Bible Verses About Prayer

"Thus therefore shall you pray: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our supersubstantial bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil. Amen."

The Lord's Prayer in the Douay-Rheims uses "supersubstantial bread" — a literal translation of the Greek that has long made theologians (including Aquinas) read this petition as Eucharistic.

"Be nothing solicitous; but in every thing, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your petitions be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasseth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."

Paul's prescription against anxiety: bring it to God, with thanksgiving. The "peace that surpasseth understanding" is not the absence of trouble but the presence of God in it.

"Confess therefore your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that you may be saved. For the continual prayer of a just man availeth much."

Two practices yoked: confession and intercession. Both happen 'one to another' — neither is solo. The Catholic Church builds both into its sacramental life.

"Pray without ceasing."

Three words. The Eastern Christian tradition built the entire Jesus Prayer around this verse; Catholic spiritual writers from Augustine to de Caussade have read it as a call to prayerful awareness as much as constant words.

"Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you."

Three escalating verbs, each in the imperative. Christ does not say "ask once" — the verb tense in the Greek is continuous. Keep asking.

"And I say to you, Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you."

Luke's parallel to Matthew 7:7, immediately following the Lord's Prayer. Read together, they suggest persistent prayer is itself a way of being formed — not just a way of getting answers.

"And this is the confidence which we have towards him: That, whatsoever we shall ask according to his will, he heareth us."

John adds the qualifier: 'according to his will.' It is not a hedge but a key — the deeper prayer is, the more it conforms us to what we are asking for.

"Therefore I say unto you, all things, whatsoever you ask when ye pray, believe that you shall receive; and they shall come unto you."

Christ teaching outside the Temple, on the morning after he cursed the fig tree. The faith he asks for is not certainty of outcome but trust in the one being asked.