One of my favourite spiritual books is Letters of Direction from the French Abbé de Tourville (1842-1903). A section of advice I return to frequently is this: ‘Say to yourself very often about everything that happens, ‘God loves me! What joy! And reply boldly, ‘And I truly love Him too!’ Then go quite simply about all that you have to do and do not philosophise any more. For these two phrases are beyond all thought and do more for us than any thought could do; they are all-sufficing’. We sometimes make Christianity more difficult than it is – its purpose, our purpose is to welcome the fact we’re loved by God and hand on that truth to others.
The Lord’s prayer opens up Christianity as a place of belonging, purpose, empowerment, forgiveness and direction. Reflecting on this Sunday’s readings I find they illuminate each clause of the prayer Jesus taught us. We’ll go for these five headings as a way to understand today’s scripture, as an opportunity to reflect upon the Lord’s Prayer and as a reminder of the main blessings we possess as Christians: belonging, purpose, empowerment, forgiveness and direction.
First belonging. ‘Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name’. Our second reading from Ephesians 2 stated that we believers have access in one Spirit to the Father. To be a Christian is to belong to God as Father and to one another. The Church is God’s never ending family. Sunday by Sunday we come to say ‘Our Father’ – not my Father but Our Father for the God and Father of Jesus is your God and my God. Jesus died to gather together the scattered children of God and that gathering occurs through baptism and through faith. Our first reading from Jeremiah 23 prophesies such a gathering and shepherding announced by Our Lord in the Holy Gospel.
Someone asked that heroine of Calcutta’s slums Mother Teresa how she prayed and she answered I just say again and again ‘Our Father’. When we pray we affirm our belonging both to God and to our neighbour. ‘Hallowed be thy name’ – Jesus leads us in contemplation of God as his Father and ours. Today’s Gospel from Mark 6 is a striking example and reminder of our need to set time apart day by day to contemplate God and to say the Our Father. ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while’, Jesus says. How can we take up that invitation in our own daily routine? To contemplate our belonging to God and bring to our loving Heavenly Father in prayer the sisters and brothers he has put on our hearts?
Secondly the Lord’s prayer expresses a sense of purpose. ‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done‘. That purpose, that will, is stated in the New Testament. It’s a purpose for the cosmos and for the church, one stated in Colossians of ‘bringing all things together in Christ’ and in today’s second reading one of growing ‘into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God’. As Christians we have a purpose in life, that of drawing the world together. I think of how iron filings randomly scattered form up beautifully when magnetised. You and I are here in Church to be magnetised by the love of God shown to us through word and sacrament in Jesus Christ. We leave Church that bit more assured of God’s love and that bit better instruments of healing and reconciliation in a broken world.
One of my favourite spiritual books is this, Letters of Direction from the Abbe de Tourville who lived in France from 1842 to 1903. A section of advice I return to frequently is this: ‘Say to yourself very often about everything that happens, ‘God loves me! What joy! And reply boldly, ‘And I truly love Him too!’ Then go quite simply about all that you have to do and do not philosophise any more. For these two phrases are beyond all thought and do more for us than any thought could do; they are all-sufficing’. We sometimes make Christianity more difficult than it is – its purpose, our purpose is to welcome the fact we’re loved and hand on that amazing truth to others.
Thirdly the Our Father prays for empowerment. ‘Give us this day our daily bread‘ – being Christian is counter to self-sufficiency. We’re called to live in the love of Godwith an eternal perspective.
In other words living in the here and now, in the present moment – for God is there and nowhere else. We don’t find God or life in the mental constructs of the past or future but in the present.
And the present has a present! ‘Give us this day our daily bread’. This phrase has all sorts of interpretations, here at the eucharist for example when the Lord’s prayer is said as preparation for receiving Christ’s body in the form of Bread. Christianity ultimately is empowerment. They found that empowerment in Jesus Christ from the very start as we heard in today’s Gospel. Jesus we heard ‘had compassion for them’... representing a God who answers prayers, who gives us the Holy Spirit. ‘They laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed’.
It may be as you sit in Saint John’s this morning you sit with a weight of care. Ask the Lord to empower you by taking that burden from you, to free you to be his more effective servant. He will do - if you ask!
Fourthly forgiveness. ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us’. Some say Christianity’s heavy on guilt. It’s precisely the opposite because the Holy Spirit that impacts us from the Cross of Jesus delivers every penitent heart from guilt. As we heard in the second reading: ‘in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace… Jesus has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility caused by unrepented sin. To know your sins are forgiven you is a knowledge the whole world would quickly seek if only it knew it was on offer in Christian faith. We come to church to receive that assurance in Jesus’s Hour, the hour of Sunday Mass which irradiates us with God’s love and mercy. Let all that is on your conscience be given to him this morning – prepare for the new start forgiveness offers week by week, hour by hour if needs be!
Fifth and last aspiration of the Lord’s Prayer is direction. ‘Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil‘. If Christianity brings belonging, purpose, empowerment and forgiveness lastly it provides spiritual direction. As we heard in the Gospel how ‘many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat… because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and Jesus began to teach them many things’. That teaching is handed on by the church through a network of spiritual directors with gifts of listening and teaching relevant to discerning the forward course in life set by the Holy Spirit. Communicants can be put in touch with a spiritual director by their clergy who are themselves, the priests among us, given authority to offer one-to-one absolution of sin.
To pray the Lord’s prayer is to set yourself against sin, temptation and evil. Jesus himself we know was impermeable to these but he left a prayer for us with a couple of phrases irrelevant to him. Since Our Lord came into the world to provide the remedy for sin the prayer he taught is a realistic prayer for us. We so often find ourselves going in a direction away from the prompting of the Holy Spirit through nameless fear, anxiety, inappropriate sadness, self-centredness, the tendency to see endless snags ahead or through a basic lack of hope. These feelings can prevent us doing what’s best and we need to counter them and seek help from God and maybe other Christians to do so.
The Lord’s prayer displays Christianity as a place of belonging, purpose, empowerment, forgiveness and direction. It’s deep, hopeful and forward looking. The Lord bless us as we pray the ‘Our Father’ prayer of belonging and contemplate God day by day, as we pray and act according to his purpose with the empowerment of his Spirit, seeking forgiveness and spiritual direction. ‘For thine, Lord, is the kingdom, the power and the glory for ever and ever. Amen.’
