Meeting 3. - “Seven Petitions”¶

Tags: Prayer, Community, Relationships, Maturity, Text work, Discussion, Group work, Formative

Introduction for the animator and goals¶

Today, in our formation, we move through various “aspects” of life. In the morning conference we talked about thanksgiving and gratitude. In the evening, during the evening gathering and the evening prayer, we will touch on asking forgiveness and the readiness to admit that we are on a road, in a process. The group meeting focuses on petition. Today’s Holy Mass became the link between thanksgiving and petition.

The ability to ask has a very dynamic character in our life. Sometimes it comes to us with difficulty, and sometimes too easily (and that is not good either). This meeting aims to grasp that dynamism, and to make us more at ease with and able to name the three stages of growth in “dependence on others,” so that we may be ready to come to love “petition” (and thus dependence on others as well).

The first part of the meeting focuses on understanding and content, while the second has more of a sharing accent.

Time of the meeting: 1h 30min

Stages of the meeting (the line of thought):

Seeing oneself as someone dependent on others (not only on God!)
Seeing the Our Father as an affirmation of dependence
Petition as a tool for building relationships
Not only we ask God, but God also asks us

Goals of the meeting:

Intellectual preparation (light) for the evening prayer (experience) through an analysis of the Lord’s Prayer as seven petitions
Working with convictions about dependence on others and affirming it (asking)

Prepare beforehand:

Pencil with eraser
Watch the YouTube material (1 min 30 s)
Sheets with characteristic statements and definitions (see attachment) and the prayer

Note

It is worth considering having the definitions in two copies, to make the group’s work easier.

Prayer and introduction¶

Before the opening prayer, invite the group to pray together in the form of petition. Even before the prayer, ask:

What do we need at this retreat? What would you like to ask for?
What do we need in the context of this group meeting?
What do the other participants in the retreat need?

Note

These first two questions refer back to the Friday evening-prayer pattern.

Let the prayer before the meeting be a typical prayer of petition – as we understand and experience it (it may be spontaneous). Let us try to include in it everything we have just talked about.

No one is an island¶

Let us begin our meeting by reading:

No one is a solitary island. We are bound together even when we do not know it. Landscape binds us, body and blood bind us – work and speech bind us. Yet we are not always aware of these connections. When solidarity is born, awareness awakens, and then speech and word appear – then what was hidden comes to light. All our connections become visible. Then a person carries the weight of another person on their shoulders.

—Fr. Józef Tischner

It is easy to pass by a passage like this and simply say, “yes, that’s true.” Let us, however, stop for a moment and consider how deeply interconnected we are.

Activity

Take up a reflection on the pencil analogous to the lecture by Nobel laureate Milton Friedman (watch the video, up to 1:30). Depending on your group, you can prepare this part in a more interactive version. The goal is to show how an apparently simple object engages a long chain of supplies and services in cooperation on the final product.

Note

Another image of how everything is connected is a quip sometimes used to illustrate the butterfly effect: when someone in China eats a bat in January, by March you are pressing the elevator button with your elbow in Poland.

On what people do your choices have the greatest impact?
Which people’s choices have the greatest impact on you?
How do you feel about the thought that, by definition, you will always be dependent on something or someone?

The fact that we are all interconnected is our observation, our naming of what we experience. So we see a certain fact. It is therefore justified to ask whether this is “a state of affairs we simply have to accept” or whether it was the Creator’s intention.

Let us read:

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit; there are different kinds of service, but the same Lord; there are different kinds of workings, but the same God, who works everything in everyone. To each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing in the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues.

—1 Cor 12:4-10

What does the fact that no one received all the gifts testify to?

God wanted us to need one another. It is not only from the Letter to the Corinthians that we can draw such a conclusion – God’s intention was to have a Chosen People, not merely a set of individuals. The connections between us are his design. Therefore, the more we come to know God, the more we participate in the world (not the less).

The path of humility¶

The fact that functioning in a network of dependencies, relationships, and mutual influence is God’s intention does not mean at all that each of us possessed this knowledge from the moment of our creation and could imagine no other world. Faith is a process, and that process has its stages of maturation.

Let us read:

Do not say: “What do I need, and what prosperity can be mine from now on?” Do not say: “I am self-sufficient, and what harm can come to me now?” In the day of prosperity one forgets adversity, and in the day of adversity one does not remember prosperity.

