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is difficult, easy... For it is
impossible, utterly impossible, for the man who prays
eagerly and invokes God ceaselessly ever to sin.39
Those who pray are certainly saved; those who do not pray
are certainly damned.4° 2745
Prayer and Christian life are inseparable, for they
concern the same love and the same renunciation, proceeding
from love; the same filial and loving conformity with the
Fathers plan of love; the same transforming union in
the Holy Spirit who conforms us
with which Jesus has loved us.
Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he
[will] give it to you. This I command you, to love
one another.4 He
prays without ceasing who unites prayer to
works and good works to prayer. Only in this way can we
consider as realizable the principle of praying without
ceasing.42 2746 When his hour came, Jesus prayed
to the Father.43 His prayer, the longest transmitted by the
Gospel, embraces the whole economy of creation and
salvation, as well as his death and Resurrection. The prayer
of the Hour of Jesus always remains his own,
of his Church. 2747
Christian tradition rightly calls this prayer the
priestly prayer ofJesus. It is the prayer of our
high priest, inseparable from his sacrifice, from his
passing over (Passover) to the Father to whom he is wholly
consecrated.44 2748 In
this Paschal and sacrificial prayer, everything is recapitu
518 kited in Christ45 God and the world; the Word and the
flesh; eternal life and time; the love
that hands itself over and the sin that betrays it; the
disciples present and those who will believe in him
2749 Jesus fulfilled the work of the
Father completely; his prayer, like his sacrifice, extends
until the end of time. The prayer of this hour fills the
endtimes and carries them towards their consummation.
Jesus, the Son to whom the Father has given all things, has |
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