The Prayer of Christ

A prayer, as petition, is asking God to fulfill one’s wish or will. Now, the human will of Christ is finite,and hence not capable, without divine power, of carrying out or achieving all that it wishes. Therefore, it is fitting that Christ as man should pray.

The sentient appetites (which we sometimes call the affections or desires of the heart) are not in themselves capable of making a prayer. For, in themselves, the sentient appetites are of the order of sense, and prayer is of the order of reason, thatis, of the order of will enlightened by intellect. The will makes a prayer that the affections and desires of the heart be fulfilled,and such was Christ’s prayer: “Let this chalicepass.” The sensitive will made this prayer; then the will as reason made a better prayer, “Not my will, but thine be done,” and so subjected all to God.

Christ prayed for himself: for example, when he prayed for the Resurrection (John 17:1): “Father, glorify thy Son”; and also when he prayed to be spared the suffering ofthe Passion. It is becoming that Christ should pray thus, for so he acknowledges the truth that God is the author of his human nature. Besides, he gives us a valuable example of making petition to Godin all our needs.

The perfect will of Christ as man (that is, the will as reason in Christ) never willed anything other than what he knew, in the fullness of his knowledge, to be the will of God. Therefore every absolute will-act of Christ as man was fulfilled; every prayer of Christ was answered.