Homily
for June 22, 2017
Our Gospel passage this morning
is part of the Sermon on the Mount wherein Jesus aimed at correcting some of
the anomalies in the religious practices of his time. He would say: “You have
heard how it was said…. BUT I say to you….” or “Do not be like so and so…
instead do like this.”
If Jesus were to come in the
flesh again today, I guess there would be a lot of things to correct in our
religious worship today. The fact that something has been done in a particular
pattern for many years does not mean it is correct or particularly pleasing to
God.
At the time of Jesus, the people
had a particular way of praying. They loved to heap up a lot of empty phrases
because they probably imagined God to be very far away. Jesus was basically
telling them that there is was just no need for that given that God already
knows our needs even before we start praying.
Jesus did not stop at that,
he proceeded to teach us how to pray given us the “Our Father” which is not
only a prayer in itself but a formulae on how our every prayer should be
composed.
The “Our Father” is a prayer
that makes sense because it does not involve use of repeated empty and
meaningless phrases. It goes directly to the points.
The “Our father” begins by
acknowledging God as a Father. This first line teaches us that when we pray, we
are children before a father who loves and cares for us and has everything we can
ever desire.
Then it proceeds to ask that
God’s will and not ours be done meaning that prayer is not a matter of
commanding or forcing God, but rather seeking to have God’s will play out in
our lives. Let us avoid shouting at God when we pray. God is not deaf. Moreover,
we can never force God to do our own will.
The Our Father then sums up
all our needs with three powerful requests: “Give us this day our daily bread”,
“forgive us our sins” and “lead us not into temptation.” These are the three
things we ask for at prayer.
We should not focus solely
on asking for our daily bread forgetting that we should also ask to be kept
away from temptation. Sin is capable of destroying us so just as it is
important to ask for the food we eat, we must also ask for the grace to live
above sin.
However, out of these three
requests, one demands a commitment on our part which is: Doing to others
exactly what we want God to do for us. Jesus gave a condition with which our
sins would be forgiven; that we forgive our fellow brothers and sisters.
In other words, forgiving
others is part of our prayer. If I refuse to cleanse my heart of all
bitterness, anger and hate, then even if I spend ten hours in prayer, my
prayers will not sense to God.
Let us pray: Lord Jesus, draw
me nearer and nearer to you. Amen.
Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith.
It is well with you. God bless you. (Thursday of
the 11th Week in Ordinary Time. Bible Study: 2nd Corinthians 11:1-11 and Matthew 6:7-15).
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