Praying in Community: Lessons from Jesus' Holy Week Prayers

iStock Image #481419491, by MarinMtk, Used by permission

​By Katie Reimer, Executive Director, World Day of Prayer International

The most profound prayers ever uttered were spoken in community.

This realization struck me recently as I explored the prayers of Jesus during Holy Week. While we often picture Jesus slipping away alone to pray on mountainsides and in deserted places, his most vulnerable and transformative prayers happened with others present. And this wasn't accidental—it was intentional.

In the garden of Gethsemane, facing his darkest hour, Jesus asked his closest friends to stay near him. "Stay here and keep watch with me," he urged Peter, James, and John. Though he stepped a short distance away to pray, Jesus wanted them close. He desired their presence, their solidarity, their shared vigilance as he wrestled in prayer.

Though his disciples ultimately drifted to sleep, perhaps overwhelmed by the intensity of the day and the lateness of the hour, Jesus' desire for their companionship remains significant. Even Jesus—who had a profound relationship with God—sought the presence of others during his moment of greatest anguish. He understood intuitively what we often forget: we weren't created to face our darkest hours in isolation.

The gospels preserve more of Jesus' prayers during Holy Week than at any other time in his ministry. While we're told frequently that Jesus withdrew to pray throughout his life, the actual words of these earlier prayers weren't preserved in the gospel accounts. Yet in the last 24 hours of his life, we're given a window into his intimate conversations with God. This is no coincidence. These prayers reveal Jesus at his most raw and vulnerable, and they happened not in complete solitude but in spaces where others could witness them.

In Gethsemane, Jesus prayed with striking honesty and remarkable faithfulness. “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want." Jesus repeated this prayer three times, perhaps to make sure that the Way of Life was really a journey to the cross. There's something profoundly moving about this scene - Jesus pouring out his anguish to God while his friends slept nearby, their presence both a comfort and a disappointment. Even in his moment of greatest struggle, Jesus chose community, imperfect though it was, over complete solitude. 

At the cross, this dynamic takes on even greater significance. Jesus' seven last statements blur the lines between praying to God and speaking to the community bearing witness to his suffering. Some words were clearly directed to God—like "Father, forgive them" and "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." Others were spoken to individuals—his words to his mother and to the thief beside him. But statements like "I thirst" and "It is finished" exist in an ambiguous space, perhaps simultaneously addressed to God and to those gathered around him. This interweaving of prayer and communication reveals something essential about the relationship between our conversations with God and our connections with community.

There is something profoundly sacred about praying in the presence of others who bear witness to our pain, our struggle, our surrender. When we pray alone, we can hide parts of ourselves even from God. But when others are present, it creates a different kind of space. A space where pretense falls away. A space where we can be honest about both our anguish and our hope. Perhaps this is one of the deepest lessons from Jesus' cross: community makes it possible for us to keep praying and maintain our humanity even in the face of torture that is trying to silence us. Those who gathered at the foot of the cross—whether they realized it or not—helped create the space where Jesus could continue to commune with God and preserve his humanity in the midst of dehumanizing violence.

This has powerful implications for our World Day of Prayer movement. When we gather across cultures, denominations, and experiences to pray together, we create sacred spaces where authentic voices can be heard. Just as the community at the cross helped Jesus maintain his humanity in the face of dehumanizing violence, our worldwide prayer community bears witness to women's stories of both suffering and hope.

For the most recent 2025 World Day of Prayer, it was our worldwide community that bore witness to the stories of Mii, Vainiu and Dr. Dawn from the Cook Islands. As they shared their experiences of fear during the COVID-19 pandemic, the anguish of having their Maori language suppressed, and the inspiring story of the first female doctor in the Cook Islands, our collective presence created the space for them to speak both their pain and their hope and their power. Their prayers, like Jesus' on the cross, were both directed to God and shared with a community that helped amplify their voices.

In March 2024, we heard the stories of three generations of Palestinian Christian women—Eleonor, Lina, and Sara. Our global prayer community stood with them amidst an unfolding genocide, bearing witness to their pain while affirming their humanity and dignity. In praying together, we created what Jesus sought on the cross: a community that refuses to look away from suffering but instead holds space for authentic communion with God.

Looking ahead to the 2026 World Day of Prayer, we will be hearing stories of Nigerian Christian women—Beatrice, Jato, and Blessing. Our presence with them, even from afar, will create the conditions for honest prayer—prayers that speak the truth about violence and injustice while also affirming hope and resilience.

Just as Jesus' prayers on the cross blurred the lines between divine communion and human connection, our World Day of Prayer movement embodies this same powerful dynamic. We pray to God while bearing witness to one another. We create space for women to maintain their humanity and dignity even when systems of oppression try to silence them. 

This is the sacred power of praying in community—a gift Jesus both sought and modeled during one of the most pivotal weeks of human history. When women worldwide gather in prayer, we follow in this tradition, creating spaces where authentic vulnerability becomes possible. And in doing so, we participate in something revolutionary: creating communities of prayer that help us all maintain our humanity in a world that too often seeks to diminish it.