Untitled Homily
Our father
The Lord’s Prayer reflects Jesus’ deepest preoccupation on earth: talking with His Father. It moves smoothly from there to His second deepest preoccupation: making His Father our Father too, enabling us to share His intimate conversation, which is constant and habitual. Without a doubt, the Lord’s Prayer is more than a sudden inspiration on Jesus’ part. It’s a long-awaited gift. Indeed, this prayer is itself an answer to a sustained request on the part of humanity: “Lord, teach us to pray” (Lk 11:1).
The Lord’s Prayer is one unified, compact, model prayer consisting of seven petitions, divisible into two parts: the first “God-ward,” the second “us-ward.”
The first part is clearly “God-ward,” focused on “Thy name,” “Thy Kingdom,” “Thy will.” The second half, however, turns attention to us and our needs: “give us,” “forgive us,” “lead us,” “deliver us.” The sequence is significant, because it reverses the instinctive order of our petitions. When we pray spontaneously, we tend to begin with our troubles, our frustrated desires, and our personal wish list. But Jesus shows us that we need to be less self-centered in prayer and more God-centered—not because God needs our praise, and His ego is fragile, but because He’s God, and we aren’t