[Article] Lent calls for a prayerful intimacy with God

“Now during those days, he [Jesus] went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God” (Lk. 6:12).

Introduction

The religion and culture of the Jewish people teach us a lot about how one can and must be close to God. Judaism, the religion of the Jewish people, appears in the time of the Maccabees (166-63 B.C.), when it sums up the commitment of the Jewish people to God himself, the divine Law and Jewish nationalism. Their close intimacy with God wins admiration.

Likewise, this season of Lent also promotes prayerful intimacy with God. As we journey through the season of Lent, let’s have the end in mind, i.e., a peaceful return to the love of God through fasting, prayer and almsgiving. In this piece, we intend to motivate ourselves to fly with the wing of prayer and be with the Lord.

Prayer Cements Our Relationship with God

According to Judith H. Newman (2009), in the Old Testament (OT), the prayer narrative is the “Construction and idealization of Israel’s life and history. The presupposition underlying the depiction of prayer in the Bible is that the God of Israel has personal characteristics and is intimately concerned with Israel, both as a people and as individuals in ongoing relationships.” Prayer fosters and cements the people’s relationship with God.

For illustration, from the fourth generation of human beings, that is, from the time of Enosh, human beings are said to “Invoke the name of the Lord” (Gen. 24:12-15). Abraham, the ancestor of the Israel nation and the friend of God, is depicted as a righteous man who builds an altar where he can “call on the name of the Lord” (Gen. 12:8; 13:4). Moses also remains in intimate communication with God (Ex. 32:11-13).

In the New Testament, he in whom the Law and the Prophet are fulfilled also built prayerful intimacy with God the Father. “He [Jesus] spent the night in prayer to God” (Lk. 6:12). Before a decision crucial to his Messianic mission, Jesus prays; atop a mountain, where Jesus communes with his Father, he chooses twelve (12) disciples.

Often in the Gospel according to Luke, Jesus is portrayed at prayer before an important decision: election of the Twelve (6:12), confession of Peter (9:18), instruction on prayer (11:1), agony before his death (22:41), and on the cross (23:46). Christ’s intimacy and loving union with his Father is seen through his frequent prayer life.

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Christ takes delight in communion with God; this is also at the heart of Lent.  After Christ’s Ascension into heaven, the Apostles remained close to the Lord in their devotion to prayer (Acts 2:1, 4:23-31). St. Paul had time to be with the Lord in prayer and exhorted his audience to pray (Rom. 12:12; Eph. 5:20; 6:18; Phil. 4:6).

Even though much could be said about prayer, this short presentation should help us grasp the understanding that in the Bible early Judaism and Christianity, a central characteristic of Jewish and Christian prayers is that they reflect a close and intimate relationship with God. It is this closeness that Lent calls us to establish.

The Hallmark of our Spiritual Life
We must be masters of prayer and promote it as well. Prayer is the hallmark of our spiritual life. What kind of Christian are you when you do not have time to commune with God,especially in this season of Lent? Let’s be with God through his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. “And he went up on the mountain, and called to him those whom he desired…, to be with him… (Mk. 3:13-15).

“To be with the Lord” should be our desire and goal in our Lenten observances. In God’s presence, there’s rest. The words of St. Augustine (Confessions, 1, 1: CSEL 33, 1) rightly come true whenever prayer is treated as such: “The human individual is open to transcendence, to the absolute; he has a heart which is restless until it rests in the Lord.” According to Pope St. John Paul II in his Pastores Dabo Vobis. no. 46, there is the value and demand of “living intimately united” to Jesus Christ. Our union with the Lord Jesus, which has its roots in baptism and is nourished with the Eucharist, has to express itself and be radically renewed each day.

Any time we attend the Eucharistic celebration, we should try to renew our communion with
God. Intimate communion with the Blessed Trinity, that is, the new life of grace that makes us
children of God, constitutes the “novelty” of the believer, a novelty that involves both his being
and his acting.

It constitutes the “mystery” of Christian existence, which is under the influence of the Spirit: it should, as a result, constitute the ethos of Christian living. Jesus has taught us this marvellous reality of Christian living, which is also the heart of spiritual life, with his allegory of the vine and the branches: “I am the true vine…abide in me, and I in you.

As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me” (Jn. 15:1, 4-5).

Conclusion

We cannot do without prayer. Every authentic spirituality has prayerful intimacy with God as
its pivot. All religions have an aspect of it. Prayer cements our union with God through his Son
in the Holy Spirit.

There should be an intimacy with the divine; the willingness to remain in
him is crucial for our spiritual growth and maturity. Do not be far from him because it is
spiritually suicidal. Close the distance by using the wings of Lent. Seek to share in the inner
lives of the Holy Trinity.