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Chapter 35. God Calls Us to Pray • 467
awaited him, but also praying with acceptance of and obedience to the
mission the Father had given him.
Jesus also taught his disciples to pray. In the Gospel of Matthew, for
example, he instructed them to pray with simplicity of words and confi-
dence in the Father (cf. Mt 6:5-15; 7:7-11).
Prayer in the New Testament Church
At Pentecost, after nine days of prayer in the Upper Room, the disci-
ples experienced the gift of the Holy Spirit for the manifestation of the
Church. The first community of believers in Jerusalem devoted them-
selves to the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of the
bread, and to prayers (cf. Acts 2:42). The infant Church was born in
prayer, lived in prayer, and thrived in prayer.
The Letters of St. Paul show him to be a man of intense prayer.
Throughout his Letters, there are prayers of praise to God for blessings
the Church and he himself have received. There are also prayers of inter-
cession as he seeks God’s grace for the communities he has evangelized.
And he describes his own personal prayers to God, especially in times
of difficulty.
The Holy Spirit taught the Church the life of prayer and led her to
deeper insights into basic ways of praying: adoration, petition, interces-
sion, thanksgiving, and praise.
Adoration
This form of prayer flows from an attitude that acknowledges we are
creatures in the presence of our Creator. It is an act by which we glorify
the God who made us. We adore God from whom all blessings flow.
Petition
This is a prayer that takes many forms: to ask, to implore, to plead, to
cry out. In each case, it acknowledges how much we depend on God for
our needs, including forgiveness and persistence in seeking him. We need
to practice the prayer of petition, remembering Christ’s call to ask in
order to receive, to seek in order to find, and to knock in order that the
door may be opened (cf. Mt 7:7).