June 21, 2018 Thursday
11th Week in Ordinary Time 1st Reading:
Sir 48:1-14
Gospel: Matthew 6:7-15
Jesus said to his disciples, “When you pray, do not use a lot of words, as the pagans do, for they hold that the more they say, the more chance they have of being heard. Do not be like them. Your Father knows what you need, even before you ask him.“This, then, is how you should pray:‘Our Father in heaven,holy be your name, your kingdom comeand your will be done,on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts just as we have forgiven those who are in debt to us. Do not bring us to the test but deliver us from the evil one.’“If you forgive others their wrongs, your Father in heaven will also forgive yours. If you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive you either.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assi-milated Life Experience)
The pagans in Jesus’ time called on so many gods ho-ping to chance upon one responsive to their needs. To them it was as if prayer was a game of chance where one tries his luck on some divine names in search for a powerful and responsive deity. Not so with Jesus’ disciples. They knew the one true God to pray to. They were in fact made children of that God when Jesus taught them to address Him as Father. Re-cognizing the voice of His children, the Father hastened to help them each time they called on Him.
A story is told of a student caught cheating during the exam. When the teacher was about to confiscate his “codigo” the student pleaded with her saying, “Please Ma’am, there is nothing in there but a prayer to God that I may know all the answers to the exam”. When the teacher inspected the sheet of paper she found no prayer but answers to most of the exam questions. The student exclaimed: “Wow, it’s a miracle! God sent me all the answers! Of course he was bluffing. But he said something we all believe in: God answers prayers!” We condemn the student for his dishonesty but we affirm his declaration that God answers the prayers of his children.
The invocation “Our Father in heaven” was common in the Rabbinic prayers of the post-New Testament period. In private prayers, this writer uses “Our heavenly Father who dwells amongst us” instead of “Our Father who art in heaven”. By this means, this writer addresses a God who is not only Father but also a persistent companion.
If pagans wanted a god to be present in every event in their lives for the purpose of which they had invented so many gods, we should desire nothing less but to have God with us in all events of our lives. God, in fact, would like to be around in anything that we do. Didn’t he promise to be with us until the end of time? – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M.
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