When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
My Thoughts
It is interesting that in this first week of Lent the Church gives us this reading to meditate on. Prayer is one of the pillars of the season of Lent. Jesus gave his disciples the formula for Christian prayer, there is no mention of him, his life, death or resurrection, no mention of any of the Christian mysteries. This then was his personal prayer and as his disciples it must become ours. In praying Jesus was seized by one single awareness: the Father; he was not thinking about himself. In this most beautiful prayer we do not pray to tell God what he already knows; we pray so that We will realise more deeply our needs and our total dependence on him. In this prayer there are seven pillars we should meditate on.
One: We address God as Father, the source of life and of everything that we have; we have nothing purely of our own. But God is not just ‘Father’; he is ‘Our’ Father. And that ‘Our’ includes every single person who lives or has ever lived on this earth; not a single person can be excluded.
Two: God’s name is holy no matter what we say or think. We make this prayer for our sake more than for his. Here we are praying that God’s name be held in the deepest respect by people everywhere.
Three: We pray for his kingdom to come: In other words, we pray that every person in our world may put themselves consciously and willingly under the kingship and lordship and the love of God. We do this, above all, by our working together to make this world the kind of place that God wants it to be a place of truth and love, of justice and peace, of sharing and caring.
Four: Your will be done on earth as in heaven: To do the will of God is not simply to throw aside what we want and accept God’s will even when it is totally contrary to our own. We are only fully doing God’s will when we can see clearly that what he wants is always what is the very best for us his creatures and his creation.
Five: Give us today our daily bread: It does not look like it but this also is a highly dangerous prayer for us to make. First of all, we are only asking for what we need now. Later in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus will tell us not to be anxious about the future. We are asking for what we need today; tomorrow is another day. We take care of one day at a time. But there is one little word here that is highly dangerous. It is the word ‘us’. Who is that ‘us’? Just me and my immediate family? or my parish? Or my neighborhood or my town or my country? Surely it is the same as that ‘our’ in the first petition it includes every single person. I am praying, therefore, that every single person have bread to eat today.
Six: And forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven those who are in debt to us.
Another dangerous prayer to make. We are asking that God’s forgiveness to us be conditional on our readiness to forgive those we perceived to have hurt us in some way. That is a daring thing to do. And forgiveness does not simply mean uttering a few words. Forgiveness in the Scripture always includes reconciliation between offenders and offended.
Seven: And do not put us to the test, but save us from the evil one (or from evil).
In the end, we acknowledge our weaknesses and our total dependence on God’s help. We pray that we will not find ourselves in a situation where we fall seriously. We ask to be protected from the powers of evil with which we are surrounded.
St. Augustine puts it better than I do, he affirms that the Lord’s Prayer is so perfect that it sums up in a few words everything man needs to ask God for (cf. Sermon, 56). “It is usually seen as being made up of an invocation and seven petitions — three to do with praise of God and four with the needs of men” (St. Matthew, The Navarre Bible, p. 72). The first two petitions, that God’s name be sanctified among all people, and that his Kingdom may come, should touch us in the depth of our being. We are called to be apostles of that Kingdom, to spread love for Christ among our fellow men. Our apostolic zeal should be enkindled each time we pronounce those words of the Lord’s Prayer. Asking for God’s will to be done means that we seek to conform ourselves with his will in all of our thoughts and actions.
Dear Lord, teach me to pray like you so I may love the Father and my neighbor and so bring about your Kingdom on earth.
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