«If you ask anything of the Father, he will give it to you in my Name»

(Jn 16:23-28)

In ancient religions, prayer is the performance of the believer, an act owed by the creature to the divine majesty.

For St Thomas, too, the virtue of Religion is an aspect of the cardinal virtue of Justice: the inferior being is bound to the praise and duty of worship.

But also a member of an assembly, in Faith the child of God has full access to the Father in a personal way, like Jesus.

And the Dialogue that arises has the character of spontaneity. The language: unrepeatable for each one [as in a love story].

Christ in us is the authentic protagonist of prayer 'in his Name'. But it does not replace the faithful - nor does it assume them, as an intermediary or external intercessor would.

The Lord unites us to Himself, in flesh and blood.

The contact with the Father is 'in Jesus of Nazareth': in the bearer of his own desires, words, actions, disappointments, joys, even the denunciation of false beliefs.

They deceive and extinguish the real genesis, which lurks in the specifics of the prayer of the children. Not the expression and fruit of an empty spirituality.

We are connected to His own Person - not to another, more glittering or tranquil, harmonious and quiet historical event: in the Spirit of incarnation, totally.

Then the Father has respect for our identity-character in Christ. He grasps the traits and incorporates them, to suggest to us the Way of particular fulfilment.

All according to age, Calling and deep personality, genius of time, world of relationships and unrepeatable sensitivity.

In the richness of the Mystery, the vicissitudes of the Son and the sons are intertwined. His Name merges with our name.

In short, His story of persecution and mockery is all of us. One recognises it, already at first sight.

The usual forgers of mannerist religion [archaic or fashionable] are always at work, but they have nothing special, wise, celestial.

Therefore in the prayers the Risen One does not act as "mediator".

He is the groove, the track, the path completely our own, not to be lost sight of and to be listened to attentively; both to scrutinise the global option of life and to adjust from time to time.

A special character of Christian prayer is listening, perception, acceptance; not performance.

Otherwise everything would remain in abeyance: one would not enter into the critical and fruitful depths of Love, of its development. Nor of reciprocity in Christ - in the true Lord.

We are hearers of the Word, the signs of the times, personal events, encounters, experience, heart or advice, character and inclinations - from our creaturely Seed.

Just like Jesus with the Father: we remain with Him within, and (united with Him) in His mystical and perennial Dialogue with the meaning of events.

In them, the Father is revealed, the true Subject who expresses Himself. And the Eternal One shines through in the events He brings to us in His wise Providence.

So the praying person is the one in Listening - in the same way as Jesus related to the Father, in order to understand his own affairs.

The praying person - although a hermit - is not an isolated man, alone like a dog, or worse, bent and plagiarised.

Nor do we resemble an intimidated person who recommends himself to some 'protector', or makes lists of requests as if Heaven had not noticed.

In order to encounter ourselves, our brothers, the world, and grasp the meaning of events and our mission, we remain in the Name of Jesus.

The story of the carpenter's son concerns us: so all the more do we demand to be introduced into the adventure and life-wave of Faith.

In this way, the exodus in the Spirit from our deepest strata is not the same as a devout and ordinary spiritual life.

Thus the prayer that belongs to our Calling has nothing to do with mediocre, subordinate attitudes - not primarily correlative to a historical fact: the Master's life.

In the souls of His intimates, He Himself listens, interprets, assimilates. And he turns 'with-us' to the Father.

Such friendship and attunement [sometimes crude] enables us to assimilate his authentic Person; not contrived, not sweetened, not smuggled.

Prayer in the Name of Christ contains its radical power, makes sense of hostilities and wounds.

In Him they become ground for sharing and profound correspondence.

Here the Lord dwells and continues His creative action.

Prayer in the Name transforms our dust into living awe and splendour of concrete relationship, as equals.

To internalise and live the message:

What space does Jesus' thoughts, His actions, His dreams, His Words have in your prayer?

What about His denunciation?

What about His reproaches (and that kind of vindication, as recorded in the Gospels - not others juxtaposed)?

