The Lord Jesus is our model and teacher of prayer.
As the Catechism states, “The drama of prayer is fully revealed to us in the Word who became flesh and dwells among us. To seek to understand his prayer through what his witnesses proclaim to us in the Gospel is to approach the holy Lord Jesus as Moses approached the burning bush: first to contemplate him in prayer, then to hear how he teaches us to pray, in order to know how he hears our prayer.” (CCC 2598)
St. Augustine said, “He prays for us as our priest, prays in us as our Head, and is prayed to by us as our God. Therefore let us acknowledge our voice in him and his in us.”
According to the Catechism, Jesus offered filial and thanksgiving prayer to the heavenly Father (Mt 11:25-27, Lk 10:21-23, and Jn 11:41-42) and he prayed before the decisive moments of his mission (Luke 3:21; 9:28; 22:41-44) and before the decisive moments involving the mission of his apostles. (Lk 6:12; 9:18-20; 22:32)
Jesus prayed as our high priest on the cross. “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.” (Heb 5:7)
The visionary Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich saw Jesus pray on the cross. She said, “Jesus’ moans were purely cries of pain. Mingled with them were uninterrupted prayers, passages from the Psalms and Prophecies, whose predictions He was now fulfilling. During the whole time of His bitter Passion and until the moment of death, He was engaged in this kind of prayer, and in the uninterrupted fulfilment of the Prophecies. I heard all the passages He made use of and repeated them with him, and when I say the Psalms, I always remember the verses that Jesus used.”
Jesus began his public ministry by receiving baptism from John the Baptist and praying with sinners. Pope Francis said, “Jesus always prays with his people, he always prays with us: always…He acts as if he were a sinner. And this is the greatness of God, who sent his Son and annihilated himself, and appeared as a sinner. Jesus is not a distant God, and he cannot be so. Incarnation revealed him in a complete and humanly unthinkable way.”
According to Pope Francis, the Catechism teaches us that "when Jesus prays he is already teaching us how to pray" [CCC 2607].
Therefore, from Jesus’ example, we can derive some characteristics of Christian prayer.
“First and foremost, it possesses primacy: it is the first desire of the day, something that is practised at dawn, before the world awakens....Prayer is primarily listening and encountering God. The problems of everyday life, then, do not become obstacles, but appeals from God himself to listen to and encounter those who are in front of us.”
Second, prayer is “an art to be practised insistently. Jesus himself says to us: knock, knock, knock. We are all capable of sporadic prayers, which arise from a momentary emotion; but Jesus educates us in another type of prayer: the one that knows a discipline, an exercise, and is assumed within a rule of life.”
Consistent prayer produces progressive transformation, says Francis. It “makes us strong in times of tribulation, gives us the grace to be supported by the One who loves us and always protects us.”
Another characteristic of Jesus’ prayer is solitude, the Pope says. “Those who pray do not escape from the world, but prefer deserted places..... Every person needs a space for him or herself, somewhere to cultivate their interior life, where actions find meaning again...... without an interior life we flee from reality, and we also flee from ourselves, we are men and women always on the run.”
Finally, Jesus’ prayer is “the place where we perceive that everything comes from God and returns to him. Sometimes we human beings believe that we are the masters of everything, or on the contrary, we lose all self-esteem, we go from one side to the other.”
Prayer “helps us to find the right dimension in our relationship with God, our Father, and with all creation. And Jesus’ prayer, in the end, means delivering oneself into the hands of the Father, like Jesus in the olive grove, in that anguish: ‘Father, if it is possible … but may your will be done.’”
