Jesus said to his disciples:
“In praying, do not babble like the pagans,
who think that they will be heard because of their many words.
Do not be like them.
Jesus tells his disciples not to expect their words to be magic spells by which God is manipulated or exploited for their intentions. In other places he commends persistence in prayer, with images that suggest that our effort would eventually change the mind of an unjust judge. But here we are reminded that we do not pray to change God's mind. Our repetition of prayers and litanies do not put him in our debt, nor do they eventually annoy him into doing something he would not have otherwise done. Rather we are called to pray with a posture of trust, addressing a Father who knows what we need yet still desires that we would ask. When we begin from this attitude of trust we can allow prayer to transform us, as it is meant to do, along the way to bringing about its eventual results in the world.
Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name
Our God is not a disinterested and remote deity, not a clockmaker that wound up the world and left it to run on its own. He is a Father who becomes our own Father because Jesus desired to allow us to become adopted children in him. But as adopted children we may not always hold the divine name in the proper regard. We may, as does our culture, treat it too casually or even as a curse. But we may also relegate it to a shelf of things to holy to handle. And in this way we will miss a genuine treasure. For the name above every name is meant to give us direction and be a focal point of praise. As we hallow it in our hearts we discover more and more who is the God that this name signifies. Of course we want this not only for ourselves but for the entire world. If this first petition was truly granted for everyone, all the rest would be included and fulfilled.
thy Kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
The Kingdom of God is present wherever God reigns and his will is done. This is perfectly the case in heaven where the angels and saints worship and adore. But God desires this Kingdom to be unleashed on earth as well, through the lives of Christians. And this can only happen by grace, as we saw most perfectly when Mary herself was totally surrendered to the divine will in her fiat. It was precisely at that moment when the divine will was most perfectly accomplished on earth as it is in heaven, because at that moment the word became flesh in the womb of Mary. But we too are called to surrender our own will to the God's divine plan, which is better than anything we could ask or imagine. We too, to the degree that we surrender to God's will, can bring a little piece of heaven to earth. And this is how the Kingdom is meant to come: through willing hearts that long for it.
Give us this day our daily bread
We rely on God for everything, and it does us good to remember that. We are meant to trust him for our daily needs to the degree that we don't need to be overly anxious about the future. We know this and yet we often fail to find ourselves so thoroughly reassured. This is why we must ask this of God in prayer, so as to not take it for granted. Better still, he answers not only with material needs, but spiritual as well. In his words he gives us bread that feeds the hunger of our minds and hearts. And he gives us his own body to be our daily bread, feeding us not just for today, but unto eternity.
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
We ask for help in being free from the debt of sin ourselves and in forgiving others of their trespasses against us. This helps to clean the slate for a jubilee year of celebration. Unforgiven sin can act as a barricade to the full outpouring of divine grace God intends. He desires us to be fully open to the joy and freedom of his presence and it is for this reason he desires to forgive us and to see us share that mercy in turn with others.
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
There are many temptations that we face. False kingdoms and false promises of bread are abundant. We ask instead to be led by God into the true promise of an eternal jubilee in his Kingdom. He is more than able to keep us safe from all the powers of evil. But we must depend on him for this and not grow arrogant as though we would be fine without his help. From beginning to end the Our Father expresses our dependence on God. But this is not burdensome, for he loves us. And it does not detract from our own call to grow and mature as his children. Indeed it is the only path by which to do so.
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