Posted by The WORD in Other Words by Fr Joseph Miras SVD (Canada) Wednesday Week 27 Ordinary Time, Jon 4:1-11, Lk 11:1-4
“Give us this day our daily bread” implies that the prayer be prayed regularly, constantly, and repeatedly for two reasons: It is the nature of humans to ask and it is God‘s nature to listen; the petitions mentioned are not yet realized.
No matter how many, how trivial our petitions are, God listens to all of them. God does not discriminate, does not get tired, and is not fed up.
Praying the Our Father makes us realize that God‘s holiness has not yet permeated the whole earth (or universe), that God‘s reign has not yet been established, that our material needs have not been met yet, that mistakes and errors, sins and transgressions are still committed, that we are still imperfect. This realization propels us to get attuned with God. But human nature slows us down and sometimes even diverts us to a different path. Repeated acts of praying the Our Father, at least, externally develops our sensitivity to get back to our moorings.
We know very well the saying, “Practice makes perfect.” Repeating this prayer enables us to get into the spirit of God‘s reign the way Jesus got into it to keep his intimate relationship with God. If it led Jesus‘ transformation by God, we are in no way deceived, if we follow the same path Jesus took. We won‘t be like Jesus but we imitate him. “Be imitators of me as I am of Christ” (1 Cor 11:1), says St. Paul.
It is said that the Beatles before they became famous practiced and performed many long hours on a tour in Germany, which perfected their craft. When they launched into the big leagues the people went nuts with their music. Maybe we need also to spend hours and hours praying the Our Father.
