It might be good to talk about when we pray, our patterns of prayer, as we start. Reflection is good for us at this point. Prayer seems to "ineffective" in face of our and the worlds needs and activities. This provides a good place to begin reading the Colossians passage.

Colossians 2:6-15

If we read ourselves as the "you" addressed in this passage, what is the basis for prayer? Why should we pray? How does our prayer relate to the person and work of Jesus Christ? How is Jesus and what has he done that affects how we pray?

Genesis 18:20-33

Sodom and Gomorrah's wickedness was manifested in their lack of hospitality to strangers that leads to the declaration of God's judgment. The passage is a fasinating example of prayer. The passage presupposes previous prayer (I must check out whether "they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me; and if not, I will know."

It is interesting to note when Abraham prays here, for whom, and the manner of prayer. What does this passage have to say about prayer? Note that it is God who begins the whole discourse with Abraham -- and who ends it!

Luke 11:1-13

Now we come to Jesus' response to his disciples. What is characteristic about the prayer that Jesus teaches his disciples to pray? How does what Jesus teaches about prayer connect with the actual prayer that he teaches his disciples? What is the most profound gift that the Father gives us?

As far as a concise teaching of prayer, one finds a beautiful articulation in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Here is an edited excerpt. How do these statements correspond to what we have just read together from the Scriptures? What is added or missing?

2558
"Great is the mystery of the faith!" . . .
This mystery . . . requires that the faithful believe in it, that they celebrate it, and that they live from it in a vital and personal relationship with the living and true God. This relationship is prayer.
WHAT IS PRAYER?
For me, prayer is a surge of the heart;
it is a simple look turned toward heaven,
it is a cry of recognition and of love,
embracing both trial and joy.[1]

Prayer as God's gift

2559 "Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God."[2] But when we pray, do we speak from the height of our pride and will, or "out of the depths" of a humble and contrite heart?[3] He who humbles himself will be exalted;[4] humility is the foundation of prayer, Only when we humbly acknowledge that "we do not know how to pray as we ought,"[5] are we ready to receive freely the gift of prayer. "Man is a beggar before God."[6]

2560 "If you knew the gift of God!"[7] The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water: there, Christ comes to meet every human being. It is he who first seeks us and asks us for a drink. Jesus thirsts; his asking arises from the depths of God's desire for us. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God's thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him.[8]

2561 "You would have asked him, and he would have given you living water."[9] Paradoxically our prayer of petition is a response to the plea of the living God: "They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water!"[10] Prayer is the response of faith to the free promise of salvation and also a response of love to the thirst of the only Son of God.[11]

Prayer as covenant

2562 Where does prayer come from?

Whether prayer is expressed in words or gestures, it is the whole man who prays. But in naming the source of prayer, Scripture speaks sometimes of the soul or the spirit, but most often of the heart (more than a thousand times). According to Scripture, it is the heart that prays. If our heart is far from God, the words of prayer are in vain.

2563 The heart is the dwelling-place where I am, where I live; according to the Semitic or Biblical expression, the heart is the place "to which I withdraw." The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others; only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully. The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives.
It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because as image of God we live in relation: it is the place of covenant.

2564 Christian prayer is a covenant relationship between God and man in Christ.
It is the action of God and of man, springing forth from both the Holy Spirit and ourselves, wholly directed to the Father, in union with the human will of the Son of God made man.

Prayer as communion

2565 In the New Covenant, prayer is the living relationship of the children of God with their Father who is good beyond measure, with his Son Jesus Christ and with the Holy Spirit.
The grace of the Kingdom is "the union of the entire holy and royal Trinity . . . with the whole human spirit."[12] Thus, the life of prayer is the habit of being in the presence of the thrice-holy God and in communion with him. This communion of life is always possible because, through Baptism, we have already been united with Christ.[13] Prayer is Christian insofar as it is communion with Christ and extends throughout the Church, which is his Body. Its dimensions are those of Christ's love.[14]

ENDNOTES
1 St. Therese of Lisieux, Manuscrits autobiographiques, C 25r.
2 St. John Damascene, Defide orth. 3, 24: PG 94,1089C.
3 Ps 130:1.
4 Cf. Lk 18:9-14.
5 Rom 8:26.
6 St. Augustine, Sermo 56, 6, 9: PL 38, 381.
7 Jn 4:10.
8 Cf. St. Augustine De diversis quaestionibus octoginta tribus 64, 4: PL
40, 56.
9 Jn 4:10.
10 Jer 2:13.
11 Cf. Jn 7:37-39; 19:28; Isa 12:3; 51:1; Zech 12:10; 13:1.
12 St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio, 16, 9: PG 35, 945.
13 Cf. Rom 6:5.
14 Cf. Eph 3:18-21.