—Sir 11:23-25

In what situations am I tempted to think, “I am self-sufficient”?

Because all of us are involved in this, let us try to look at it somewhat from the side, so that we can approach it without embarrassment and without prejudice.

Exercise

As with any exercise, this one simplifies a complex reality. Even so, let us try to undertake it, trusting that later it will allow us to reach deeper reflections. We have prepared statements that perhaps each of us could have said at some point in life (the animator lays out on the table the sheets with characteristic expressions – see attachment). They come from three different people. Let us try to group these statements.

How would we characterize each of these people on this basis?

Each of these people matches one of the descriptions. Let us simply assign them (the animator takes out 3 definitions. After a moment of getting acquainted with the definitions, we move on to the most important part of this exercise).

Which transition seems easier to you: from stage I to II or from II to III? Why?
What kind of interdependence with other people do you already like?

We begin as fully dependent on others (children), then become independent (adolescent rebellion), so that later, in our independence, we consciously give up part of it again (maturity). This journey lasts all our life and has one common feature – humility. It takes humility to stop expecting that others will serve me and to take up tasks myself. It takes humility, after fighting for independence, to admit that maturity is not the same as self-sufficiency. Yet this is not a humility imposed from outside. It is an inner readiness for change – one that, in fact, we ourselves want.

Note

After rebelling against parents and the system, we ourselves stand before people and before God in order to become parents and part of the system.

What is your attitude toward the word “humility”? What does it make you think of?
In what spaces of life is it easy for you to think in terms of “we,” and where is that a place of real struggle?

Faith holds a special place on this path of humility. At first, faith is determined by the “you” of our parents. Then there comes a moment when we enter into our personal relationship with Jesus. Sometimes at that point we build ourselves (for a time) in opposition to what we knew before – “Sunday Catholicism,” “saying Hail Marys,” and so on. But in faith as well, we come to a place where, after experiencing all the good that comes from finding our identity and spiritual and religious independence, we begin to notice the value of “we” – the community of the Church.

Note

This is a great place for the animator’s testimony. Prayed through and thought through in a spirit of responsibility for the Church. It is an opportunity to speak about how the (necessary) delight in a personal relationship with Jesus can be rooted in the community of the Church. Fr. Franciszek Blachnicki wrote about this as follows: “At the root of these reflections lies the desire that movements in the Church should not become the seed of a new Church, but should always remain a manifestation of the Church in motion, the living Church, that is, the Church in renewal, the renewed Church.”

The prayer “Our Father”¶

Let us read:

And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do. They think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them! For your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray, then, in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name! Your kingdom come; your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses, as we also forgive those who trespass against us; and do not let us yield to temptation, but keep us from evil!

—Mt 6:7-13

This is probably the passage of Scripture most often repeated by people. But does that also make it the best known? For the moment, let us focus on the two key words of this prayer: Father and our.

“Father”

“The reasons why Jewish prayers do not address God as Abba become clear when one considers the linguistic background of this word. Originally it belonged to the vocabulary of children. (…) To call God by so familiar a name would, for the Jewish mentality, be a sign of disrespect and therefore something unthinkable. It was thus an absolute novum, unique and exceptional, that Jesus dared to address God so simply, so intimately, without fear, as a child speaks to his father. Therefore there is no doubt that the word Abba, by which Jesus addresses God, reveals the deepest meaning of his relationship with Him.”

—Joachim Jeremias (a Lutheran biblical scholar who in a sense “rediscovered” the name Abba for Christianity in the 20th century), “Abba”, 1966

In our prayers, do we more often address the Creator as “God” or as “Father”?
What does it mean to you that Jesus wants us to begin our prayers in this way? What is the role of prayer?

The role of prayer is to create a space in which we can enter into an intimate, personal relationship. If someone felt the need to try to evaluate prayer (though that is probably not a good practice), this would be the first criterion – through this prayer, did I meet God (the Father) and build a relationship with him?

“Our”

The second word of the prayer is “our.” The Lord’s Prayer teaches us to mature into the third stage from our exercise! This too is the role of prayer – to step out of our individual perspective and look at the world through the lens of “we.”

Let us see where Jesus tells us to say these words.

Let us read:

But when you want to pray, go into your room, shut the door, and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.

—Mt 6:6

On the one hand we have the “private room” and “Daddy” (individualism), and on the other, at the very same time, we have “Our Father” and the common form of prayer given by Jesus (community)!

