Tuesday, First Week of Lent

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus says, ‘Your Father knows what you need before you ask him’. Whereas Jesus encourages us to petition God for our needs, he is saying that our prayers of petition are not about making God aware of something God is ignorant of. In that sense, our prayer of petition does not change God, giving information God doesn’t have, prompting God to do something God was not intending to do. Our prayer of petition changes us. It makes us more receptive to what God wants to give us. By naming what we need to God, we become more aware of what we need from God and become more open to what God wants to give us. In the prayer that has become known as the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus names for us what it is we really need. We often pray for what we want, but what we want does not always correspond to what we need. According to Jesus, in the prayer he has given us, we need to acknowledge in our thoughts, words and deeds, the priority of God’s kingdom over all earthly kingdoms. We are to pray for the coming of God’s kingdom, which Jesus identifies with the doing of God’s will, as Jesus reveals it to us in his teaching and by his life. According to Jesus’ prayer, we need ‘daily bread’. We need sustenance for body and soul, and when others are deprived of such sustenance, we need to provide for them out of our own resources. According to Jesus’ prayer, we need to pray for forgiveness for our sins against God and God’s people, while being ready to pass on the forgiveness we have received to those who sin against us. Finally, we need to pray for the grace to remain faithful to the Lord’s way, especially when we are tempted to take a path that is not God’s will for us. We pray this prayer so often that we can fly through it. It is worth praying it slowly and meditatively, because it reflects God’s desire for our lives.