OUR FATHER, OUR PRAYER

Thursday of the 11th Week in Ordinary Time
Matthew 6: 7-15

Dearest Jesus, teach us to pray. Pray with us. Pray in us. Pray through us.

“Our.” Not only theirs, not only mine, but ours. God is not exclusively theirs neither is He mine alone. He is ours.

Forgive me, God, for making You exclusively mine.

“Father.” He is not only God. He is also a Father to us. Because He is our Father, we are His children.

Forgive us, Father, when, by the lives we live, we seem to be not Your children.

“In heaven.” Since He is our Father and His home is heaven, heaven is also our true home. We do good deeds not for us to win heaven but because we are from heaven. We cannot buy heaven even by our good deeds, for heaven is our Father’s gratuitous gift to us.

Forgive us, Father, when we try to bribe You by our good works.

“Holy be Your name.” He is our Father and we are His children. He has given us His name because we are His children. We should honor His name by bringing honor to it.

Forgive us, Father, for, by our sins, we are a disgrace to Your Holy name.

“Your kingdom come.” This kingdom is His gift and our task. It has already been given and so it already is, but it is also something we help establish fully and so it is also something that is yet to be. We make His kingdom come.

Forgive us, Father, we delay the coming of Your kingdom.

“Your will be done on earth as in heaven.” We pray for the coming of His kingdom and yet we fail to do His will. The kingdom of God is the reign of God. The reign of God begins when, with total faith, hope and love, we submit to the holy will of God.

Forgive us, Father, we are stubborn and proud with our own desires.

“Give us today our daily bread.” We need to beg our Father for our bread each day. We must learn to trust Him each day. He takes care of us every single moment of every single day.

Forgive us, Father, we trust our selves too much that we trust You so little.

“And forgive us our sins.” The Father loves us more than we know. What do we give Him in return? Our sins.

Forgive us, Father, for our ingratitude to Your kindness.

“As we forgive those who sinned against us.” Just as we need forgiveness so do we need to forgive. Just as we forgive so shall we be forgiven. The logic is so simple but, for those who refuse to forgive, forgiving is always illogical.

Forgive us, Father, and please bring us to forgive those who sin against us.

“Do not bring us to the test.” We have our weaknesses through which the evil one may bring us to ruin forever. We pray to be delivered from temptations but we do not consciously avoid them. It is we, not God, who bring us to the test.

Forgive us, Father, when we blame You for our sins and failures.

“But deliver us from evil.” We beg our Father to spare us from evil but we bring evil to others. There are times when we are the evil ourselves. All is fine so long as we are not the ones maligned.

Forgive us, Father, for our indifference to the evils around us.

“Amen.” So be it. Is it? Will it be so?

Forgive us, Father, when we think we mean what we pray but we actually do not.

Dearest Jesus, teach us to pray. Pray with us. Pray in us. Pray through us. Be our prayer.