(James Tissot - Pater Noster)
"Lord, teach us to pray . . ."
Luke 11: 1-4
This Wednesday our Gospel is a short and simple one but with a most significant meaning. Our Christian faith is essentially a relational one. God seeks to find us, to build a relationship with us and invites us in multiple ways to seek him. That desire to pray? That feeling of emptiness? That nagging unsettledness? All is grace; God reaching out and through our thoughts and emotions inviting us to long for him and to build a relationship of spiritual intimacy with him. The Christian faith is about a person - Jesus the Christ - who is the Word of God made human. God walked among us and uncovered the mystery - lifted the veil off his face - as I once heard and pitched his tent among us in the person of Jesus the Christ.
All of this is at the foundation of Christian belief and so in our Gospel, the disciples see Jesus at prayer. They recognize his intimate and unique relationship with God his Father and they long to pray the same way. So they ask: "Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples." Teach us to pray with the same confidence, conviction, strength and personal quality. John the Baptist was a powerful figure of conversion who left an indelible mark upon those who came to hear and him and baptized and Jesus was all the more the same.
Our Lord's answer? "When you pray say: "Father, hallowed be your name. Your Kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test." That's it?
No long drawn out lines of poetry or exalted language. No beating of the breast or extended raising of hands and shouts out to God. Jesus "Lord's prayer" in this simple version from Luke contains the essence of any prayer we may utter. It can be the foundation of what is necessary in all prayer we pray whether our liturgical celebrations, the Rosary, our Novenas and prayers to Saints, and those we spontaneously from our hearts address to God.
All is relational with God - he is like a loving parent (Father) to us and like any parent longs to love us and wishes the best for us. He invites us to see and follow in the way of his Son for he knows this will bring about the best for us. He knows we all inherit a flawed nature with an attraction to sin and that forgiveness must be offered for our healing and growth. That he alone can and will save us through our faith in Jesus and that his grace his ever present to us.
This core belief can and should be at the foundation of how and when we pray in any form. Can I approach God as a humble, loving child with respect for one's parents and who desires to come to know him more deeply? If so model for all prayer, and this prayer itself, will keep us focused and centered on the mark God has shown us.
And so, let us pray in the same way . . .
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