Q. Which Person of the Trinity should we direct our prayers to? Are there different roles, as far as prayer is concerned?
A. When we speak of prayer, it is always important to remember its end goal: relationship with God. Prayer is about being with God. Period. In this intimate exchange, we can bare our hearts to Infinite Love and allow Him to lead us into deeper communion. If then, prayer is about relationship, and we believe God is three persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – it is a fair question to ask: which person am I supposed to be in relationship with?
The short answer is: all three. Our God is a communion of love – three Persons existing in this intimate exchange of self-gift and receptivity from all eternity. In prayer we are invited to live more fully in communion with the Holy Trinity and where one Person of the Trinity is, the other two are present as well.
Yet, while we are called to live in communion with all Three, they are still distinct Persons and will interact with us in different and varied ways and they each have different roles.
The Mass is a good example of how these roles work. The Mass is the one sacrifice of the Son to the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit made present on the altar. The prayers of the Mass are directed to the Father. You’ll notice this in the Collect of the Mass as it ends with “through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever.” Jesus is the bridge between us and the Father, and we are brought into their relationship through the power of the Spirit. Each Person has his role and relates to us in a unique way, but none is absent from the prayer at any given time.
Holding that idea close, let’s look at our personal prayer. St. Ignatius said we should begin any prayer, period, by imagining how God looks at us and resting in His loving gaze. Flowing from our understanding of the Mass (our highest prayer) it would make sense that we begin with the Father – imagining how He looks at us.
However, we also remember that prayer is primarily God’s work, not ours. So, if you put yourself in the posture of prayer and it is Jesus that you sense, imagine, or hear, then go with it! Maybe it is Jesus who wants to encounter you in a particular way that day and as He says, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father!” (Jn. 14:9).
Some days, you may find yourself not knowing what to say in prayer, not having the words to express your heart. That day, it would be very good to invoke the Holy Spirit, who “helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but … intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words” (Romans 8:26).
Also, the desire to talk to one Person of the Trinity in particular is an important movement to pay attention to. Our deep desires are often God leading us to Him, and so we can trust that if we find ourselves longing to talk to one of the Persons, we can trust that is how God desires to meet us.
In summary, we should have a relationship with all Three Persons of the Holy Trinity. We take Jesus’ example and begin our prayers to the Father, but we let each Person encounter us as they desire, as prayer is God’s work. Through it all we remember, that when one Person of the Holy Trinity is present, the other Two are there loving us as well.
This question was answered by Father Ryan Kaup, pastor of the Newman Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
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