Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time: October 23, 2011

My Dear Parishioners,

Last week I wrote about our devotion to Mary and praying the Rosary. This week I thought it would be good to write about the Lord’s Prayer—The Our Father.

On Wednesday morning, October 5th, at 9 AM Mass the Gospel of the Day was Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer. In proclaiming it that morning, it was a great time to reflect on this first prayer we learned. Why is this prayer so important? First of all, according to Luke, this prayer was given by Jesus to his disciples in order to provide them with a special identity, something apparently they did not have. Second, even though the prayer contains a few petitions, these petitions are very important. When Jesus gives these petitions to his disciples, they are most important. In other words they are commands telling God that the one praying has important petitions. Really, Jesus urges the one praying to make demands on God. This means that by nature the Lord’s prayer is unique because of its radical boldness. It really encourages the one praying to be bold and make demands on God our Father.

Jesus had a special relationship with God and he handed it on to his disciples. Through faith it has been given to us and thus when we pray the Our Father, we should be bold in our petitions to God.

Fr. Leroy