Seeing Jesus at Prayer

I knew Jesus would go off to pray alone. You can't read the Gospels without seeing that constantly mentioned. However, it never, ever occurred to me that there were a few occasions that he had the disciples with him. What would they have learned about the nature of Jesus? What would they have learned about prayer ... and the Father ... and themselves?

Leave it to Pope Benedict to give us penetrating insights in Jesus of Nazareth. These two paragraphs are far apart and you must go read both sections about Peter's confession that Jesus is the Lord, the Son of God, (in answer to Jesus' question of who do the disciples say he is) and the Transfiguration for full clarity. Though in truth, the Pope's personal thoughts on Jesus are sufficiently deep water that I foresee reading this book many more times to fully plumb the depths.

In Luke -- and this is entirely in keeping with his portrait of the figure of Jesus -- Peter's confession is connected with a prayer event. Luke beings his account of the story with a deliberate paradox: "As he was praying alone, the disciples were with him" (Lk 9:18). The disciples are drawn into his solitude, his communion with the Father that is reserved to him alone. They are privileged to see him as the one who -- as reflected at the beginning of this book -- speaks face-to-face with the Father, person to person. They are privileged to see him in his utterly unique filial being -- at the point from which all his words, his deeds, and his powers issue. They are privileged to see what the "people" do not see, and this seeing gives rise to a recognition that goes beyond the "opinion" of the people. This seeing is the wellspring of their faith, their confession; it provides the foundation for the Church.

... Luke is the only one of the Evangelists who begins his account by indicating the purpose of Jesus' ascent [for the Transfiguration]: He "went up on the mountain to pray" (Lk 9:28). It is in the context of Jesus' prayer that he now explains the even that the three disciples are to witness: "And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white" (Lk 9:29). The Transfiguration is a prayer event; it displays visibly what happens when Jesus talks with his Father: the profound interpenetration of his being with God, which then becomes pure light. In his oneness with the Father, Jesus is himself "light from light." The reality that he is in the deepest core of his being, which Peter tried to express in his confession -- that reality becomes perceptible to the senses at this moment: Jesus being in the light of God, his own being-light as Son.

Jesus of Nazareth by Joseph Ratzinger (a.k.a. Pope Benedict XVI)