The Lord’s Prayer

It is the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time, but our gospel reading today isn’t an ordinary teaching. We can read it in Luke 11: 1-13. I have no doubt that through two millennia, Christians all over the world have learned to pray the Lord’s Prayer by heart, as this is the only prayer that our Lord taught us to pray.

“1 And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. 2 And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. 3 Give us day by day our daily bread.

4 And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.

5 And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves;

6 For a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him? 7 And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee. 8 I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth.

9 And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. 10 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. 11 If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?

12 Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?”

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During Religion classes we were told the Lord’s Prayer is a perfect prayer. I’m sure no one will argue with me that anything that the Lord teaches us is a perfect teaching. So let’s focus on why the Lord’s Prayer is perfect.

First off, in the first lines of this prayer, we praise, worship, and honor God who is in heaven because we love God and glorify him and we pray that his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Then we ask for a simple blessing when we ask him in prayer “Give us this day our daily bread” which for us Catholics means to grant us to partake in the Holy Eucharist, which we all know contain, the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ during Mass.

Knowing and accepting our own sinfulness, then we ask Our Father in heaven “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” Mind you, we don’t only ask God to forgive our sins, we also tell him that we also forgive those who sin against us. Perhaps this is the hardest part of the prayer because it’s very easy to ask God for the forgiveness of our sins, but not easy for humans to forgive those who sinned against us or those who are indebted to us. Perhaps our greatest problem is we forget to realize that we all pray the Lord’s Prayer in the most mechanical way because we have memorized it, and often pray it unconsciously without really internalizing that we are praying to God.

What most Christians do not realize is that when Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them how to pray, he taught them how he prayed to his father. Thus the God who created the whole universe, whom the Israelites cannot even call by name, has now been taught to us by our Lord Jesus Christ that he is our Father, which makes us all sons of God!