Hello everyone
A very interesting topic for those who have faith, from a friend, and I am sharing it with you.
One day, somewhere, Jesus was praying. When he had finished, one of his disciples asked him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples” (Luke 11:1).
We recite it standing, with open hands and sometimes with arms outstretched toward the sky. This is the posture of a free person who trusts in God. Sometimes, we also hold hands with one another: this is a sign of our fraternity. These attitudes express that the Lord’s Prayer responds to God’s desire that we recognize ourselves as His children and that we welcome the other as a brother. The Lord’s Prayer connects us with God and with others.
But it is also with these words of the Lord's Prayer that we can address God in personal prayer.
OUR FATHER WHO ART IN HEAVEN
We can therefore approach the Father with complete confidence, with the simplicity and humble boldness of a child, in the certainty of being loved.
What are the heavens where God dwells? The heavens are in God more than God is in the heavens, for the elsewhere we long for is not a place but an infinite mystery of the exchange of love.
Let us see what Saint Augustine said: he had sought God in many places, and he found him at the center of himself. It is important to understand this truth. Yes, it is important for a person to realize that she does not need to go to heaven to speak with her eternal Father and rejoice with him; she does not need to speak loudly to him. Even if she speaks very softly, he is so close to us that he hears. (Thérèse of Avila)
Hallowed be your name,
When we pray, we are tempted to ask God first to meet our immediate needs. But Jesus calls us to shift our focus away from ourselves and to look resolutely toward the Father, toward the Kingdom we hope for.
To ask that God’s name be hallowed is not to add anything to God’s holiness, but to invite divine holiness to penetrate every earthly reality so that it may become more in keeping with His will. It is also to ask that our own lives glorify Him, so that those who do not yet know Him may recognize Him through His children.
Thy Kingdom come
What is this kingdom whose coming we ask for? Saint Paul tells us:
- The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Of course, we can sometimes despair about our world and our times, but Jesus's prayer is an invitation to recognize places, currents where the kingdom of God is already present. We have Good News to proclaim: "The kingdom of God is near; it is already among us."
This prayer also commits us to collaborating with God to establish greater justice, to do all that contributes to peace, and to receive joy.
Thy Will be done on earth as it is in heaven
Let us not imagine that the Father has a pre-established program for each of his children that we must "decode" and then carry out. The only desire of God for us is that we freely respond to his love by charting our course with Him.
So what is the will of God?
Let us listen to Teresa of Ávila again:
The Lord asks us only two things: that we love Him and that we love our neighbor. If we strive to do so, we fulfill His will… It is difficult for us to know whether we love God, but we can know with certainty that we love our neighbor! Be certain of this: the more progress you make in loving your neighbor, the more progress you will make in loving God!
Give us this day our daily bread
Jesus now invites us to make known to the Father our most essential needs. Asking God for “the bread” is to acknowledge that our life comes from Him and that each day we must welcome it in trust: The Lord will never fail us.
Certainly, this does not absolve us "from working as if everything depended on us." Even more so: "Praying as if everything depended on God" commits us to genuine solidarity with those who lack everything.
And then, this bread that we ask for and that gives life is also spiritual nourishment. We tell God of our hunger for the bread of His Word and the bread of the Eucharist, the bread broken for a new world.
Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive
to those who have offended us
There is no limit to God's love. Nothing can prevent God from loving us. Asking for His forgiveness is acknowledging our weakness, our sin, and our resistance to receiving this love, and thus opening ourselves to grace. There is no measure to the Father's infinite love, no limit to His forgiveness; it is a free gift, but our capacity to receive it and allow ourselves to be transformed by it is conditioned by our own ability to forgive those who have hurt us. By refusing to forgive, our hearts become impermeable to the Father's merciful love. When the harm is such that it is humanly impossible for us to forgive, let us fix our gaze on Jesus: on the cross, He prays for those who are putting Him to death: "In His person, He killed hatred."
Only He, through His Spirit, can give us the strength to do the impossible.
Forgiveness received, forgiveness given, is the path to liberation.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil
Temptation is an "inevitable step" in the building of our freedom, which is strengthened through the choices we make. Jesus himself was tempted, and by directing his gaze to his Father and to his brothers, he outwitted the deceiver's traps. He calls us to ask the Father for the strength to make courageous choices in favor of life, justice, reconciliation, and peace.
Our relationship with God does not distance us from the human and spiritual struggle, but it gives us the certainty of faith that we will emerge victorious, with Christ.
The entire life of Jesus, his death and his resurrection, is a victory over the forces of evil. He carries love to the very end, and life triumphs on the morning of Easter. All is accomplished in God’s time, but we are in the time of history and its slow germinations. The prayer of the Our Father is a cry of trust, in faith, hope, and love. “Come, Lord, do not delay.”
Amen
To pray is to think about what we recite and to understand it. It is also to see whom we are speaking to and who we are, we who dare to speak to so great a Lord
When we begin to pray, let us first take the time to think about whom we are speaking to: God is very great, let us truly be attentive to Him.
When we recite the “Our Father,” let us remember who this Father is, and who Jesus is, the master who taught us this prayer. By doing so, we will show God that we love him.
Picture the Lord Himself near you. See with what love and humility He teaches you. Believe me, as much as you can, stay with this so good a friend. Make it a habit to draw Him near to you, do so with love, strive to please Him: He will see it, and you will no longer be able to get rid of Him, as they say, He will never fail you. He will help you in all your difficulties, He will be everywhere with you. In your opinion, is having such a friend near you a small thing?
There is no need to recite several "Our Fathers"; the Lord understands us from the very first. He loves to spare us fatigue. If we spent an hour saying a single "Our Father," that would be very good. We understand that we are with Him, we know what we are asking of Him. We are certain that He desires to grant it to us, and that He is very happy to be with us; that is enough. He does not like us to rack our brains by talking to Him at length.
Best regards
your friend ROSE
It is Jesus himself who teaches us how to pray. He turns us toward God, his Father, and makes us recognize him as our Father, that is, our origin, the one from whom we receive our life, our growth, and our being. He alone knows the Father, and he wants to make him known to us. He who is the Son of God from all eternity reveals to us that every human person is called to become a son or daughter of God, by the grace of adoption. Every person is called to live the very life of God and to know the happiness that his love gives. Baptism opens the way to this recognition.
By turning to his Father, Jesus also gives himself to be received as a brother, a brother to each one.
But we could not pray if the Holy Spirit Himself did not pray in us. It is He who makes us more and more children of the Father and brothers of Christ, if we consent to be loved, if we respond to that love.
Marylena