Peace be with you. Friends, our Gospel
for today is St. Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer,
the Our Father, this prayer that’s recited
probably, I don’t know, millions of times a day,
all over the world, at every Mass. If you’re praying the
Liturgy of the Hours, you pray it three
times a day. Think of all the people who
would recite these words. They’re some of the best-known
words on the planet. It might be good for us,
therefore, to walk slowly through
Luke’s version of it to see what this
great prayer is about, what we’re asking for when we pray
the Lord’s Prayer. Here’s the first idea. First, I think,
important observation: It comes from Jesus’
own life of prayer. So he’s been praying, and the disciples
notice that. And they say, “Lord, teach us
how to pray.” Think of a great
basketball player, a great guitarist,
and people watch and say, “Oh, teach me
how to do that.” They must have noticed how intense his life
of prayer was. And so they say, “Lord, help us to
pray the way you do.” So this prayer —think about this when
you pray the Our Father— it reflects
Jesus’ own prayer, his own life of prayer. “When you pray,”
he says, “say: Father, hallowed
be your name.” Father. Let’s pause right there. I mean, God could be
addressed as Lord, Master, all powerful, etc.; all of those are
true designations. But we’re invited
to call him Father. It’s suggested
by some scholars that behind that
is the diminutive, the Hebrew “Abba,”
more like daddy. Jesus is uniquely the
Son of the Father. He has that unique
relationship with him. How wonderful that as we pray this prayer
he taught us, we’re invited to share
in that intimacy. Now we’re not the sons
and daughters of God the way he’s
the Son of God. But yet he’s giving us
the privilege to enter into that kind
of intimacy with God. Don’t brush over that word
when you start the Our Father, that you’re able to say
“Our Father” in addressing the
creator of the universe, in addressing the infinite
source of existence itself. We’re able to say Father because we share in
Christ’s own intimacy. First thing we ask him:
“hallowed be thy name.” Now, may your
name be held holy. It’s not as though our prayer
is making his name holy. We’re not praying for that, as though we have
the power to do that. I mean, God’s name
is always holy. What we’re asking for
is that we always hallow
the name of God. Now to hallow,
to hold as holy, that means as “set apart.” May we always consider God
a value so supreme that every other value by
comparison simply falls away. I’m interested in
all sorts of things. I value all kinds of things.
I value my job. I value money.
I value my family. I value my country,
etc., etc. And if I say, “Well among these
many values, I also value God,” then his name is
not being hallowed. It’s not being held holy. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord
your God is Lord alone” —the “shema” (Deuteronomy 6), this fundamental prayer
of ancient Judaism. Not one value
among many, not just the highest value among many,
but “You are Lord alone. You alone are the
center of my life. No value is even in
competition with you.” And see, as I’ve said
many times to you before, when we get this right,
we get everything else right. When God’s name
is held holy, as hallowed, well then all the rest
of my interests and all the other values
find their place around that central value. That’s why that’s the first
thing we ask the Father. “May we hold your name, your presence,
as hallowed, as holy.” What’s next? “May your kingdom come.” Well, that’s the heart
of Jesus’ preaching. When he first appears
in the hills of Galilee, what’s on his lips is the
message of the kingdom. “The kingdom of
God is at hand, so repent and believe
the good news.” The kingdom, the kingdom. What is it? I always follow Origen here,
the great Church Father. He said Jesus
is “autobasileia.” That means he’s the
“kingdom in person.” See, the kingdom of
God means God’s reign, God’s way of
ordering things. Because for centuries
Israel longed for this, that the God who
made the world, who created the human race
and wanted us to be his priests and his prophets
and his followers, that world has fallen
into sinful disarray, and no earthly ruler
could set it right. And so Israel begged, “Lord come.
How long, oh Lord? When will you come
to set things right?” Well, that’s God’s kingdom,
God’s reign. How has it happened? It’s happened in him,
in Jesus. He’s the “autobasileia,”
the kingdom in person. He himself is
the coming together of divinity and humanity. He himself is God’s
justice and peace reigning on the earth. And so when we say, “May your kingdom come,” we’re saying, “May we be drawn more
and more completely into the power of Jesus. May this reign embodied in
him become normative for me.” An extraordinary thing
when you think about it. That’s what we’re asking
for every time we say, “Thy kingdom come.” Then this,
and it’s mysterious. “Give us each day
our daily bread.” Now that sounds
rather ordinary, but why do I say mysterious? Well, the Greek behind this
phrase is very strange. “Epiousion” is the Greek. It means literally,
give us the “supersubstantial” bread. “Ousia” means substance, “epi” is like on top of,
or more of. “Give us the
supersubstantial bread.” It’s very interesting —you look in the old Vulgate,
the ancient Latin rendering of the New Testament,
and you’ll find St. Jerome translates this as
“panem supersubstantialem,” supersubstantial bread,
not daily bread. Now I won’t bore you
with the details of how we got to “daily,” and there’s a way the
scholars understand that, but I want to stay with
this peculiar expression at the heart
of the Lord’s Prayer. “Give us each day our
supersubstantial bread.” Are we praying just for
ordinary sustenance? No, it seems to me. That would be ordinary bread. “Lord, help us to have
enough to live on.” Okay.
