By Arun D. csc –
Readings: 2Cor 11:1-11; Mt. 6:7-15
We may have a number of images coming to our minds when we think of God. However, the most powerful and most loving image of God is what Jesus introduced to us, ‘Abba; the Father’. It gives us tremendous courage and freedom to call the all-powerful God as our own. God comes to our level and makes us understand how much he loves and cares for us.
To such a loving Father, we do not have to heap up long prayers and citations. Jesus invites us to have the experience of the Father just by being with him. Jesus is not against repetitive prayers. But he wants us to pray with utmost honesty and devotion and so such prayers help us come to a deeper awareness of his providence as a loving Father.
Prayer is not just going through a series of words but allowing the heart to mean what is said. That is why Jesus tells that ‘your Father knows what you need even before you ask him.’ Jesus wants us to understand and experience God as a loving and tender Father in whose presence our worries and anxieties are wiped away and we have the true freedom as a child.
Jesus teaches this most beautiful prayer ‘Our Father’, thinking that each time we call him Father, we feel the personal touch of a loving dad in our life. This prayer brings to our prayerful awareness that we belong to God and God belongs to us. God has called us and made us his own. If we believe the words of our prayer, God will love us no matter what we do, like a parent to a child.
This prayer also gives us the freedom as a child of God where we can share our fears, joys, disappointments, frustrations, and pain with him. God is the one we can turn to anytime and such feelings as a child make us sensitive to the needs of our brothers and sisters around us.