June 18
Our Lady of the Aqueduct
Weekday in Ordinary Time
Today's Gospel: Matthew 6:7-15
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| Photo created by Google AI Image Creator. |
They asked Him to teach them
how to pray. And
He sat down and gave them the most perfectly constructed prayer in human
history. Eight petitions. Each one unites you with God the Father. Together
covering everything a human being could ever need to bring before God.
Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in
heaven, give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our trespasses as we
forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but
deliver us from evil.
Read it slowly. Every part of
this prayer says something extraordinary. That the God who spoke the universe
into existence wants to be called Father. By you, exactly as you are, standing
in your kitchen or driving down the highway or walking alone on a Tuesday
afternoon with nothing but sky overhead and the words forming on your lips
without even deciding to say them.
He didn't give us a formula;
He wanted a relationship.
And notice what sits right in
the middle of it: forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass
against us. The only petition in the entire prayer that comes with a condition
attached. We are asking God to forgive us in exactly the same measure that we
forgive others. That is either the most comforting line in scripture or the
most terrifying one depending on where you currently stand with someone who
hurt you.
Our Lady prayed this prayer
as well. She heard it for the first time from her Son's own lips. She who had
taught Him to speak His first human words now received from Him the words that
would teach all of humanity how to speak to God. And somewhere in that exchange,
mother and Son, teacher and student, trading places for a moment, heaven touched
earth in the quietest possible loving way.
The Our Father is the most
beautiful I love you prayer ever given to mankind. Every single time I pray it, I feel a deep connection to my Lord that I cannot find anywhere else. I often
times pray it while driving. I always pray it when walking, out loud when I'm
alone and the world gets quiet enough to hear it properly. Jesus didn't just
give us words when He taught us this prayer. He gave us a direct line to the
Father. And every time I reach the end of it, I want to start it again.
Something to sit with today:
When was the last time you prayed the Our Father
slowly, word by word, as if you were saying it for the very first time and
meant every single syllable?
Pondering Thoughts
We say this prayer so often that we can finish it
without thinking about it. That's worth noticing, because every line in it is
actually a decision.
Our Father, who art in heaven
Before we ask for one thing, we say something true:
God is not a judge we're approaching, He's a Father we belong to. Everything we
ask after this depends on whether we actually believe that.
Hallowed be thy name
We're not informing God that His name is holy; He
knows. We're asking that nothing in how we live makes a liar out of that truth.
Thy kingdom come
This is a harder line than it sounds. We're asking for
everything as we know it to end, while still being responsible for what we
build before it does. We don't get to pick one or the other.
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven
Easy to say, brutal to mean. This line only costs us
something the moment God's will and ours stop matching up.
Give us this day our daily bread
We need bread that runs out and bread that doesn't.
Most days we only remember to ask for the first kind.
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who
trespass against us
This isn't a request; it's a measuring stick. We're
asking God to forgive us exactly the way we forgive everyone else. Said that
plainly, it should make us uncomfortable.
And lead us not into temptation
God doesn't tempt anyone. But He does test. We're
asking for the honesty to tell the difference before we use one to excuse the
other.
But deliver us from evil
Not evil in the abstract. The Evil One, by name, and
the trouble we brought on ourselves, along with the trouble we didn't.
For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory
Even the prayer Christ gave us ends with getting out
of the way. The last word isn't ours.
Of these seven lines, which one do you actually mean
when you say it, and which one are you just getting through?
Rosary Man Jim 🌹
Freely given. Freely shared.
