Originally Posted by PoorWretch View Post
Hi All
I have been thinking about this for a while now. How do we pray to God the Father, Christ His Son and the Holy Spirit? Do we ask them each different things? Can we ask them the same thing or is this a lack of faith? Should we just pray to God as the Holy Trinity?
Any help would be much appreciated.
I actually have a question about this. Is the “Our Father” an acceptable prayer for the entire trinity? I’m asking because I’ve recited it in front of a statue of Jesus, as I do the “Hail Mary” in front of a statue of Mary. Is what I’m doing okay?
There is One God who is Three Persons -Father, Son and Spirit; each Divine Person shares the one nature. Thus if you pray to the Father you are really also praying to the Son and the Holy Spirit, and vice versa. You can never really pray to one Divine Person and not to another since all are the One God. However you can address each Divine Person by themselves. Thus you can “ask them different things” and you can also “ask them the same thing” yet it would only be a lack of faith if you asked one Divine Person and then another, because you doubted one of these Divine Persons. Yet if you “ask them the same thing” with (1) the understanding that what you ask of One Divine Person you ask of All Three Persons, and (2) without doubting that one Divine Person is capable of hearing or answering your prayer, then “asking them the same thing” is fine and is not a lack of faith -but in fact the opposite - a sign and act of faith.
St. Bernadette used to pray to Mary before the statute of St. Joseph. She replied to someone who asked her about this with words to the effect of: “Do the saints get jealous?” So really the practice of praying any prayer to God, to Mary or other saints is fine to pray before any holy object (including statues) -for all holy objects are sacramentals that point like ‘signs posts’ or act as ‘windows’ to God (CCC 1670).
Intention is what directs a prayer to God as Trinity and to God in each inseparable but distinct Divine Person. An ‘Our Father’ prayed without any intention is ‘a vain’ prayer’ (Mt 6:7) addressed to no one, but with the intent to pray any form of prayer, even the ‘Our Father’, to all Divine Persons or specifically to One of them, this is achieved.
Simplicity is always important in prayer. It is good to speak to God as Trinity and specifically to each Person: Father, Son and Spirit. St. Hildegard writes: the “unity of Their divinity is unbreakable…hence let no person ever forget to invoke Me, the sole God, in these Three Persons.” (Scivias, Book II, 3).
