As an aid to responding to the Holy Father’s call for 2024 to be a Year of Prayer, the Christian Heritage Centre at Stonyhurst will offer reflections on many aspects of Christian prayer, from the writings of saints to the different forms of prayer practiced across the Church.
In the lead-up to the Jubilee Year of 2025, Pope Francis has written the following in his call for 2024 to be a Year of Prayer:
“In this time of preparation, I would greatly desire that we devote 2024, the year preceding the Jubilee event, to a great “symphony” of prayer. Prayer, above all else, to renew our desire to be in the presence of the Lord, to listen to him and to adore him. Prayer, moreover, to thank God for the many gifts of his love for us and to praise his work in creation, which summons everyone to respect it and to take concrete and responsible steps to protect it. Prayer as the expression of a single “heart and soul” (cf. Acts 4:32), which then translates into solidarity and the sharing of our daily bread. Prayer that makes it possible for every man and woman in this world to turn to the one God and to reveal to him what lies hidden in the depths of their heart. Prayer as the royal road to holiness, which enables us to be contemplative even in the midst of activity.”
Most fundamentally and most simply, prayer – especially when considering the call to “be contemplative even in the midst of activity” – is described in the Catechism of the Catholic Church as “the raising of one’s mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God.” The Catechism borrows this definition from the great Saint John Damascene, building as it does on the Church’s tradition and experience to express what is. But behind this simple definition lies an inexhaustible wealth of insights and practices, beginning with the Apostles themselves, that have brought generations of Christians closer to the Lord.
We’ll look at varied themes such as Saint Thomas Aquinas on the four parts of prayer, Saint Teresa of Avila on the power and limits of contemplative prayer, Saint Therese of Lisieux and her “little way”, and Saint Bonaventure on the mind’s journey to God. Other concrete aspects of our prayer life will also feature. From the specifics of liturgical prayer, the Liturgy of the Hours, the Psalms, the Rosary, and the Lord’s Prayer, we’ll also rediscover the depth of our Church’s time-honoured practices of prayer which we share with generations of saints. Finally turning to the three popes of our century — St John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis — we will close the year by reading their insights on the contemporary and enduring importance of prayer for the Christian life.
These reflections will be published in the Universe Catholic Weekly, besides being available both in written form and as podcasts from our website’s dedicated Year of Prayer page: www.christianheritagecentre.com/year-of-prayer
We hope you’ll join the us this year as we strive to raise our hearts and minds to God in preparation for the celebration of the great Jubilee Year.
REFLECTION ONE: Saint Thomas Aquinas on “Oration”
By Joey Belleza, PhD (Cantab.)
Saint Thomas Aquinas OP (1225-1274) is one of the Doctors of the Church. His teaching has been especially promoted by the Church as an exemplar of philosophical clarity and theological orthodoxy. In his great systematic work called the Summa Theologica (a “summary” or “manual” of theology), he treats of nearly all aspects of Christian doctrine, from the doctrines of God as Creator, as Triune, and as Incarnate, to rigorous reflections on the sacraments and the so-called Four Last Things (judgment, hell, purgatory, and heaven).
In the Summa, he also considers the nature of prayer, bringing to bear the reflections of Scripture and the saints who came before him. This reflection is the first of four in which we look at Saint Thomas’s treatment of the four parts of prayer, namely: oration, thanksgiving, petition, and intercession. As we progress through this Year of Prayer, we will return to these basic themes presented by Saint Thomas, showing how his fundamental insights are shared by saints and holy figures from throughout the Church’s history
Saint Thomas did not invent this fourfold division. Although it was first codified in a systematic way by the monk Saint John Cassian (360-435), the roots of this division comes from Saint Paul himself in 1 Timothy 2:1: “I urge… that petitions, orations, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for all people.” In this reflection we will consider oration.
Oration is derived from the Latin oratio, which can be translated simply into English as “prayer,” but the theological tradition has given it a more specific meaning. Related to the noun os (oris), meaning “mouth,” an oration is something spoken aloud toward someone or something. It pertains to the first part of the definition of prayer given in the Catechism, “the raising of one’s heart and mind to God,” but this ascent is done by explicitly calling out to God.
But who is the source of this calling out? Does it come merely from ourselves? Or is it already a participation with God’s own action? Indeed, we are only able to call out to God because God has called us first. Indeed, as the Creator who is the source of all things, our call to God can only be a response to the one who gives us our being as the very first gift. When we raise our hearts and minds to God and call upon his Name, we are in a sense returning ourselves to the source of our being, acknowledging his greatness and our humility before him. This humility is the basic posture of prayer: we place ourselves before God and call out to the one who made all things visible and invisible. All prayer, all oration, starts from God and returns to him.
In the next installment, we will consider a second aspect of prayer: thanksgiving.