Wednesday of the Twenty-Seventh Week in Ordinary Time

Jesus often prayed in our Gospels. Many times he would go away from the others and pray to the Father. Even on earth his deep union with God was reflected in his prayer. So when the disciples asked him to show them how to pray we hear Jesus, God and man, share how to talk to the Father directly from the Son who was united with the Father. 

We know the prayer of course. We learned in our youth. Maybe the first prayer we were taught. 

So we can easily get too familiar with the Our Father. It can be one of many rote prayers we learned as children and move through the words without considering what they really are. 

Not man made or man conceived words but divine words from Jesus Christ on how to pray. There is no greater source on prayer. 

So Jesus shares with them and us how to pray to the Father. At the very least we are called to be assured our Father hears us for these are words his Son gave us. But even better we must slow down and reconsider what we are saying and what we are asking for in this prayer. 

Spend time with this prayer and allow it to dwell inside of you. 

We acknowledge God and his holiness, we ask for his blessings upon us, for our daily bread, and we commit to forgive others. And it’s not a forgive us our sins and we of course will forgive others. It is forgive us our sins, because we have already forgiven others knowing we are to love all are brothers and sisters. Think about that. It assumes we are already forgiving as others may cross us. We pray with no anger or animosity. No lingering thought of undeserved attacks or demeaning words.

We come to the Father in prayer loving him first and loving others as ourselves. We want to be forgiven by others for our weak moments of uncharitable words or actions and we want to be forgiven by our Father in heaven so we live according to his commands.

Finally we ask that we not have to endure the final test. Or in English we usually see. lead us not into temptation. Either way the focus is on asking for his help in not being tempted or drawn say from the path toward eternal life.  We all sin. We all struggle. We all repent and confess our sins for forgiveness. 

But this i believe is talking about being led away from the faith in a more permanent sense. Drawn toward activities or thoughts or situations where we lose of identity as children of God and faithful followers. We not only sin, but we fail to ask for forgiveness and eventually the world justifies in our mind why it doesn’t matter. It’s a favorite method of the evil one to set us up on a path away from God. 

The Our Father is not to be rushed through without considering what we are saying. For it reflects the Gospel itself. It is a concise review of who God is, and who God is to us. It is the prayer that Jesus gave us to remind us who we are and our reliance and need for God in our life.