"Our Father" - Mt 6:7-15
The Lord's Prayer is a summary of the entire Gospel.
The Gospel is Good News: that we have one Father in heaven, that we are His children, that we have been reconciled with Him and His Kingdom is already present among us, that He feeds us daily with spiritual and material bread, that He is infinitely merciful and always forgives us, protecting us from the evil, temptations and snares of Satan.
Everything that the Evangelists wrote about Jesus is an extension of the words contained in the Lord's Prayer, because Jesus is a gift of himself personified. Being among people, it is there for them; when he goes to prayer, he is whole for the Father. Jesus is never static. He is always for. He is always towards. For somebody. Toward something. It is a hypostasis, a personified relationship -to-other. He never lives "for himself", but "from himself" - in an attitude of total gift and self-forgetfulness. He teaches his brothers and sisters this lifestyle, also in the form of prayer.
Therefore, none of the petitions contained in the Lord's Prayer are egoistic: “Hallowed be your name; Let your kingdom come; Thy will be done ...”- these invocations are directed to the Father and His matters. We too are to keep God's things first, not ours. “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides” (cf. Mt 6:33).
If the rest of the petition refers to our personal matters, it is more for God's sake than our interest: "Give us today our daily bread" - only bread, that is, give us what is necessary for our life. "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive" - this is a request that takes us to his home like the prodigal son in the Gospel parable. "Let us not give in to temptation" - because we do not want to make you sad. "But save us from evil" - above all, this spiritual, greatest evil, which is distance from You.
[Jesus] did not teach us many prayers, but told us that we should frequently, fervently, and earnestly repeat those words contained in the Lord's Prayer. For everything that concerns God's will, and our benefit is contained there.(Saint John of the Cross, DGK III, 44,4).
Our Father is a universal prayer. It opens us up to all people. Known and unknown. Relatives and "strangers". Believers and non-believers. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Atheists, Communists ... Friends and enemies. Anyone. We are not lonely islands, especially when we stand before God. Even if we sit on a pole like Simeon Stylites, shut ourselves up behind the walls of a Trappist monastery or stay behind bars of a prison - we are in the family. Surrounded by people. White, yellow, black, red. Old and young. Women and men. Healthy and sick. Saints and criminals. “The Christian does not say ‘my Father’ but ‘our Father’, even in the secrecy of a closed room, because he knows that in every place, on every occasion, he is a member of one and the same Body.” (Pope Benedict XVI, June 6, 2007)
“Together we say our Father. The emperor says it, the beggar says it, the servant says it, the lord says it. Together they say, "Our Father who art in heaven." So, they consider themselves brothers because they have one Father. So, do not be ashamed to consider your servant a brother if Christ wanted him to be his brother. They are all brothers because they have one Father.” (St. Augustine)
Our Father opens us to the whole world. To a space that seems to have no limits. Planets and stars. All over the earth. Mountains, seas, rivers, lakes, steppes. Animals, plants. We are part of a great ecosystem - both biological and spiritual. He is counting on us! We will meet him on the other side of life, friendly, close, transformed by our efforts.
For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God; for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now. (cf. Rom 8,19—22).
Our Father introduces us to the kingdom of heaven. With angels and saints. With Mary and with the Apostles. With our patrons. With the dead, with those in Purgatory, and with those in heaven. With all who lived before us and after us. We do not even realize how big our family is!
This is how Jesus prayed. In solidarity with the world, in solidarity with others. When we adopt His attitude, we will never pass by any human indifferently. In each one we will see someone sent by God for this very moment of life. We will become sensitive to others and their needs. We will go to the sick, the homeless, beggars and those who disgusted us not so long ago. To the people we have hurt. Together we will say "Our Father".
“The Teacher of Peace and the Master of Unity would not give a prayer to be made single and individually, as for one who prays for him or herself alone. For we do not say 'My Father, who art in heaven,' nor 'Give me this day my daily bread'; nor does each one asks that only his or her own debt should be forgiven…. Our prayer is public and common; and when we pray, we pray not for one but for the whole people, because we the whole people are one. The God of peace and the teacher of concord, who taught unity, willed that one should thus pray for all, even as he himself bore us all in one.” (St. Cyprian)
The Prayer of the Our Father is not so much words as a new way of life revolving around the axis of God and His will. Leaving this center, each day we make wider and wider circles, going to new people - abandoned, sad, lonely. Those that nobody remembers today. We bring them the Father. We preach the Gospel without using words. We kindle a light of hope in our hearts that is more precious than anything else in the world. Like Jesus. He, too, did not so much say the prayer as lived it. “He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God was with him” (Acts 10:38).
What more can be said about this one and the greatest prayer? It just needs to be silent ...
“Even if we only say this prayer once for an hour, if we remember that we are with Him and understand what we are asking Him for and what He is willing and generous to give us, and we rejoice in Him that He as loving and the true Father wants to live with us - that is enough for Him, and he does not ask us to force our heads by making long speeches.” (Saint Teresa of Avila)
Until Tomorrow
fr. george