Posted by The WORD in other words (2009) by Fr. Devasagayam Savariyappan, SVD – Abra
Thursday 11th Week in Ordinary Time
“If somebody said, give me a summary of Christian faith on the back of an envelope, the best thing to do would be to write Our Lord’s Prayer.” –Rowan Williams
The Lord’s Prayer is the most important of all the Christian documents. It was carefully constructed by Jesus with certain very clear ends in view. That is why, of all his teachings, it is by far the best known, and the most often quoted. It is, indeed, the one common denominator of all the Christian churches. Every one of them, without exception, uses the Lord’s Prayer; it is perhaps the only ground upon which they all meet.
Every Christian child is taught the Lord’s Prayer, and any Christian who prays at all says it almost every day. Its actual use probably exceeds that of all other prayers put together. Undoubtedly, everyone who is seeking to follow along the Way that Jesus led, should make a point of using the Lord’s Prayer, and using it intelligently, every day (Emmet Fox 1886-1951).
Commentators underline the fact that Jesus teaches us to begin with the word “our.” As the eminent Scripture scholar John Meier reminds us, “we experience God’s fatherhood not as isolated individuals but as members of the church, the family of Jesus the Son.” Pope Benedict XVI suggests that the word “our” requires us to “step out of the closed circle of our ‘I.’ It requires that we surrender ourselves to communion with the other children of God.” The pope goes on to affirm that when we say “our,” “we say Yes to the living Church in which the Lord wanted to gather his new family. In this sense, the Our Father is at once a fully personal and thoroughly ecclesial prayer.”
The greatest of all prayers invite us to experience a sense of dependence, reverence, and confidence. These are qualities that characterize the relationship with God exemplified by this prayer. Dependence has become something of a bad word in a culture that extols autonomy. We are aware of many forms of unhealthy dependence (or “co-dependence”) that can prevent us from flourishing as persons.
As disciples of Jesus, however, we stake our lives on the claim that we are truly dependent upon God and that we want to grow in our awareness of this dependence. And we believe that this deepening realization is the path to freedom, to genuine autonomy, and personal maturity. The great Catholic theologian Karl Rahner often reminded us that dependence upon God and genuine freedom grow in direct proportion. Our dependence on God is liberating rather than enslaving because God is the one who sets us free to be our best selves.
The more one analyzes the Lord’s Prayer, the more wonderful is its construction seen to be. It meets everyone’s need just at his own level. It provides not only a rapid spiritual development for those who are sufficiently advanced to be ready, but in its superficial meaning, it supplies the more simpleminded and even the more materially-minded people with just what they need at the moment, if they use the Prayer sincerely.
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