How is prayer revealed in the New Testament?

Jesus' filial prayer is the perfect model of prayer in the New Testament. Jesus often prayed in solitude and in secret. His prayer began with thanksgiving to the Father. The Gospel according to St. Luke emphasises the action of the Holy Spirit and the meaning of prayer in Christ's ministry. Jesus prayed before the decisive moments of his mission. He also prayed before the decisive moments involving the mission of his Apostles. He included all men in his prayer, for he had taken on humanity in his Incarnation. He sympathized with there weaknesses inorder to free them. Jesus' prayer before his death on the cross was a humble and trusting commitment of his human will to the loving will of the Father. 

The prayer of Jesus teaches us how to pray. His prayer to his Father is the theological path (the path of faith, hope, and 

charity) of our prayer to God. Jesus told parables about the need to be persistent in prayer. From the Sermon on the Mount onwards, Jesus insists on conversion of heart. Once committed to conversion, the heart learns to pray in faith. Faith is a child-like adherence to God beyond what we feel and understand. In his teaching, Jesus taught his disciples to pray with a purified heart, with lively and persevering faith and with filial boldness. He called them to vigilance ; only by keeping watch in prayer could one avoid falling into temptation and invited them to present their petitions to God in his name . Jesus Christ himself answered every prayer addressed to him. The prayer of faith consists not only in saying "Lord, Lord," but in disposing the heart to do the will of the Father.Thus, Jesus calls hi disciples to bring into their prayer this concern for cooperating with the divine plan. 

The Gospel of St. Luke focusses on three important characters of prayer. 

1) The urgency of prayer: "Knock, and it will be opened to you." To the one who prays like this, the heavenly Father will give whatever he needs.

2) The necessity to pray without ceasing and with the patience of faith, and 

3) The importance of humility of the heart that prays : "God, be merciful to me a dinner!"

The Blessed Virgin Mary is the perfect Orans (pray-er), a figure of the Church. Mary's principal prayer was prayer of the heart, prayer in the heart, prayer with the heart.

Tradition tells us she was at prayer when the Angel appeared to her to tell her she was chosen to become the Mother of God. She contemplated  God's divine plan that she kept in her heart. Her prayers, in her Fiat: to be wholly God's, and in her Magnificat: the song of thanksgiving to God for the fullness of graces poured out upon her, are characterized by the generous offering of her whole being in faith.[ See CCC 2600-2622 ]

 

What are the essential forms of prayer?

The basic forms of prayer: blessing, adoration, petition, atonement,  reparation,love,intercession.thanksgiving and praise.

Blessings come to us by the grace of the Holy Spirit that descends through Christ from the Father. Because God blesses the human heart, it can return, (praise and adore) him who is the source of every blessing. Through blessing, our prayer ascends in the Holy Spirit through Christ to the Father.

Through adoration, we exult the greatness of the Lord who made us and the Almighty power of the Saviour who sets us free from evil. It is a respectful silence in the presence of the "ever great" God.

By prayers of petition we express awareness of our relationship with God. We are creatures ever in need God.We are sinners who have turned away from our Father. Our petition is already a turn back to him. The first movement of the prayer of petition is to ask for forgiveness: "God be merciful to me a sinner!" It is a prerequisite for righteous and pure prayer. A trusting humility brings us back communion with God and our neighbor, so that we receive from God whatever we ask.

In a prayer of expiation or contrition, we acknowledge our sinfulness and ask God for his forgiveness and mercy. The Confiteor or Penitential Rite at the beginning of  Mass, and the Agnus Dei (or Lamb of God) before Communion, are prayers of expiation, as in the Act of Contrition.

A prayer of reparation is one that aims to repair the sins of others and the outrages and many offenses and sacrilages committed against the Holy Trinity and the Immaculate Heart of Mary . A "Holy Hour of Reparation" before the Blessed Sacrament and the five first Saturdays devotion" is an example of this form of prayer/devotion.

Prayers of love or charity are expressions of our love for God, the source and object of of all love. The act of charity is perhaps the best example of a prayer of love.

Prayer of intercession consists in asking on behalf of another. In intercession , he who prays looks "not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others," even to the point of praying for those who do him harm. The intercession of Christians recognizes no boundaries: for all men , for Kings and all who are in high positions, for persecutors and for the salvation of those who reject the Gospel.

Thanksgiving characterizes the prayer of the Church. Every joy and suffering, every event and need can become the matter for thanksgiving which, sharing in that of Christ, should fill one's life: "Give thanks in all circumstances" (1 Thess 5:18).

Praise is the form of prayer which recognizes most immediately that God is God.

It lauds God for his own sake and gives him glory, quite beyond what he does, but simply because HE IS. By praise, the Spirit is joined to our spirits to bear witness that we are children of God. Praise embraces the other forms of prayer and carries them towards God. The Eucharist contains and expresses all forms of prayer: it is "the pure offering" of the whole Body of Christ, it is the sacrifice of praise."

[ See CCC 2623-2649]