Tuesday,
February 24, 2015
1st Week of Lent
1st Reading: Is 55:10–11
Gospel: Mt 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 come and your will be done on earth as in heaven. Give us today the kind of bread we need. 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. (…)
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
The Lord’s Prayer is also found in Luke but it is shorter compared to today’s Gospel version of Matthew. In Luke we only have “Father, hallowed be your name…” In Matthew the words “in heaven” are added, probably because of Matthew’s uneasiness with the over-familiarity of calling Yahweh “Father” when under their prevailing practice it was considered a sacrilege even to mention God’s name. May this detail make us more appreciative of our privilege to call God “Father”.
The words “your kingdom come” and “your will be done” must be read together because Matthew equated the kingdom with the will of God on earth. But what is the Will of God? St. Paul wrote that “…the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy” (Romans 14:7). If, in the context of Matthew, God’s kingdom is equated with God’s Will, then God’s will is also about peace and justice. Taking St. Paul and Matthew together, the following statement is in order: where there is justice, there is peace; where there is peace, the kingdom of God flourishes. The inevitable implication is that the one praying “The Lord’s Prayer” should be willing to commit himself to justice and so attain peace, bringing forth the kingdom of God in his midst.
The word “daily” (from the Greek “Epiousion”) is a rare Greek word, and the meaning is still reportedly disputed. It has four possible meanings, namely, (1) “daily”; (b) “tomorrow”; (c) “needful”; (d) “future”. Thus, the bread we ask could either be the earthly bread of the poor or the bread of the elect in the future. When we pray “give us this day our daily bread” we ask God for the food of the body and for the food we look forward to relish in heaven.
The season of Lent is most appropriate in deepening our understanding of the prayer our Lord taught us so that the “Our Father” will truly become “Our Prayer”.— Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website: www.frdan.org.
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