Catechism of the Catholic Church

614 Part Four 2560 “If you knew the gift of God!” 7 The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water: there, Christ comes to meet every human being. It is he who first seeks us and asks us for a drink. Jesus thirsts; his asking arises from the depths of God’s desire for us. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him. 8 2561 “You would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 9 Paradoxically our prayer of petition is a re­ sponse to the plea of the living God: “They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water!” 10 Prayer is the response of faith to the free promise of salvation and also a response of love to the thirst of the only Son of God. 11 Prayer as covenant 2562 Where does prayer come from? Whether prayer is ex­ pressed in words or gestures, it is the whole man who prays. But in naming the source of prayer, Scripture speaks sometimes of the soul or the spirit, but most often of the heart (more than a thousand times). According to Scripture, it is the heart that prays. If our heart is far from God, the words of prayer are in vain. 2563 The heart is the dwelling-place where I am, where I live; according to the Semitic or Biblical expression, the heart is the place “to which I withdraw.” The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others; only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully. The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because as image of God we live in relation: it is the place of covenant. 7 Jn 4:10. 8 Cf. St. Augustine, De diversis quaestionibus octoginta tribus 64, 4: PL 40, 56. 9 Jn 4:10. 10 Jer 2:13. 11 Cf. Jn 7:37-39; 19:28 ; Isa 12:3; 51:1; Zech 12:10; 13:1. 2699 1696