How do you interpret this joining of facts by Jesus?
Besides the encounter with God, what role does prayer have?
What does your prayer with so-called “ready-made prayers” look like? What is difficult in it, and what is easy? How does this relate to community?

Seven petitions¶

We know that there are various ways of praying (technique) and various forms of prayer (content). As for forms of prayer, we can distinguish four basic ones: thanksgiving, petition, asking forgiveness, and praise. In the Church there are various spiritual traditions, and among those who have explored Christian spirituality in a special way are certainly the Carmelites. Let us read a statement by one of the fathers:

The four forms of the human person’s relationship with God do not constitute four qualitatively different kinds of prayer. They are only an expression of the personal situations in which the person of prayer finds himself. The fundamental prayerful relationship between the human person and God, however, remains unchanged, regardless of the believer’s state of soul. God will always be Creator and Father, and the human person will always be his creature and child. It is precisely these situations that in some way determine the character of prayer. They are reduced to four: praise with adoration, petition, asking forgiveness, and thanksgiving. (…)

These forms should not be confused with the stages of prayer, which mean ever deeper levels of intimacy with God. At every stage of prayer all four of the above forms may be present.

—Fr. Jerzy Gogola, OCD

In which form of prayer do you currently feel most natural? Which one is a challenge for you?

Let us now broaden the way we look at the Lord’s Prayer and look at it as a whole, from a bird’s-eye view. We know this text too well, and it takes a certain breakthrough to sharpen our sight enough to see something new.

What form of prayer, then, is the Our Father?
How many petitions does it contain?
How many of those petitions refer directly to divine matters? How many refer directly to human matters?

(The animator places in the middle the “Our Father” prayer from the attachment.) The Our Father is a prayer of seven petitions. By setting apart each petition and looking at it as independent, let us try to deepen our understanding of the Lord’s Prayer.

Note

For the animator to consider: it is very common that, as believers, we say many words in church almost automatically, as a form of ritual (which in itself does not have to be wrong). A testimony of maturation whose tangible change is greater awareness of the ritual words we speak will strengthen the group – especially if they see that they are not the only ones with such struggles.

What can each of the petitions mean? What do we pray for when we pray?

(The animator goes with the group through the individual petitions. The aim of this meeting is not to arrive at an “answer key of correct responses,” and this outline certainly does not claim to be such a key. Let the collected information – see the supporting notes in the attachment – serve as inspirations and possible directions. Remember to control the time. The most important thing is that together with the group we undertake a critical reading of the text, that is, a reflective reading of what we are saying. The Our Father will be the culminating point of the evening prayer. For now, we are trying to engage the intellect in analyzing these contents so that in the evening we may focus not so much on facts as on intentions.)

Let us return, however, to our scheme. On its right side we have a free column. Let us compare the first and second group of petitions with the three determinants from our first exercise. (During the conversation, the animator adds the missing elements live.) With which determinant would we connect petitions 4-7? Of course with “WE”! With which determinant would we connect petitions 1-3? Of course with “YOU.” Is there, then, anywhere a determinant “I”? We have already spoken about that today as well… in the setting of this prayer – in entering YOUR own room in order to pray.

Context		But when you want to pray, go into your room, shut the door, and pray…	I
Invocation		Our Father in heaven,
GROUP I (theological character)	Petition I	hallowed be your name!	YOU
	Petition II	your kingdom come;
	Petition III	your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
GROUP II (ecclesial character)	Petition IV	Give us this day our daily bread	WE
	Petition V	and forgive us our trespasses, as we also forgive those who trespass against us;
	Petition VI	and do not let us yield to temptation,
	Petition VII	but keep us from evil!

The Our Father integrates all the stages of our maturation as human beings. In it we are children, in it we are seekers of identity, and in it we are members of the community of saints.

Prayer of petition¶

It is justified to ask why the most important prayer is a prayer of petition. Are petitions not in some way too self-interested to be perfect? Some of us do not like asking others for anything at all.

What do we most often ask God for as the Church? (for example: Mass intentions, pilgrimages, etc.)
What things do I ask God for?

There is a certain paradox connected with petitions directed to God, one that at first glance may seem very serious. If God is almighty and all-knowing and merciful, that means he knows best what I need, wants to give it to me, and has no limited means by which to do so. So what does my petition change? Why, then, should I ask?

