TUESDAY OF THE 1ST WEEK OF LENT

8TH MARCH 2022

THEME: ABBA, GOD OUR FATHER

In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells His followers that prayer is more than just a multiplication of words. Jesus then shares with His disciples the prayer which is sometimes called the “Model Prayer” or the “Lord’s Prayer” or simply, by its first words, the “Our Father.” This prayer speaks about having a relationship with God.

Contextually, the Gospel periscope is a continuation of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus instructs the crowd that they should not pray like the Gentiles, repeating empty phrases. He means that true prayer is not so much a matter of the number of words as of the frequency and the love with which one turns towards God, raising one’s mind to God. So, Jesus teaches them a model prayer of all times.

Jesus’ prayer, “Our Father,” consists of two parts: In the first part, we praise and worship God, addressing Him as our loving, caring, and providing Heavenly Father and promising Him that we will do His holy will in our lives, thus remaining in His kingdom. In the second part, we present our petitions before the Triune God. First, we ask God for our present needs, food clothing and shelter, (“give us this day our daily bread”), then for our past needs, especially for forgiveness of our sins (“forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”), and finally, for our future needs, protection against the tempter and his temptations (“and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”). In this part, we also bring the Trinitarian God into our lives. We bring in: (1) God the Father, the Provider, by asking for daily bread; (2) God the Son, our Savior, by asking forgiveness for our sins; and (3) God the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, Who is our Guide, Advocate, Comforter, and Illuminator, by asking for protection and deliverance from evil. In fact, there is a special stress on the spirit of forgiveness where we are encouraged to ask for forgiveness from others for our offenses against them, and to offer unconditional forgiveness to others for their offenses against us as a condition for receiving God’s forgiveness. Jesus clarifies, “If you forgive others their wrongs, your Father in Heaven will also forgive yours. If you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive you either” (Mt 6:14-15).

In a nutshell, the prayer begins by acknowledging Who God is. He is “Our Father.” Notice the word is “Our” not “My” Father. Jesus is reminding us that one prays this prayer as a community, even if one says it when one is praying by one’s self. We are not alone when we say this prayer. We are united with all those who call upon God as “Father.”

The last part of the prayer: The doxology (“for Yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever) which is sometimes used at the end of the Lord’s Prayer is not in all of the most ancient Greek texts. The manuscripts of the Gospel of Matthew do not contain this phrase, nor do any of the Catholic translations. Martin Luther added this doxology to "Our Father" in his translation of Matthew’s Gospel, and the King James editions of the Bible keep it. In essence, the final doxology takes up the first three petitions to our Father. By the final “Amen,” which means, “So be it”, we ratify what is contained in the prayer that God has taught us. Our Blessed Lord Jesus wants us to have an intimate way of communicating with His Abba – our Abba. We are reminded that God speaks the Divine Word and things happen, but God also listens and takes action when we, God’s lowly, beloved children, call out to God our Abba. We are to establish a relationship in which we give God what is due, yet also a relationship in which we ask God to be active in our lives and to treat us as we seek to treat others in a good way. This is an awesome way of relating to the Almighty - something which gives us reason to just ponder Who God is in our lives and how it should lead us to act. May the Lord listen to our prayers, forgive us our trespasses and bless us as we, weak and fragile beings, Amen