Our Father: the Prayer of Relationship
by: Rev. Fr. Gerry Pierse, C.Ss.R.
When the student is ready the teacher comes along. Real teaching
only takes place when the student is eager. In today's Gospel we see
that Jesus, through the example of his own prayer has made the disciples curious. They make the request, "Lord, teach us to pray." Having requested, they are eager to hear the response.
And it is a response worth waiting for. It tells us about Jesus' own inner life in which he invites us to share. It is a life that centers in "Abba," Our Father, our heavenly Papa or Daddy. It was shocking for the people of his time that Jesus would refer to God in such endearing terms. Most people in our times also cannot accept this first basic truth that we have a loving heavenly father. When we accept this we have a sense of abundance within us which reduces insecurity and allows generosity.
When we know that we come from this affectionate Father the task of life becomes "Holy be your name," - we are called to glorify God. The big obstacle in this is our ego which leads us to seek glory for ourselves rather than God's glory. "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." If we were really honest we would have to admit that what we are usually saying is "my kingdom come, my will be done on earth." Our prayers are often an effort to twist God's arm so that he will give us our will instead of being a disposing of ourselves to surrender to God's will. God's will is the final goal of life and when we seek this we find happiness. This can often be seen in marriage. When a couple are each seeking their own will or even working together on their common ambition they find themselves drawing apart from each other. But when they focus on God's will, something transcendent and beyond, they grow together in oneness.
After setting an exalted goal Jesus comes back to the nitty-gritty of life. Each of us have insecurities that energize us to seek our needs. This is very important because if our needs are not fulfilled we cannot live or grow. "Give us today our daily bread." The fulfillment of these needs, the answering of our insecurities, can easily get out of hand and lead us to seek things, or prestige, or power just for their own sakes. It will also lead us to infringe the areas of others, to hurt, and so the community will always have need of forgiveness.
Jesus links forgiveness by God to our forgiveness of each other. "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us." How many realize when they say this prayer that they are telling God not to forgive them their sins unless they forgive their neighbor. The teaching on forgiveness is probably the toughest teaching of Christianity. The command to love our enemies is the one that we most often want exemption from. Yet this is precisely what being perfect as the Heavenly Father is perfect means. It means loving the imperfect - those who have sinned.
The "Our Father" is a beautiful guide to relationship. It gives us the value of having God at the center of our lives. It invites us to deal realistically with ourselves and our own needs. It tells us that the attitude of forgiveness is essential if we are to relate well with others.
It finally asks God not to tempt us beyond our strength. As we look back on our lives we see that many difficult things happened to us, yet, it was these trials that really made us into the people that we are. These happenings could also have broken and destroyed us. This is an appeal then that the struggles in life will strengthen us rather than destroy us.
St. Teresa of Avila said that meditation on the Our Father alone could bring us into the deepest prayer and union with God. One could spend a lifetime reflecting on it and then savoring its richness in silence. In Christian meditation you are asked to savor the word, and then let it go with you into the silence of meditation for twenty to thirty minutes each morning and each evening.
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