Let us read:

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. I desire to do what is right, but to carry it out lies beyond me.

—Rom 7:18

Whose “mind” does a prayer of petition change – God’s or mine?
How do I experience this blessing of petition, which makes us ourselves more sensitive to what is good?

It is definitely not the case that in Christianity believers serve as “reminders” for a distracted Creator who needs nudges to keep everything in order.

Petitions are something much more than just passing on information about a need. At the beginning of the meeting we talked about the fact that none of us is an island. Every petition is a reminder of this human condition. That is why it is important that our petitions not be devoid of reflection, but that we try to formulate them very precisely. Let us read a certain prayer of petition:

Lord, give me patience, that I may endure what I cannot change; give me courage, that I may steadfastly and perseveringly strive to change what I can change; and give me wisdom, that I may distinguish one from the other.

How different such a prayer is from the cry: “God, make things better”!

What would happen if, instead of 10 petitions to God, you could bring only one?
What changes in me when, before I speak a petition, I clearly remind myself: “the purpose of this prayer is not to convince God of something”?

Learning to like petitions¶

Petitions, then, need not be a last resort we resent. By asking, we lay our desires before another person, and that builds community! This change of perspective is important. Let us imagine a world in which nobody makes tea for anyone, pours anyone water, or asks for a hug. Petitions do not have to be demanding; they can be a language of love. A marriage proposal is also a petition!

What kinds of petitions do you like? Which ones give you joy?
How do you react when someone comes to you with a request?

This community-building character of petitions often escapes us in the Church. When we come to Holy Mass, it is celebrated for a certain intention. Most often this is an intention with which a believer came to ask a priest for prayer, and at Mass itself asks all of us to join their desire and offer it to God. A petition is an invitation to cooperation, to journey, to closeness.

In what way has someone’s request brought you closer to someone? Do you have such an experience?
With whom have you shared your desires and asked for help in attaining them?

The God who asks¶

Let us read:

And I said: “Woe is me! I am lost! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” Then one of the seraphim flew to me, holding in his hand a burning coal that he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin is atoned for.” And I heard the voice of the Lord saying: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I answered: “Here I am, send me!” And he said [to me]: “Go, and say to this people: Hear and hear, but do not understand; look and look, but do not perceive!”

—Is 6:5-9

It is not only we who ask God for various things. A petition is a tool for building relationship, showing trust, and sharing one’s desires. Even if we demonstratively cry out, “Woe is me! I am lost!” God Almighty wants to ask us for help – he who can do everything. In the relationship of faith, not only does God hear our petitions, but God also wants to be heard (!). He asks for something – here, today… let us try together today to hear him.

Let the application from this meeting be planning (or carrying out) three petitions whose only purpose will be to make someone closer to us.

At the end, a prayer of petition. Each participant in the meeting speaks exactly one petition, after which we pray “Glory be to the Father.”

Attachment¶

Characteristic statements¶

I want a sandwich	I can do it	What are your strengths?
Give me something to drink	What does it take to win?	What are our plans for tomorrow?
I do not want to do it	I scored more points	We did it!
I am bored	I want to try it myself	In our study we showed…
Play with me	I did it myself	I need your help
	I do not want to do it now	How can I help you with this?

Definitions of the determinants¶

Determinant “YOU”: We begin life dependent on others; we are oriented toward the fact that others (parents) will satisfy our needs. With time, we slowly begin to gain the ability to direct our senses toward the stimuli acting upon them. We distinguish parts from the whole, and come to know the whole as made up of parts. Differentiation begins: today, yesterday, and tomorrow. A history already comes into being, though the future remains undefined. We try to get to know the world around us. We shape our own, partly organized world, in which a sense of responsibility and autonomy begins to operate. The knowledge we acquire shows the boundary between fantasy and reality, and makes it possible to distinguish truth from falsehood. We learn to reckon with facts and develop critical thinking. The elements on the maturity scale that make up the determinant “YOU” develop from birth to about the age of 7, when we begin school. The period from the age of 7 to 14 is the shaping of the I (a transitional period).
Determinant “I”: Independence is the determinant “I”. This means that we try to do something, make something happen, manage – I respond, I rely on myself, I make choices. A young person begins consciously to compare themselves with other people, to see themselves in relation to others. Life experience and knowledge about life, especially about people and their affairs, grow. The image of the world and of human life is still very fragmentary and often naive. It is unsystematic, more learned than thought through. We are still largely stuck in school knowledge.
Determinant “WE”: A young person, however, becomes an adult. They increasingly appreciate interdependence with other people. Interdependence means that: WE can cooperate, we can co-create, we – together – can do something wonderful that cannot be done alone. We begin to need others. As a young person becomes an adult, they begin to seek their place in life. Out of the real collision of intentions and life, many issues are born as the content of human life. Resistance and perseverance in overcoming psychological and physical difficulties are formed. This is the time of carrying out life’s plans. We begin to reflect on our life. We try to take stock of it, to consider what we have managed to achieve and what we have not. We ask ourselves questions about the meaning of our life and about the final outcome of our existence here on earth.

