrem wrote hymns which gained him a title still mentioned in the Syriac Liturgy to this day -- "the Harp of the Holy Spirit". In a sermon he once proclaimed:

"He who was also the carpenter's glorious son set up his cross above deaths' all-consuming jaws, and led the human race into the dwelling place of life. Since a tree had brought about the downfall of mankind, it was upon a tree that mankind crossed over to the realm of life."

"Bitter was the branch that had once been grafted upon that ancient tree, but sweet the young shoot that has now been grafted in, the shoot in which we are meant to recognize the Lord whom no creature can resist. We give glory to you, Lord, who raised up your cross to span the jaws of death, like a bridge by which souls might pass from the region of the dead to the land of the living."

"We give glory to you who put on the body of a single mortal man and made it the source of life for every other mortal man. You are incontestably alive. Your murderers sowed your living body in the earth as farmers sow grain, but it sprang up and yielded an abundant harvest of men raised from the dead. Come then, my brothers and sisters, let us offer our Lord the great and all-embracing sacrifice of our love and our lives"

The beauty of their words, the profundity of their insights, was directly connected to the depth of their prayer lives. The same Lord to which they clung - and in whom they found such wisdom - still walks with us and we can walk with Him. He invites us to ask, knock, seek and persist in prayer.

Prayer is the path to real freedom.

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Deacon Keith Fournier is an ordained minister in the Church, a Catholic Deacon, with an outreach to the broader Christian community. He and his wife Laurine have been married for forty years. They have five grown children and seven grandchildren.

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