Prayer is Fully Revealed and Realized in Jesus

542. When did Jesus pray?

The Gospel often shows Jesus at prayer. We see him draw apart to pray in solitude, even at night. He prays before the decisive moments of his mission or that of his apostles. In fact, all his life is a prayer because he is in a constant communion of love with the Father.

In 1915, one year after the beginning of the war, while the fighting dragged on in the trenches, all the families in France knew that a visit from a government official meant that someone had been killed in battle. When, therefore, on July 25th 1915, Madame de Guigné opened the door to the Mayor of Annecy-le-Vieux, she knew at once that her husband, who had already been wounded three times, would never return home.

This great pope’s name was Joseph Sarto. He was born in 1835, the son of a mailman in Riese, Italy. When Joseph felt that God wanted him to be a priest, he had to make many sacrifices for his education, but he didn’t mind. He even walked miles to school barefoot to save one good pair of shoes. After he was ordained a priest, Father Sarto labored for the people in poor parishes for seventeen years. Everybody loved him. He used to give away everything he had to help them. His sisters had to hide his shirts or he would have had nothing to wear. Even when Father Joseph became a bishop, and a cardinal, he still gave away what he owned to the poor. He kept nothing for himself. When he was elected pope, he took the name of Pius X. He became known as the pope who loved the Holy Eucharist. One of his quotes was, “Holy communion is the shortest and safest way to Heaven.”

In 1273 in the town of Lanciano, a woman named Richiarella went to a witch and asked her how she could recover the affection of her husband, Giacomo Stasio. Following the witch’s advice, she went to Communion to obtain a consecrated Host. She returned home and put the Host on the fire in an earthenware jar with the intention of turning the Blessed Sacrament into powder to put into her husband’s food. The Particles, however, were transformed into living Flesh. Richiarella, horrified by these events, wrapped the jar and the Bloodied Host in a linen handkerchief that she then buried under the manure in her husband’s stable.

The Revelation of Prayer in the Old Testament

538. In the Old Testament, what relationship do the king and the temple have to prayer?

The prayer of the People of God developed in the shadow of the dwelling place of God – the Ark of the Covenant, then the Temple – under the guidance of their shepherds. Among them there was David, the King “after God’s own heart,” the shepherd who prayed for his people. His prayer was a model for the prayer of the people because it involved clinging to the divine promise and a trust filled with love for the One who is the only King and Lord.

534. What is prayer?

Prayer is the raising of one’s mind and heart to God, or the petition of good things from him in accord with his will. It is always the gift of God who comes to encounter man. Christian prayer is the personal and living relationship of the children of God with their Father who is infinitely good, with his Son Jesus Christ, and with the Holy Spirit who dwells in their hearts.

Dorothy was inspired by journalists like Jack London and Uptown Sinclair who detailed the horrors and injustices of America’s industrial age. She loved the Russian anarchist Kropotkin and was inspired by the stories of saints. “Whatever I had read as a child about the saints had thrilled me. I could see the nobility of giving one’s life for the sick, the maimed, the leper,” she said. She recognized that American religion lacked the saints’ heroic witness. Preachers did not make a connection between Sunday services and the pain of working men and women. “Where were the saints to try to change the social order, not just to minister to the slaves but to do away with slavery?” Dorothy wondered. In 1916, she got a reporting job at the socialist newspaper The Call. After many tragic relationships and becoming a single mother, Dorothy began to pray daily, which eventually led to her and her daughter being baptized.

All three children, Lucia, Jacinta, and Francisco, received the same messages from heaven. Yet, each of them had a special part of it they stressed, while not forgetting the other parts. The life of Francisco Marto shows us the proper and true Catholic devotion to the angels, the saints and Mary, the Queen of all. Francisco was awed at the beauty and goodness of the angel and of the Mother of God, but it was especially Jesus that occupied his attention. Francisco preferred to think mostly of consoling Our Lord and Our Lady, both of whom seemed so sad at sin.

Two Eucharistic miracles took place in 1230 and 1595 in Florence’s Church of Saint Ambrose.  In 1230, a priest having finished celebrating Mass, did not realize that several drops of consecrated wine remained in the chalice.  A day later, taking up the chalice, he found living blood coagulated.  This was shown to all who were present, to the bishop, and to all the clergy. He took the Precious Blood from the chalice and put the Sacred Species in a crystal cruet and showed the people.  The relic of the coagulated Blood (several drops of Blood that measure about a square centimeter) is conserved in a reliquary which has been placed inside a white marble tabernacle.

Blessed Carlo Acutis was born in London and raised in Milan. Carlo’s wealthy parents were not particularly religious. Antonia Salzano, his mother, said that before Carlo, she went to Mass only for her first Communion, her confirmation, and her wedding. After Carlo made his first Communion, he went to Mass as often as he could, and he made Holy Hours before and after Mass. One of his famous quotes was: “The more Eucharist we receive, the more we will become like Jesus, so that on earth we will have a foretaste of heaven.”

The Ninth Commandment: You Shall Not Covet Your Neighbor's Wife

530. What are the other requirements for purity?

Purity requires modesty which, while protecting the intimate center of the person, expresses the sensitivity of chastity. It guides how one looks at others and behaves toward them in conformity with the dignity of persons and their communion. Purity frees one from wide-spread eroticism and avoids those things which foster morbid curiosity. Purity also requires a purification of the social climate by means of a constant struggle against moral permissiveness which is founded on an erroneous conception of human freedom.

In 1263 a German priest, Peter of Prague, stopped at Bolsena while on a pilgrimage to Rome. He is described as being a pious priest, but one who found it difficult to believe that Christ was actually present in the consecrated Host. While celebrating Holy Mass above the tomb of St. Christina (located in the church named for this martyr), he had barely spoken the words of Consecration when blood started to seep from the consecrated Host and trickle over his hands onto the altar and the corporal. The priest was immediately confused.