Give us today, our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we forgive 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 wrongdoings, your Father in heaven will also forgive yours. If you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive you.
REFLECTION:
Jesus teaches his disciples the “Our Father” (the Lord’s Prayer) in today’s gospel reading.
It is, of course, one of the most important prayers of the Church, taught to us by Jesus himself.
And it is a prayer that, from beginning to end, speaks of our total and utter dependence on God, the almighty Creator of all things, who is yet,
as Jesus revealed to us, a loving, kind, gentle, merciful and caring Father. The Lord’s Prayer reveals to us something so amazing,
so awe-inspiring, so great that if we but try to wrap our heads around it, it will make our heads spin. Because what it is essentially saying to us,
what Jesus has ultimately revealed to us in this brief prayer is that the God who has brought all things into being, who sustains all things,
whose power is such that he brought something out of nothing, and not just something, but all things,
this Almighty Being is to us a “father” – with all the gentleness, compassion, caring, mercy and love that the title contains.
The all-powerful Creator of the entire universe is to me, a father. He is my father, and I am his child.
© Copyright Bible Diary 2020