When you pray, do not
be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray in synagogues or on street
corners so that they might be seen by others.
Truly I say to you,
they have already received their reward in full.
But when you pray, go
into your inner room, shut the door and pray to your Father in secret.
And your Father, who
sees in secret, will reward you.
When you pray, do not
babble like the Gentiles, for they think that they will be heard by their wordiness.
Do not be like them.
For your Father knows
what you need before you ask for it.
You shall pray in this
way:
Our Father in heaven,
May your name be honored,
May your kingdom come,
May what you will, come to pass,
As it does in heaven,
so also on earth.
Give to us today our daily bread,
And forgive for us our debts,
As we also forgive
those in our debt.
And do not lead us into trial,
But save us from the
Evil one.
Our
Father is in heaven, and we’re on earth.
Heaven,
where God’s name is constantly honored in continuous worship; heaven, where God
reigns supremely; heaven, where all that happens accords with God’s will;
heaven, where we feast at the banquet table on the bread of angels; heaven,
where no is wearied by debts to one another, but all join in love-based
communion; heaven, where tests don’t afflict and the Evil One doesn’t prowl…
Our
Father is in heaven, and we’re on earth.
There’s a gulf between the two that can feel like a chasm. We at times feel afflicted, tempted, needy
and we long for the world that Jesus’ prayer envisions. God’s longing for it finds expression in the
beatitudes with which Jesus began this sermon on the mount we’re continuing
today. Our longing finds its proper
expression in prayer, prayer like this: prayer that at once rejects despair and
rejects ostentation; prayer that doesn’t seek its find its value in human
acclaim but in union with God; prayer that doesn’t seek to weary God by length,
but that’s terse and modest, and honest about our neediness.
Our
Father is in heaven, we’re on earth, but God can cross any chasm. He will bring us fully home, and we’re not
left to wait in darkness. God grants us
glimpses of the Kingdom and tasters of the bread of the banquet table. Our liturgy, in which this prayer is prayed
three times each day, is a profound place of glimpsing. Vowed religious life is another. In Vatican II’s dogmatic constitution on the
Church, we read that religious life “witnesses to the fact of a new and eternal
life acquired by the redemption of Christ, and foretells the resurrected state
and the glory of the heavenly kingdom.”
In
obedience, we yield our private will to common decision-making in petition and preparation
for God’s will to reign on earth as fully as it does in heaven. In poverty, we set our eyes so surely on the
banquet to come that we don’t claim even our daily bread as our own, but hold
all possessions in common. In celibacy,
we confess that our longing for life and its continuation will not find relief
in progeny, but in the resurrection which is to come. As our Constitutions put it: in our common
life, we seek to “be a sign in an
alienated world: men who have, for love of their Lord, become closest
neighbors, trustworthy friends, brothers.”
We can’t do any of that without the sustaining
embrace of God encountered in humble prayer.
“Thy kingdom come” and may God sustain us as we do our part in welcoming
it.
No comments:
Post a Comment