The prayer “Our Father”¶

Invocation		Our Father in heaven,
GROUP I (theological character)	Petition I	hallowed be your name!
	Petition II	your kingdom come;
	Petition III	your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
GROUP II (ecclesial character)	Petition IV	Give us this day our daily bread
	Petition V	and forgive us our trespasses, as we also forgive those who trespass against us;
	Petition VI	and do not let us yield to temptation,
	Petition VII	but keep us from evil!

Supporting notes on the seven petitions¶

Introduction:

2804 The first series of petitions carries us toward the Father, for him: Your Name, Your Kingdom, Your Will! (…) “Hallowed be… Come… Be done…”: these three pleas have already been heard in the sacrifice of Christ the Savior, and now, in hope, are directed toward their final fulfillment, because God is not yet all in all.

1. “hallowed be your Name”

May the world acknowledge God’s Name, his will, and his commandments; may all acknowledge that he is Father, the source of all good.

2814 When we say: “Hallowed be your name,” we ask that it be hallowed in us, who are in him, but also in others, upon whom God’s grace is still waiting, so as to fulfill the commandment that binds us to pray for everyone, even for our enemies. That is why we do not say exactly: Hallowed be your name “in us,” because we ask that it be hallowed in all people.

2. “your Kingdom come”

We call for God’s Kingdom in the return of Christ, but we also ask for the Church to keep growing in unity with God and with people through his love, and thus to make the Kingdom present on earth.

2818 In the Lord’s Prayer, it is above all a matter of the final coming of the Kingdom of God at Christ’s return. This desire, however, does not draw the Church away from her mission in this world, but rather engages her in it. Since Pentecost, the coming of the Kingdom is the work of the Spirit of the Lord, “who continues his work in the world and brings all sanctification to completion.”

3. “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”

The realization of God’s saving plan on earth; acting subject: God. Human action in accordance with God’s will and teaching, bringing the Kingdom nearer; acting subject: the human person.

2822 It is the will of our Father “that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4). “He is patient… not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Pet 3:9). His commandment, which sums up all the others and expresses his whole will, is “that we love one another; even as he has loved us” (Jn 13:34).

4. “Give us this day our daily bread”

Artos epiousios (Greek) – bread necessary for existence; daily = “belonging to the Lord’s Day,” the bread of the heavenly banquet; literally epiousios – supersubstantial. In biblical tradition, bread evokes every saving gift of God: the bread of the Word, the Eucharistic bread, daily bread.

2837 The heavenly Father urges us, as children of heaven, to ask for the Bread of heaven.

5. “and forgive us our trespasses, as we also forgive those who trespass against us”

In this petition we come to God like the prodigal son, confess our sinfulness, and show our readiness to forgive – to open our hardened heart to his mercy.

2862 The fifth petition begs God’s mercy for our sins. It cannot penetrate our hearts as long as we have not forgiven our enemies, after the example of Christ and with his help.

6. “and do not let us yield to temptation”

This petition is an expression of trust in the Father’s liberating power. “Grant that we may not yield to temptation” – we pray for protection in times of temptation, not against temptation in general.

2848 “Not to enter into temptation” implies a decision of the heart: “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Cor 10:13).

7. “but save us from the Evil One”

2851 The evil spoken of in this petition is not an abstraction, but a person, Satan, the Evil One, the angel who opposes God.

2854 When we ask to be delivered from the Evil One, we also pray to be freed from every evil – past, present, and future – of which he is the author or instigator. In this final petition, the Church brings before God the Father the misery of the whole world. By asking to be delivered from the evil that oppresses humanity, she implores the precious gift of peace and the grace of persevering expectation of Christ’s return.