Peter and Prayer

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“And he came out and went, according to his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples also followed him. But when he was at the place, he said to them, ‘Pray that you may not enter into temptation’” (Luke 22:39).

Our Lord begins the process of His Passion with an invitation to pray. He also says, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” If we find that we have a lot of temptations, it could be that we're not praying enough.

Apart from just inviting the Apostles to pray, Our Lord also puts into practice this invitation: “He himself withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and kneeling down he began to pray, saying, ‘Father, if you were willing, remove this cup for me. Yet not my will, rather yours be done’” (Luke 22:41-42).

“He withdrew from them.” Our Lord gives us an example of how we too have to be alone with Our Father God.

There were other moments when “He went off into a desert place early in the morning, and there He prayed” (Mark 1:35, 6:32; Luke 5:16, 6:12). We know that we can pray anywhere, but there were times when Our Lord needed a deeper prayer.

He needed to be more alone with His Father God, to talk about deeper things, more serious things. He sought out the silence of His personal prayer on His own.

He withdrew from them “about a stone's throw”—a curious way of measuring distance—“and kneeling down, he began to pray.”

If ever you see somebody on their knees, they're probably praying. If you have difficulty in your prayer, if you get a bit sleepy or a bit distracted when you're sitting down, try walking around the place or kneeling down. It's a very good way to spend the time of prayer.

“And he began to pray, saying, ‘Father, if you were willing.’”

The high point of His prayer in this Agony in the Garden is a petition to His Father God “to remove this cup.” There may be many cups or chalices in our life that Our Lord wants to visit us with, and we might have the same sentiments as He did: “Remove this cup. Take this chalice away from me.”

But then He remembers, this is why I came. This is what it's all about. If God visits you with some particular type of suffering, with faith, know that the hand of God is there.

There's some great spiritual fruitfulness that is tied to this particular chalice, and it is the will of God that we would drink the chalice and He will do the rest.

“He says, ‘Remove this cup from me.’” Christ is no masochist. He doesn't love suffering. He doesn't say roll on the nails and the thorns. He recoils away from human suffering and horror and disgust, because He’s “like us in all things but sin” (Heb. 4:15).

He wants this suffering to pass, but then in spite of the depth of His own willing, He gives way to the will of His Father.

One thing we learn from the Agony of Christ in the garden is to come to love the will of God, even if it seems to conflict very dramatically with our own. because we know that it's in accepting the will of God that we will find salvation. We will find happiness.

Lord, teach us to love your will, to thank you for your will. There's a point in The Way that says, “Abandonment to the will of God is the secret of happiness on earth” (Josemaría Escrivá, The Way, Point 766).

But in some ways, the most important word in this whole passage is the word “Father.” It comes first.

There is no contradiction between the fact that God is about to visit Him with the greatest amount of human suffering that anybody ever experienced and the fact that it's coming from His heavenly Father, a loving Father. We can find the solution to our sufferings, our crosses, our contradictions, our chalices in our divine filiation, in our awareness that God is my loving Father.

If He sends me this difficulty, it's because He will give me the grace to bear it. He wants to bring me through it.

He wants to teach me many things in and through it. Maybe He wants to work the whole process of my sanctification, or lift up my sight to the eternal wedding feast, or earn my place a bit more and a bit better there.

He says yes to the will of His Father. “And there appeared to him an angel from heaven to strengthen him” (Luke 22:43).

The description of this is all very dramatic. We know that something very serious, very important is taking place. “And falling into agony, he prayed more earnestly.”

Sometimes our prayer may be wonderful. It might feel wonderful in our periods of prayer. We might feel full of consolation. But often we might feel nothing.

It can be consoling to know that in His prayer Our Lord went through agony. His prayer wasn't necessarily a feel-good time. If God gives us consolation in our time of prayer, we can thank Him for it. But if He suspends all those consolations for a time, we know that that's also something good.

St. Josemaría used to say that if ever your prayer is dry and arid, “persevere in that prayer” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 447; The Way, Points 99 to 101) because that may be the greatest prayer that you ever did. That prayer is all done for God. If we get great consolation in prayer, it could be that we go to our prayer looking for the consolation.

“And his sweat became drops of blood running down upon the ground” (Luke 22:44).

Our Lord really perspired at the thought of what is in front of Him. God let Him see it in no uncertain terms, perspiring blood.

But then as happens often in the Gospel narrative, the tone changes. We're told, “Rising from prayer he came to the disciples, and lo and behold, he found them sleeping for sorrow” (Luke 22:45).

What a contrast. Just a few meters away, a short stone's throw, the Son of God made man and is in His agony in prayer as He contemplates His Passion. And just a few meters away, His most faithful followers are giving testimony for all time to the whole world that they did not suffer from insomnia.

