What prayer is

This week's questions

What is prayer? Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgement of his mercies.

Question 98

Question 88 named the "outward and ordinary means" by which Christ gives us the benefits of redemption, what the church calls the means of grace: the Word, the sacraments, and prayer. Having taught the Word and the sacraments, up to the Lord's Supper last week, the catechism now comes to prayer. Questions 98 to 107 are this course's last unit: what prayer is, and then the Lord's Prayer, its preface, six petitions and conclusion.

Five phrases in one answer

The answer is one sentence with five phrases. First, "our desires". Before prayer is well-chosen words, it is what we long for, laid before God. The first proof text calls us to trust God as our refuge and empty our hearts before him:

Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts before Him. God is our refuge. Selah

Psalm 62:8

Next, "things agreeable to his will". This is less a fence around prayer than the ground for asking with confidence:

And this is the confidence that we have before Him: If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.

1 John 5:14

Third, "in the name of Christ". Jesus promised, "whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you" (John 16:23). The Larger Catechism explains that this is "not by bare mentioning of his name, but by drawing our encouragement to pray, and our boldness, strength, and hope of acceptance in prayer, from Christ and his mediation" Larger Catechism, Q. 180. Sinners cannot come into God's presence without a mediator, and none is fit for that work but Christ, our great high priest (Hebrews 4:14-16; Q. 181).

Fourth and fifth, confession and thanks. David sings of the forgiveness that came when he stopped hiding his sin (Psalm 32:5-6), and Daniel's great prayer opens by confessing the sins of his people to "the great and awesome God" (Daniel 9:4). The fourth proof text will not separate thanks from asking: "in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God" (Philippians 4:6). Matthew Henry, the English minister, comments: "We must join thanksgivings with prayers and supplications; not only seek supplies of good, but own the mercies we have received" Matthew Henry.

The Shorter Catechism does not name the Spirit here, but the Larger gives the same answer and adds "by the help of his Spirit" Q. 178, for when we do not know how we ought to pray, the Spirit intercedes for us (Romans 8:26-27; Q. 182). The Westminster Confession likewise asks that prayer be made "in the name of the Son, by the help of his Spirit, according to his will" WCF 21.3. Question 88 counts prayer among the means by which grace comes to us; the Heidelberg Catechism calls it "the chief part of the thankfulness which God requires of us" Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 116, and goes on to say what belongs to prayer God will hear Q. 117. Grace comes, and thanks returns, by the same road.

To whom, and in what words

Many people learn to pray with a pattern such as adoration, confession, thanksgiving and supplication. It is a recent and useful teaching aid, but not the catechism's; nor are Question 98's five phrases an order to follow. They say what true prayer holds. Small things belong in it too. Brother Lawrence, a lay brother of the Catholic Church who worked in the kitchen of a Carmelite house in seventeenth-century Paris, learned to do everything there "for the love of God, and with prayer, upon all occasions, for His grace to do his work well" Conversation 2.9.

Christians differ over to whom we pray. The Larger Catechism teaches that prayer is to be made to God alone, since he only can search the hearts, hear the requests, pardon the sins and fulfil the desires of all, and he only is to be believed in and worshipped Q. 179. Catholic and Orthodox Christians also ask the saints who have gone before to pray for us: the saints, who are with Christ, pray to the Father on our behalf, and they pray through Christ, the only mediator Catechism of the Catholic Church, 956. Lutherans, with the Augsburg Confession, hold the saints in memory and follow their faith and good works, but do not invoke them, because Scripture sets before us "one Christ the Mediator, Propitiatory, High-Priest, and Intercessor" Augsburg Confession, art. 21.

They differ over set prayers and free prayer as well. The Anglican Book of Common Prayer (1549) set the prayers for Morning and Evening Prayer and for the Communion. The Reformed used set forms too: Calvin's Genevan Form of Prayers (1542) gave the church's prayers and its metrical psalms. The Westminster Assembly's Directory for Public Worship (1645) did not bind public prayer to set forms; it gave the matter and order of prayer for the minister to pray in his own words. How it treated the Lord's Prayer is next week's story. Many Korean churches today gather to pray before dawn, and pray aloud together. See also Learning to pray, Worship and prayer, How should I pray? and Does God answer prayer?

To ponder this week

What desire are you carrying this week that you have not yet brought to God in Jesus' name? Write it down, large or small, and bring it to God each day. Confess one sin with it and give thanks for one mercy: even a short prayer can hold all five phrases of Question 98.

Practice