Jesus hears our prayer 2616 Prayer to Jesus is answered by him already during his minis- 548 try, through Signs that anticipate the power of his death and Resurrection: Jesus hears the prayer of faith, expressed in words (the leper, Jairus, the Canaanite woman, the good thief)8~ or in silence (the bearers of the paralytic, the woman with a haemor— rhage who touches his clothes, the tears and ointment of the sinful woman).8~ The urgent request of the blind men, ‘Have mercy on us, Son of David’ or ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’,86 has been renewed in the traditional prayer to Jesus known as the 2667 Jesus Prayer: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’ Healing infirmities or forgiving sins, Jesus always responds to a prayer offered in faith: ‘Your faith has made you well; go in peace.’ St Augustine wonderfully summarizes the three dimensions of Jesus’ prayer: ‘He prays for us as our priest, prays in us as our Head, and is prayed to by us as our God. Therefore let us acknowledge our voice in him and his in us.’8~ The prayer of the Virgin Mary 148 2617 Mary’s prayer is revealed to us at the dawning of the fullness of time. Before the incarnation of the Son of God, and before the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, her prayer co-operates in a unique 494 way with the Father’s plan of loving kindness: at the Annuncia tion, for Christ’s conception; at Pentecost, for the formation of the Church, his Body.88 In the faith of his humble handmaid, the Gift of God found the acceptance he had awaited from the beginning 490 of time. She whom the Almighty made ‘full of grace’ responds by offering her whole being: ‘Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it he [donel to me according to your word.’ Fiat: this is e: to be wholly God’s, because he is wholly ours. 2674 2618 The Gospel reveals to us how Mary prays and intercedes in faith. At Cana,8~ the mother ofJesus asks her son for the needs of a wedding feast; this is the sign of another feast — that of the wedding of the Lamb where he gives his body and blood at the request of the Church, his Bride. It is at the hour of the New Covenant, at the 726 foot of the cross,9° that Mary is heard as the Woman, the new Eve, the true ‘Mother of all the living’.