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Mass Readings for the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
First Reading: Genesis 18:20-32
Psalm: Psalm 138:1-3, 6-8
Second Reading: Colossians 2:12-14
Gospel: Luke 11:1-13
Hello! In today’s Gospel according to Luke 11:1-13 we find the Lord’s Prayer. The wording is a little different but basically what we pray. The wording we use is closer to what we find in Matthew 6:9-13. I’d like to spend some time unpacking the Lord’s Prayer because sometimes when I pray it, I just rush right through it. I think it’s important to pause and reflect on the words we pray.
What is prayer? Well, there are sorts of prayer, like prayers of adoration, prayers of petition, prayers of thanksgiving, etc., but prayer at its core is about relationship – relationship between the Father and each one of us. As disciples, we want to learn more about Jesus and to deepen our relationship with Jesus. So, prayer is critical to building relationship just like talking with a friend or loved one builds relationship, right? You can’t say that you’re in a relationship with someone and never have a conversation with them, right? And yet, how many of us try to practice our faith without being in conversation with God?
Jesus’s disciples had the same question, so they ask him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples,” (Luke 11:1). Jesus who prays in his humanity wants to teach us how to pray like him, so he says, “When you pray, say: Father…,” (Luke 11:2). Let’s stop right there.
Everything about prayer is about a relationship between us and our God, about relationship between us and our Father. And when we enter into this relationship, we’ve got to come to know that we’re loved by him, and we’re giving a response, (right?), prayer is a response, that I want to love him. It’s primarily about being with someone who loves you. The deepest need in all of our hearts that we all have is to be loved. No matter what we do in life, we’re always trying to fill the emptiness in our hearts which is the desire for love. And that’s why so many people don’t have peace in their hearts because they’re trying something to fill that hole, so, they’re trying this or trying that whether it’d drugs or alcohol or pornography or gadgets or fast cars or extramarital affairs. But the only thing that can fill the emptiness in our heart is the love of our Father which is eternal.
The word Jesus uses is Abba, meaning daddy. This is intimacy. God loves you and wants to hold you to himself. He wants you to rest in his arms and be in relationship with him. When Teresa of Avila would say the word, “Father”, she would go into ecstasy – she couldn’t get past the word “Father” in the Lord’s prayer! She couldn’t get over that we can call the God of the universe, “daddy”.
Then he says, “…hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come,” (Luke 11:2). You know what that means? It means, God, instead of building my kingdom and my world and taking care of all my stuff, I want to build your kingdom on earth. Do I go about everyday building God’s kingdom?
“Give us each day our daily bread,” (Luke 11:3). Everything we have we get from God, so we turn to God for our needs. But, in the early church this was also a cry for the Eucharist – the bread of life. If we want to improve our prayer life, we need to go to mass and receive the Eucharist on a regular basis. No, Christmas and Easter only is not a regular basis. What is more important than Jesus? Nothing!
“…and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is in debt to us,” (Luke 11:4). How many of us do not need to come before God and ask for mercy? I come before God, and he has never withheld mercy from me. Never once in my lifetime has God ever said to me, “That’s enough, I’ve had it with you, Rudy!” If he’s that generous with his mercy for me, how can I withhold my mercy from anybody? Jesus wants to make this clear. The point is that we can never separate our prayer from our relationship with our brothers and sisters – it just can’t be done! Jesus says that we are to pray that just as we forgive others, that’s how I want to be forgiven. Whoa! So, I need to come before him with a heart filled with mercy if I am to experience mercy.
“…and do not subject us to the final test,” (Luke 11:4). When it comes to temptation, we run to God, not to the enemy. In our prayer, we ask him to help us avoid those things that might lead us into sin, in the language of the Church we say, “avoid the near occasions of sin,” whether that’s TV or the internet or alcohol or drugs or promiscuity.
God desires you. He so loved the world that he gave his son for you. He wants to be in relationship with you. That’s why he gave you life. Too often prayer isn’t about relationship though, it’s just something we have to do, right? We just check a box on our holy roller disco card. As a deacon, I made a vow during my ordination that I would prayer the Office of the Church every day. So, I am bound by law and by the promise I made to God to pray the Office every day. Every morning, I pray Morning Prayer and later in the day I pray Evening Prayer and before I go to bed, I pray Night Prayer. I do lots of things, and I’m very faithful to my prayer life not because I’m holy, but because I want to honor my commitment to God and to the Church. But I can tell you that all too often in my prayer, maybe this doesn’t happen to you, but in my prayer life, I can miss an encounter with God. I miss entering into relationship with God. Sometimes I get the impression that my guardian angel smacks his hand to his head when I rush through prayer.
God is calling your name and he is calling my name each and every day. Do we listen? Do we respond? Our prayer is a response to God’s call to enter into relationship with him. If we can get up every day without thinking, if we can get up every day and eat, if we can get up every day and go to work, then why can’t we get up and sit for a couple of minutes and pray?
Homework!
- First, are you holding any grudges in your life? If yes, I invite you to make peace in your heart so that you can stand before God with a heart filled with mercy. Remember, forgiveness does not mean an absence of consequences. Forgiveness means I can stop torturing myself with a painful memory. Your first homework assignment is to let go of past hurts.
- Second, do you begin each and every day with a prayer? If not, I encourage you to pray just for a couple of minutes to start with. Maybe say the Lord’s Prayer slowly, thinking about each world as you pray it this week.
Do you got it? Do you get it? Are you going to do it? Good! May Almighty God bless you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit! +Amen!
Notes
- Based on talks by Fr. Larry Richards, The Reason for Our Hope Foundation