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耶穌總是與我們一同祈禱。
主耶穌是我們祈禱的模範和導師。天主教教理宣示：「祈禱的劇情，在成為肉軀並住在我們中間的聖言身上，為我們圓滿地啟示 了出來。有關祂的祈禱，由祂的見証人在福音中宣我們宣布的，努力領會祂的祈禱，就是讓我們接近神聖的主耶穌，一如接近那焚燒的荊棘叢：先瞻仰祂本身如何祈禱，再聆聽祂教導我們如何祈禱，最後領悟出祂如何俯允我們的祈禱。」（天主教教理#2598）聖奧斯定說：「祂作為我們的祭司為我們祈禱，作為我們的『頭』在我們內祈禱，作為我們的天主我們向祂祈禱。因此，求主俯聽我們在祂內的聲音，讓我們聆聽祂在我們內的聲音。」
根據教理耶穌向天父奉獻孝順和感恩的祈禱（瑪11:25–27；路10:21–23；若11:41–42），及在祂自己使命的關鍵時刻之前祈禱(路3:21；9:28；22:41–44) 和在涉及宗徒們使命的決定性時刻之前，祂也祈禱。（路6:12；9:18–20；22:32）。
耶穌在十字架上以我們的大祭司的身份祈禱。「當衪還在血肉之身時，以大聲哀號和眼淚，向那能救衪脫離死亡的天主，獻上了祈禱和懇求，就因衪的虔敬而獲得了俯允。」（希5:7）
真福亞納、加大利納、艾米莉希在她的神視中，看見耶穌在十字架上祈禱。她說「耶穌的呻吟純粹是痛苦的呼喚。在其中交織著不斷的祈禱 - 聖詠和先知書的段落 - 祂正在實踐這些預言。在祂痛苦的受難期間，一直到死亡的時刻，祂都在這種祈禱中，不斷地實現著先知的預言。我聽到了祂使用的所有段落，並與祂一起重複，當我唸聖詠時，我總是記得耶穌使用的那些章節。」
耶穌在洗者若翰那裡受洗後開始宣講，並與罪人一同祈禱。教宗方濟各說：「耶穌總是與祂的人民一同祈禱，祂總是與我們一同祈禱：總是 … 祂彷彿是一個罪人。這正是天主的偉大之處，祂差遣了自己的兒子，使祂滅亡，並出現如一個罪人。耶穌不是一個遙遠的主，祂也不能是如此。聖子降生道成肉身以一種人類完全難以想像的方式展現了祂。」
教宗方濟各說：「教理指出：『耶穌祈禱時，已在教導我們祈禱。』（天主教教理#2607）。因此，從耶穌的榜樣中，我們可以得出一些基督徒祈禱的特徵。首先及最重要的，並擁有首要地位是：這是一天中的第一個渴望，是在黎明時分，世界醒來之前就是要經常習慣做的事…。祈禱主要是在聆聽和與天主神相遇。因此，日常生活中的問題不會成為障礙，而是天主自己對我們的呼籲，要求我們去聆聽並與我們面前的人相遇…。其次，祈禱是一種堅持不懈地實踐的藝術。耶穌親自對我們說：敲門、敲門、敲門。我們都能夠進行零星的祈禱，這些祈禱源於一時的情感；但耶穌教導我們另一種祈禱：那種懂得紀律、訓練的祈禱，並被納入生活規律之中。持之以恆的祈禱能夠產生漸進的轉變，使我們在苦難時期變得堅強，賜予我們恩寵，讓我們得到那位愛我們並時刻保護我們的主的支持。耶穌祈禱的另一個特點是孤獨。那些祈禱的人並不是逃離世界，而是更喜歡在荒涼的地方…。每個人都需要一個屬於自己的空間，一個培養內心生活的地方，在那裡讓行動再次找到意義 … 缺乏內在生活，我們會逃避現實，也會逃避自己，我們是在逃亡的人。最後，耶穌的祈禱是我們感知到一切都來自天主並回歸於祂的地方。有時，我們人類相信自己是一切的主宰，或者相反，我們失去了所有的自尊，我們左右為難。祈禱幫助我們找到與天主 - 我們的天父，以及與所有受造物的關係中的正確空間。最終，耶穌的祈禱意味著將自己交付到父親的手中，就像耶穌在橄欖山上那樣，在那種極度的煎熬中：「我父！若是可能… 但不要照我，而要照祢所願意的。」
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