Catholic

Prayer
and
Worship
Chapter 24
At the end of the module, you would be able to

a. understand the essential elements

of authentic Catholic Christian
prayer, its methods, Scriptural basis
and its levels; the essential qualities
of Catholic Christian worship and
liturgy; and the nature of Catholic
Church Sacraments as well.
b. appreciate and realize the need to
pray, worship and celebrate the
sacraments of the Catholic Church.
c. participate in Church communal
prayer as well as in her sacraments
at all times.
Christian prayer is our personal faith
response to God, that is:
• a loving relationship
with God, our all-
loving Father,
• through Jesus Christ,
the Son,
• in the Holy Spirit.
Prayer is
“intimate
converse with
God who loves
us.”
But what’s wrong
with our prayer?
PCP II recognized that “in the Philippines,

o worship has unfortunately

been often separated from
the totality of life.
o Prayer is still often relegated
to mere external observance
of religious conventions.
o Many Filipino Catholics still
seem to consider
prayer/worship and moral life
completely separated.
Thus, our prayer and worship
o lacks conscious
awareness of what we
are doing.
o lacks any real heart
commitment such as
doing simple acts of
loving service of one’s
neighbor.
If our prayer and worship lacks
the balance, then how to pray
genuinely to God?

How should we make our

prayer and worship more
pleasing and acceptable to
God?
Is it through the five
basic ways of

X
praying?

• adoration,
• thanksgiving,
• petition,
• contrition and
• offering
Is it through the explicit vocal
prayers of the Church such as
the (Our Father, Hail Mary,
etc.)?

NOTE: these prayers are concrete expressions of a

deeper dimension of our personal lives.
X
X
Is it through the
various postures and
ways of praying we
adopt such as
• sitting,
• standing,
• prostrating,
• kneeling?
It is through the grace
of God that one can
really pray. (St. Paul)

•“We do not know how to pray as

we ought; but the Spirit himself
makes intercession for us with
groaning that cannot be expressed
in speech. He who searches hearts
knows what the Spirit means, for
the Spirit intercedes for the saints
as God himself wills.”
(Rom 8:26f)
Christian prayer,
then, is
• Not something we do on
our own power “for
God” but a precious gift
to us by the Spirit.
• Not learned through the
teaching of others; it has
its own special teacher,
God.
Old testament revelations

The Lord said:

“Since this people draws near with words only and
honor me with their lips alone, Though their hearts are
far from me and their reverence for me has become
routine observance of the precepts of men;
I will again deal with this people: the wisdom of its wise
shall perish and the understanding of its prudent men be
hid.”
(Is 29:13f)

This means that prayer, fasting and offering of sacrifice if

only expressed in its external forms while neglecting the
basic demands of social justice and love of neighbor is
interpreted as religious hypocrisy.
So, for prayer to be authentic,
pleasing and acceptable to God,
it should always be rooted in
the heart, and related to the
neighbor in loving compassion
and service.
Christian prayer, then, is
directly addressed to
God, our Creator and
Lord, while involving an
intrinsic relation to one’s
neighbor.
a. Christian Prayer
consists of:
• Interior sincerity of
the heart
• Love in action
especially on one’s
enemies
• Guidance and
inspiration by the Holy
Spirit
 New testament
revelations:
The NT present Jesus full of the
Holy Spirit praying before every
major act of his public life.
• At his baptism
• Through his forty days in the
desert
• Before choosing his apostles
• At his transfiguration
• During his passion
• On the cross
Thus, it is only the grace
of the Holy Spirit that
links us interiorly, from
within, to Christ our
Savior, making us his
disciples.

We have to accept and

cooperate with this
grace by Faith.
This empowerment of the
Spirit is frequently completely
missed by our “common sense”.
We often think of prayer as:
• Our own private individualistic thing
• An obligation imposed on us
• Something we have to do at
specified times and in certain
places.
• Doing God a favor so we try to
make bargains with God –
promising extra prayers to gain
special favors.
 Jesus as perfect model
and teacher of prayer
In his sermon on the Mount,
he instructed his disciples to:
• Pray for your persecutor
• Do not be like the
hypocrites
• Do not rattle on like the
pagans
b. Christian Prayer are in two levels:
• in private, personal prayer (the
rosary, novenas, devotions to
patron saints, meditations, etc.)
• public, communal liturgical
prayer.

Both levels are

complementary;
both are necessary
for an authentic
Christian prayer
life.
Their complementariness
were shown by Christ.
On one hand, all the great
moments of Christ’s most personal
prayer were directly ordered
beyond himself toward his public
life and mission, the communal.
• his temptations in the desert.
• his prayer on the mountain.
• his agony in the Garden.
• His transfiguration
On the other hand, all Jesus’
public acts manifested his
extraordinary personal
freedom, self-assurance, and
the depth of his personal
relation to his Father.

• his inaugural sermon at

Nazareth
• his cleansing of the Temple
• his Last Supper with his
apostles.
Thus, we can say:
Jesus most personal sharing in
solitude with his heavenly Father
was never divorced from his
mission.

Whereas Jesus public life and

mission were always the context of
his personal interior prayer, while
his inward prayerful journey
furnished the content of all he said
and did.
The Prayer of the
Eucharist displays the
same integration of the
personal and communal
levels of Christian
prayer.
The Liturgy of God’s Word is
addressed to each
worshipper in his or her own
personal depth and
uniqueness.
Its purpose is to nourish,
challenge and support the
personal journey of each of
the assembled disciples,
calling for each one’s own
personal response.
The first response of the Christian
believer may either be:

• “Offertory,” whether of all that we are

and do (Eucharist),
• our repentance for forgiveness
(Reconciliation),
• our infirmity for healing (Anointing),
• our availability for service (Orders)
• for conjugal love (Marriage).

All bring out our Baptismal

commitment: our life placed within the
life and prayer of Christ.
WORSHIP
WORSHIP is the interior reverence
and homage offered to the Divine
Majesty through
• words,
• actions,
• songs,
• dances usually enacted in
public ritual.
Ritual, whether secular or
religious, is a social,
programmed symbolic activity
that can create, communicate,
criticize, or transform the basic
meaning of community life.
Ritual is always characterized
as:
• Consecratory - enables the participants to share
in the divine power/love.

• Symbolic - using natural signs to make present

the divine.

• Repetitive - using traditional prayers and

actions.

• Involving Remembrance - link the celebrants

with their past and the original religious event
that the ritual is celebrating
OLD TESTAMENT
REVELATIONS

Yahweh denounced empty

ritualism by stressing that true
worship consists not in words on
the lips but in deeds from the
heart.

Authentic worship means doing

good and rendering justice to the
poor, the widow and orphan.
New TESTAMENT
REVELATIONS

Jesus purified worship by linking it directly

with daily moral living.

Like the prophets, Jesus denounced

empty ritualism people, sharing in his
very own Priesthood. (LG 10)

Authentic Christian worship then

means living a moral life as well as
rendering justice to the least, the
last and the lost.
 The Catholic
Church decreed
that only God is to
be adored while
the rests are to be
venerated.