The Lord's Prayer

In the Gospel this Sunday, Jesus is not merely giving us a formula of prayer that is easy to memorize and recite. He teach us to pray “Our Father”, Jesus is offering an invitation to us to enter into an intimate relationship with God.

“You have received a Spirit of adoption, through which we cry, Abba, Father.”

The final verse of the text reminds us that all Christian prayer is the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. St. John pointed it out in his letter: “See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are” (1Jn 3:1).

We are reminded that when we pray, our only and best disposition is to be like children, open, grateful and full of wonder. That is why Jesus insisted, “Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 18:3). God wants us to relate to Him as a child relates to his own father – with love, trust, honesty, humility and total dependence.

Prayer is the fruit of our relationship with God. The more we love God, the better our prayer will be. Therefore, there are no experts in prayer, but only true lovers of God.

In teaching the “Our Father”, Jesus also invites us to enter into a more meaningful relationship with Him and with one another. That is why the prayer starts with the first-person pronoun “our”. It is never “My Father”.

In the Our Father, Jesus is offering us His threefold invitation: to become God’s children, to become brothers and sisters of Jesus and of one another, and to become instruments for the coming of God’s kingdom on earth.

17th Sunday Ord. Time