Two Outcomes, in the Name

Jesus' wounds are still present on earth. To recognise them, it is necessary to get out of ourselves and go out to meet our brothers and sisters in need, the sick, the ignorant, the poor, the exploited. It is the 'exodus' that Pope Francis pointed out to Christians in the homily of the Mass celebrated on Saturday morning, 11 May, in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae.

It is a matter - the Pontiff explained - of 'an exit from ourselves' made possible by prayer 'towards the Father in the name of Jesus'. The prayer that "bores us", on the other hand, is "always within ourselves, like a thought that comes and goes. But true prayer is to go out from ourselves to the Father in the name of Jesus, it is an exodus from ourselves" that is accomplished "with the intercession of Jesus himself, who before the Father makes him see his wounds".

But how can we recognise these wounds of Jesus? How is it possible to trust in these plagues if one does not know them? And what is "the school where one learns to know the wounds of Jesus, these priestly wounds, these wounds of intercession?" The Pope's response was explicit: "If we do not succeed in making this exit from ourselves towards those wounds, we will never learn the freedom that leads us to the other exit from ourselves, towards the wounds of Jesus".

Hence the image of the two "exits from ourselves" indicated by the Holy Father: the first is "towards the wounds of Jesus, the other towards the wounds of our brothers and sisters. And this is the way Jesus wants in our prayer'. Words that find confirmation in the Gospel of John (16:23-28) in the liturgy of the day. A passage in which Jesus is of a disarming clarity: "Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you". In these words," the Pontiff noted, "there is a novelty in prayer: 'In my name'. The Father therefore "will give us everything, but always in the name of Jesus".

What does this asking in the name of Jesus mean? It is a novelty that Jesus reveals precisely "at the moment when he leaves the earth and returns to the Father". On the Solemnity of the Ascension [...] the Pope recalled - a passage from the Letter to the Hebrews was read, where it says among other things: "For we have the freedom to go to the Father". It is "a new freedom. The doors are open: Jesus, in going to the Father, left the door open". Not because "he forgot to close it", but because "he himself is the door". He is "our intercessor, and that is why he says: 'In my name'". In our prayer, characterised by "that courage which Jesus himself gives us", we then ask the Father in the name of Jesus: "Look at your Son and do this to me!".

The Holy Father then recalled the image of Jesus who "enters the sanctuary of Heaven, as a priest. And Jesus, until the end of the world, is as priest, he makes intercession for us". And when we "ask the Father by saying 'Jesus', we are signalling, we are saying, we are referring to the intercessor. He prays for us before the Father".

Referring then to the wounds of Jesus, the Pontiff noted that Christ "in his resurrection, had a beautiful body: the wounds of the scourging, of the thorns, have disappeared, all of them. The bruises of the blows have disappeared". But he, he added, "always wanted to have the wounds, and the wounds are precisely his prayer of intercession to the Father". This is "the novelty that Jesus tells us", inviting us to "trust in his passion, trust in his victory over death, trust in his wounds". He is, in fact, the "priest and this is the sacrifice: his wounds". All this "gives us confidence, gives us the courage to pray", because, as the Apostle Peter wrote, "by his wounds you have been healed".

In conclusion, the Holy Father recalled another passage from John's Gospel: 'Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name: ask and you shall obtain, that your joy may be full'. The reference, he explained, is to the 'joy of Jesus', to the 'joy that comes'. This is "the new way of praying: with trust", with that "courage that lets us know that Jesus is before the Father" and shows him his wounds; but also with the humility to recognise and find Jesus' wounds in his needy brothers and sisters. This is our prayer in charity.

"May the Lord," the Pontiff hoped, "give us this freedom to enter that sanctuary where He is priest and intercedes for us and whatever we ask the Father in His name, He will give it to us. But also give us the courage to go to that other "sanctuary" which are the wounds of our brothers and sisters in need, who suffer, who still bear the Cross and still have not won, as Jesus won".

(Pope Francis, S. Marta homily, in L'Osservatore Romano 12/05/2013)