From today’s Gospel: Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test.”
My dear brothers and sisters,
The Our Father is the first and greatest of all Christian prayers. Its short and simple phrases embrace every relation between us and God. It not only tells us what to pray for, but also how to pray for it.
The Our Father contains a whole program for Christian living, for our daily life. It’s contains everything what we need to be good people, parents, children and faithful Christians. The prayer “Our Father†we can divide for two parts.
The first part deals with God.
We begin by acknowledging God’s existence, and calling him ‘Father’. God is a parent to us, and we are his children.
Then we praise his name. In praising his name we praise him.
We pray for the coming of his kingdom – a kingdom of truth and life, holiness and grace, justice, love, and peace. We have a part to play in making his kingdom a reality.
We pray that his will may be done on earth. ‘On earth’ means in our private and family lives too. God’s will may not always be the easiest thing to do, but it is always the best thing.
The second part deals with us and our needs.
We begin by praying for our daily bread. ‘Bread’ stands for all our daily needs. God exactly knows what we need, and he is giving to us all we need if we pray.
We pray for forgiveness for our own sins, and for the grace to be able to forgive those who are against us. Only if we are able to forgive others, God is forgiving us our sins and weaknesses.
We pray not to be led into temptation. God does not put temptation in our path but life does. And we ourselves sometimes walk into temptation of our own accord. We are asking God to help us to cope with the temptations that come to us unbidden, and to avoid those of our own choosing.
Finally, we pray to be delivered from all evil, both physical and moral. We can not expect never to encounter evil. What we are asking God for is the grace to be strong and victorious over all evil around us and in us.
My dear brothers and sisters
The prayer Our Father is the first prayer which we learn and pray from our childhood. We can forget lot of things in our life, but never this prayer. We have to start and finished every day with this prayer. This prayer is like a spiritual food which we need every day. If we keep this prayer every day, our life is going to be different, and full of God’s blessing.