“SEEDS OF LIFE”
Sunday, 24th July 2016.
Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time
Gen 18: 20-32;
Ps 138: 1-3, 6-8;
Col 2: 12-14;
Lk 11: 1-13.
OUR FATHER!
The Jews were noted for their devotion to prayer. Prayer was prescribed daily at three set times. And the rabbis had a prayer for every occasion. It was also a custom for rabbis to teach their disciples a simple prayer they might use on a regular basis. Jesus’ disciples ask him for such a prayer. When Jesus taught his disciples to pray he gave them the disciple’s prayer, what we call the Our Father or Lord’s Prayer. Each phrase, in a way, can stand on its own and be a topic for prayer in its own right. Let us have a look at the contents of this prayer:
Father
It begins by addressing God as “Father.” We do not address him as Lord, or Master, or Judge. We do not even call him, the Source of all being, Creator, but by the much more personal term, Father. Unless we accept this as fact, it will be difficult for us to call God “Father.” He is always ‘our’ Father, and never ‘my’ Father alone. As we will see, the Lord’s Prayer is much more than just a prayer of petition; it is also a statement of who we are and what we are – to God and to each other.
May your name be held holy
For the Jews, a name was not simply a label indicating identity. When Moses spoke to God in the burning bush, he needed to know God’s name in order to know who he was. In a sense, too, who can make God’s name or God himself “holy?” His holiness in no way depends on us. What we are rather asking for is that God’s holiness be acknowledged by us not only by our words but by the way we live.
Your kingdom come
The Kingdom of God we may understand as a world in which everything that God stands for becomes a reality in the lives of people everywhere – a world that is built on truth, love, compassion, justice, freedom, human dignity, peace. The Kingdom is still far from being a reality and much of the blame lies with us. So in saying this invocation we are not only calling on God’s help but reminding ourselves of working with God to make the Kingdom a reality.
Give us each day our daily bread
In the second half of the prayer we pray more directly for our own needs. Notice that we ask for today’s bread, food, today’s material needs. Is that what we normally pray for? Or are our anxieties reaching far out into the future? Yet in praying this way we express our trust in a caring God. There is no need for worry and anxiety about the future.
Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive each one who is in debt to us
Here we pray in repentance for our past sinful actions but our prayer is conditional, linking us once again to all those around us. We pray that God will forgive us all that we have done wrong, BECAUSE we already have forgiven all those who we feel have done wrong to us. We are praying to share God’s most beautiful quality – his readiness to forgive not just “seventy time seven times” but indefinitely.
Do not put us to the test
Finally, we pray for protection from future trials that might overwhelm us. Trials where we might fail and betray our following of him.
We probably must admit that we seldom do justice to this prayer. It not only puts us in touch with God but also in touch with ourselves. While we continue to pray the Lord’s Prayer, it would be useful to pray it sometimes very slowly, one petition at a time and even stopping altogether when one petition is particularly meaningful to us.
Prayer: Our Father in Heaven, holy be your name. Amen.