Okay. But we’re not
asking for that. We’re asking for the
“panem supersubstantialem,” the supersubstantial bread. Catholics begin to
hear an overtone, don’t we? What’s the Eucharist? Not ordinary bread,
but bread that has been transubstantiated into the
Body and Blood of Christ, no longer ordinary bread
but now the Body and Blood of Christ under the
appearances of bread and wine. The supersubstantial bread
for which we pray every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer is precisely Christ
in his Eucharistic form. See, we pray that his
kingdom might come, his reign, yes. And we want to be fed,
because we’re not just following a guru or a leader. We want to be drawn into him. How’s that happen? Through the
supersubstantial bread that we pray for every
time we pray this prayer. Then, “Forgive us our sins.” Oh, it’s extraordinary
everybody, isn’t it? I mean, Jesus,
great teacher, of course. Prince of Peace, of course. The one who’s established
this new way of life. Yes, all that’s true. But I think you could argue
the most important thing that Jesus does
is he forgives our sins. “Go and sin no more,” to the woman
caught in adultery. “Pick up your mat and walk. Your sins have
been forgiven.” “Neither do I condemn you.” The forgiveness of sins
is at the very heart of what Jesus is about. Now why?
Why? Well, C.S. Lewis saw this. At the limit,
if you’ve offended me, I could forgive you. I could say, “Look, I’m not going to
hold that against you. I forgive you.” But if I were to walk
up to you and say, “I forgive all your sins,” I mean, you’d think
I was out of my mind and you’d be right, because I have no business
forgiving all of your sins. Who’s the only one
who could reasonably do that or say that? Who could say, “My son, your sins
are forgiven you?” Who could say that? No ordinary human being,
but only, as Lewis saw, the one who is indeed
offended in every sin. Yeah, if I’m offended
by you, I could in principle
forgive you, but I can’t forgive
you for all your sins. But God, who is
offended in every sin, can say to us, “My son, my daughter,
your sins are forgiven.” See, this is how we’re drawn
into the kingdom of God, this is how we’re drawn
into the power of Jesus —he forgives our sins. And so in this great prayer,
that’s what we’re asking for. “Lord, please
forgive our sins. Do that which you alone
as the Son of God can do.” And then right away
the implication, the next thing we ask for: “As we forgive those who
trespass against us.” It’s been said —I remember a grade
school teacher of mine, a sister, long, long ago, reminding us that every
time we pray this prayer, this challenge is
right in our face. “Lord, please forgive
me for my sins.” Yes, yes, and this
incomparable grace comes of the forgiveness of my sins. Well, now I’ve got to be
about the business of forgiving those
who’ve offended me. Otherwise, I’ve not imbibed
the forgiveness of Christ. I’ve just put it on like a
garment that I can take off. If I’ve really taken it on,
I’ve imbibed it, it’s become part of my life, well then I become
a Christ to others. Think of someone who has
trespassed against you, right now.
I mean, specifically. What you’re praying for
is the grace now to forgive that person
as you’ve been forgiven. It’s one of the most
challenging elements in the whole
spiritual life, I think. And then one last
detail as Luke tells us: “Do not subject us
to the final test.” Now to understand this,
we have to go back to the first century. There was a presupposition
that before the Messiah came there’d be a period
of testing and of trial. Some of the apocalyptic
language in the New Testament reflects this idea, that before the Messiah
comes to set things right, there’ll be a terrible
time of trial. Now here’s, I think,
how we understand this. Yes, when Jesus comes into
our dysfunctional world —that’s what the
kingdom means, and we’re praying for it: “May your kingdom come,
your will be done. Give us the
supersubstantial bread. Come into this
dysfunctional world of ours” —what will happen is the
dysfunctional world is going to rise up
in resistance. Now I can see that
in the grand scale, but I can feel it
in my own life. Fellow sinners,
you can do that too. As Christ comes into my life,
I start resisting. “I don’t want that. I don’t want him to be
Lord in my life. I don’t want to change.” I’m like the Israelites
in the desert. “I mean, take me back to
the flesh pots of Egypt. I don’t like this new
spiritual liberty.” So expect it.
That’s the point here. Every time we pray
the Our Father, we’re expecting a
resistance to Christ. “Lead us not
into temptation,” in other versions of this. Expect it. Don’t be shocked,
don’t be surprised when a resistance to
Christ rises up in you. That’s the old sinful self. And so the last
thing we ask for is, “Lord, do not subject
us to the final test. Lead us not into temptation. Lord, protect me from
my resistant self.” There’s so much
more we could say. Read so many of the spiritual
masters as they talk about the Lord’s Prayer. But every step of it is
opening up a window and a door
to the spiritual life. Next time you pray it, whether it’s the liturgy
or just privately, I’d invite you to
do it very slowly. As you do, meditate on each
of these phrases. You’ll find the whole spiritual
life is displayed before you. And God bless you.