If you've seen pictures of the Garden of Gethsemane, it looks a pretty rocky place—not the sort of place you could easily fall asleep in. But it looks like Peter, James, and John did not have too much of a problem.

They neglect their prayer. There's the contrast of Christ in the ecstasy of His prayer, and He has His closest followers who neglect their prayer.

We could think on this night of nights, or this day of days, how in the past that we also might have been like the apostles, neglecting our prayer, falling asleep in our prayer, not giving it the importance we should give to it.

Fulton Sheen tells a story of how he tried to do a holy hour every day of his life in front of the Blessed Sacrament. One time he was on his way to Lourdes and he was passing through Paris, and the only time he would have to do that prayer in front of the Blessed Sacrament would be from two to three in the afternoon.

So he went into a church in Paris, sat in the front pew at two o'clock, and at three minutes past two he fell fast asleep. He woke up at two minutes to three. He looked at his watch and he saw that he'd been asleep for an hour.

He said, “I said to Our Lord at the Blessed Sacrament, ‘Lord, did I do my holy hour today?’”

And the answer he got from Our Lord was, ‘Yes, it was like the hour of Peter, James, and John in the Garden of Gethsemane, but don't do it again.”

“And he said to them, ‘Why do you sleep?’” All through His life, Our Lord has had a tough time with the apostles. Their weakness becomes so visible.

It's one of the stories that are the themes that run through Holy Week: the weakness of the apostles, particularly personified in Peter.

Peter is so lovable because he's so weak. He does all the wrong things. He says all the wrong things. He falls asleep at the wrong moment. You would think that for the chosen rock he would do a little bit better. But yet, because of his weakness that is so constant, Peter is lovable.

He can be a great source of encouragement for us in our spiritual life, because if we find that we fall asleep in prayer, in some ways we're in good company.

“Our Lord says, ‘Why do you sleep? Rise and pray’” (Luke 22:46). He invites them to begin again, to start over. “Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.” They obviously have fallen into temptation. They've fallen asleep.

Our Lord wants them and us to be a little more vigilant. These hours of the liturgical year are hours to be a little more vigilant and more prayerful with our norms of ‘always.’

“And while he was yet speaking, behold, a crowd came, and he who was called Judas, one of the twelve, was going before them. He drew near to Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus said to him, ‘Judas, do you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?’” (Luke 22:47-48).

From the apostles and their weakness and their mistakes, the Gospel narrative turns to Judas. He's making bigger mistakes.

In some ways, the apostles, Peter, James, and John are not that much worse than Judas. At least he's awake. But somehow they're going to come out of their weakness right, whereas Judas isn't. And he uses the sign of affection, a kiss, in order to perform the terrible deed.

“But when they who were about him saw what would follow, they said to him, ‘Lord, shall we strike with the sword?’ And one of them struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his right ear” (Luke 22:49-50).

St. John identifies this someone as Peter (John 18:10). Peter makes a big mistake—another big mistake. He resorts to violence. He neglected his prayer, and now he mistakes the means.

All through this fall of Peter, the Passion of Christ is paralleled by the fall of Peter. We're given the message of the consequences of neglecting our prayer.

Everything begins to go wrong. Christ is beckoning us to be a soul of prayer, never to lose our concern to be a more prayerful soul, to take very good care of the periods of prayer that God wants from us. The prayer is the fulcrum that God wants us to use to move the world. Prayer makes us all-powerful.

In these moments, Peter shows us the opposite. His sword swings in the night—and he proves he's a wonderful fisherman. He misses completely and all he gets is the right ear.

“But Jesus answered and said, ‘Bear with them thus far.’ And he touched the ear and healed him” (Luke 22:51).

In this high moment of tension, of betrayal, of iniquity, Christ is still working miracles, and reaches out with mercy to the servant of the high priest, because it's not his fault.

"Jesus said to the chief priests and captains of the temple and elders who were come against him, ‘As against a robber have you come out with swords and clubs? When I was daily with you in the temple, you did not stretch forth your hands against me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness” (Luke 22:52-53).

So Our Lord confronts the captains of the temple and the elders, who’ve come out as if to arrest a criminal. He challenges them. They haven't arrested Him on so many occasions when they could have done so in the temple.

But then He qualifies this statement: “This is your hour.” Notice how Our Lord uses that word ‘hour’ very effectively: this is the hour of iniquity (Matt. 7:23), the hour of darkness (Luke 22:53), the hour of the devil, the hour of sin.

Our Lord casts himself into that hour. He walks right into it. He faces it in a very manly way.

“Now, having seized him, they led him away to the high priest's house. But Peter was following at a distance” (Luke 22:54).

