THURSDAY, JUNE 18, 2020
Matthew 6, 7-15:
“You should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven; give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our trespasses, for we forgive those who trespass against us; lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
You can pray by praying. But it may be that we pray without praying.
Sometimes we repeat words and words in a mechanical way and without realizing what each word entails.
Jesus advises us today not to use many words in our prayer.
He encourages us to approach the Father with great confidence, simply invoking him and feeling that we are his children.
He also teaches us the words that express the deep feelings of all authentic Christian prayer: the Our Father. To pray with the Our Father is to place ourselves in the presence of God as Father, to feel that we are his children in need, and also to feel that we are in fellowship with every human being, a child of the Father just like me.
Pray the Lord’s Prayer slowly today, tasting and savouring every phrase and word.
Good day.
Antonio Maria Sanjuan Marin, cmf