Vamshi Eedara csc
Readings: 2 Cor 11:1-11; Mt 6:7-15
Many of us would have been introduced to various prayers during our lives. We might have learned some prayers in our schools or at home. Among all those prayers the prominent one is the prayer ‘Our Father’.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is teaching his disciples how to pray, and he taught them ‘Our father’. Jesus wants us to know that prayer is not about informing God about something God is not aware of. He asks us not to use many words, not to “babble” when praying to God, as the pagans do. Because our heavenly Father knows what we need before we ask him.
In praying we acknowledge who God is and who we are before God. In doing so we grow in our relationship with God, and we become more fully the person God is calling us to be. The Lord’s prayer has two parts.
In the first part, we acknowledge who God is and in the second part who we are before God. In those opening petitions we acknowledge the priority of God’s name, God’s kingdom and God’s will. In a sense, we invite God to be God.
In the following petitions we acknowledge who we are before God, dependent on God for our fundamental needs, our physical needs symbolized by bread and our spiritual needs, our need for forgiveness for our sins and for strength in time of temptation by the evil one. Every day let us pray ‘Our Father’ as a prayer of love so we may find a great treasure as well as deep peace within.