“But Peter was following at a distance.” This is the third stage in Peter's downfall. He neglects his prayer. He mistakes the means, and now he slinks back into the darkness. It's too uncomfortable to walk close to Christ. It has become politically incorrect. He distances himself a little bit from Jesus.

St. Peter is like a model of the whole of weak humanity. We're all like Peter when we haven't had the daring—or the courage or the manliness or the faith or the hope or a whole pile of other virtues—to stick with Christ.

It's a moment to examine our conscience and see if in the last few weeks, or in the last few months, or in the last few years or in the last few decades, if I have been following Our Lord at a distance—a safe, comfortable distance—where Christ and His moral law and His ideas can't make too much of a demand on my comfortable life.

In areas of poverty, in areas of honesty, in areas of purity and chastity, in areas of industriousness, in areas of order—in all the areas of our life where Our Lord wants to shape our being—maybe we've been following at a distance. All of this, because Peter neglected his prayer.

“When they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and were seated together, Peter was in their midst” (Luke 22:55).

So now there's a fire in the courtyard. Lo and behold, Peter is around the fire. He's cold on the inside and so he's cold on the outside. He looks for a sense compensation.

This is the pathway of all of our great faults. We fall away from Christ because we neglect our prayer, we mistake the means, we follow Him at a distance, and then we look for sense compensation—too much music, too many movies, too much food or drink, etc., etc.

“But a certain maidservant saw him sitting at the blaze and after gazing upon him, she said, ‘This man too was with him.’”

Now the key moment of Peter's life is approaching, the lowest moment of his life, the depth of his fall. A little maidservant comes along, a little girl. All it takes now—he's so weak—is for a little girl to come along and blow in his ear, and Peter is going to collapse.

“But he denied it, saying, ‘Woman, I do not know him’” (Luke 22:56-57).

Our Lord had predicted this: “Before the cock crows, you would have denied me three times” when Peter so confidently, so cockily, had said, “I will never separate myself from you” (Luke 22:33-34). Within 24 hours, he’s done precisely that. He relied on his own strength.

Lord, help us to learn from Peter, to realize we're nothing without you. We need every bit of grace we can get, and that's why we have to be very focused on the sacraments.

“And after a little while, someone else saw him and said, ‘You too are one of them.’ But Peter said, ‘Man, I am not’” (Luke 22:58-59). Now he emphasizes his previous declaration.

“And about an hour later, another insisted, saying, ‘Surely this man too was with him, for he is also a Galilean.’ But Peter said, ‘Man, I do not know what you are saying.’ And at that moment, while he was yet speaking, a cock crowed” (Luke 22:60).

It's an alarm clock call, a wake-up call for Peter. God uses the cock.

St. Josemaría had a big image of a very colorful cock placed in a college there in Rome called Cavabianca. Under the clock, there’s a big inscription that says, Ego sum primus qui laudat deum (I am the first to praise God each day).

I thought it was a beautiful idea that in the whole of creation, God created one animal that would be the first to lift up his voice in praise of God each day.

A few years later, I went to live in Manila, where there is a lot of cockfighting. Many people own a cock. In downtown Manila, you hear hundreds of cocks every morning. And I realized the wisdom of that phrase of St. Josemaría.

Now the cock crows. It's a decisive moment in the fall of Peter. Suddenly he wakes up.

“And the Lord turned and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘Before a cock crows, you will deny me three times.’ And Peter went out, and wept bitterly” (Luke 22:61-62).

The most beautiful line in this whole story comes at this moment, in the lowest moment of Peter's life, when he realizes that he has almost done the same thing as Judas. He has betrayed his Lord, his best friend, who has chosen him as the rock, who has let him see now that he is anything but a rock. He's just total rubber.

If he relies on his own strength, he is nothing. Our Lord has told him that he is to rely completely on Him, and that is what is going to give him strength. Peter realizes his own weakness, his own nothingness, and he realizes with the noise of the cock what he has done.

We're told the Lord turned and looked upon Peter. It's one of the most poignant moments in the whole of the New Testament. Jesus seeks him out with His most loving glance.

This is a great message for us. In the lowest moments of our life, Christ is there. No matter what we have done or what we have said or to where we have fallen, like the prodigal son feeding the pigs, “longing to be fed with what the pigs were eating, but yet no one gave them to him” (Luke 15:15-16).

We know that the Lord at that moment is looking at each one of us, inviting us to a new conversion.

The first conversion of Peter was easy: “Come follow me, and I will make you into fishers of men” (Matt. 4:19).

The subsequent conversions are perhaps not so easy—painful, but yet more important: conversion to a deeper humility, a deeper faith, a deeper hope, deeper reliance on God, a deeper awareness of his mission. From here, there's going to be a whole new beginning.

