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.