Judas, after his terrible deed—he goes out, he despairs, and he hangs himself (Matt. 27:3-5).

Peter doesn't despair. He weeps tears of authentic contrition, sorrow for sin, for having hurt someone he loved.

Every time before you go to Confession, try and conjure up in your mind some of the scenes of the Passion. Try and foster that authentic sorrow of love for having hurt someone we loved.

This is a moment for a whole new beginning. From here, Peter is going to go forward to become a great saint and a great apostle. And that's our calling.

Later on, Our Lord is going to tell him, “Feed my lambs...feed my sheep” (John 21:15-16). At the moment, Peter is a wayward lamb and a wayward sheep, but he has to become to be a guide of those lambs and those sheep.

From this fall of Peter, we learn not to neglect our prayer, not to mistake the means, not to follow Our Lord at a distance, not to place ourselves in a very weak situation, to look for sense comfort where we can be knocked off our perch so easily.

It's an invitation—the story of the Agony in the Garden and the fall of Peter—to take very good care of our prayer. “As the deer yearns for running water, so my soul thirsts for you, my God” (Ps. 42:1).

Action is no excuse for prayer. We might spend time running around the place, but eventually, the areas of conversion in our life catch up with us. We need to spend time alone with Our Father God, to let Him work on our soul, to bring about that new conversion.

We need the breath of divine life. John Paul II says the Holy Spirit breathes prayer into the soul of man (cf. John Paul II, Encyclical, Dominum et vivificantem, Point 65, May 18, 1986).

We can be grateful to God that we know what prayer is, that we know how to pray and take very good care that Our Lord can lead us along pathways of deeper prayer.

All the means we have in our apostolate to do things, to lift up the spiritual temperature in society—all the means we have are very good and very useful. But I heard Blessed Álvaro del Portillo say what makes all these things effective is prayer.

“Abide in me and I in you” (John 15:4). Our prayer is the language of hope. Our Lord uses this fall of Peter to teach him and everybody the importance of prayer.

The more involved we are in our profession or in our apostolic activities, then the more prayerful we need to be to give it that priority, to be close to Our Lord, to distance ourselves from the temptations.

The one thing that the devil wants is that we would leave off our prayer, push it aside, find something more important to do, delay it, fall asleep during it, not fight to be a better soul of prayer, to look for the sense compensation, perhaps like Peter did, “around the fire” (Luke 22:55).

We need to have a certain toughness. Cardinal Sarah says, “Prayer is successfully being quiet, listening to God, and being able to hear the ineffable speaking of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in us and cries out silently” (Robert Cardinal Sarah, The Power of Silence, Point 64, 2017).

If Peter, James, and John had stayed awake in the Garden of Gethsemane, things might have been very different.

“Prayer demands,” he says, “that we successfully keep quiet so as to hear and listen to God. Silence requires absolute availability with respect to God's will. Man must be completely turned toward God and toward his brethren. Silence is a quest and a form of charity, in which God's eyes become our eyes and God's heart is grafted onto our heart. We cannot stay in the presence of the fire of divine silence without being burned” (R. Sarah, The Power of Silence, Point 116).

Lord, teach me how to pray a little more. The apostles said, “Teach us how to pray” (Luke 11:1). Our Lord tried, but they fell asleep (Luke 22:45).

But in time, they were to learn great lessons. They were to become great apostles, but not before they'd made all their mistakes.

“Prayer,” says Cardinal Sarah, “teaches us the subtleties of divine speech. Is God being silent, or are we not hearing him because our interior ear and our intellect are not accustomed to his language? The fruit of silence is learning to discern his voice, even though it always keeps its mystery” (R. Sarah, The Power of Silence, Chapter V).

Our Lord always has something to say to us. We need those periods of prayer. We need to guard them, protect them, give them priority—no matter where we are or what we're doing—so that we can listen to God speaking to us.

“In prayer, the divine voice,” he says, “is powerful in that it is capable of touching us in our inmost depths, but it manifests itself in an extremely discreet way. The paths of spiritual life are quite varied, and some may pass through a desert that seems endless. There are persons for whom God's silence in their life is almost palpable” (R. Sarah, The Power of Silence, Chapter V).

During these hours, Our Lady must have been at prayer, treasuring all the things in her heart (Luke 2:51) that she had heard, because now she's aware that the power of darkness has arrived.

In her prayer, she's accompanying her Son, united to Him, praying for Him, strengthening Him, asking that the will of God might be done.

Mary, may you help us in these hours to be united to you and to your prayer, that you may lead us along the pathways of a deeper prayer life.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

EW