The "Our Father" is one of the most used prayers within the world. Every single time that we gather together for the Mass it is a prayer that is uttered by our lips. As we move our fingers along the beads of our rosary it is the prayer which begins each new decade where we have the opportunity to mediate upon Christ's birth, death, and resurrection. It is a prayer that is offered within the silence of our hearts when we feel the pull of temptation upon our souls or struggle to forgive those who have transgressed against us. It is also a prayer that is able to connect us to people of other Christian faith traditions and thus is used often when people gather together to pray. We have heard this prayer offered a countless amount of times to where many us probably rush across these words without paying any attention to what we are saying. By the vast use of this prayer it seems as if it requires no preparation whatsoever to enter into. By paying attention to the words of the Mass we will hopefully realize that this reality is not so.
Prior to our recitation of the Lord's Prayer the priest says: "At the Savior's command and formed by divine teaching, we dare to say." Hopefully the use of the word "dare" makes us realize that we are praying something very profound instead of something that is a mere routine. In our recitation of the Lord's Prayer we come to confront boldly each word that we say because in uttering these words we are allowing ourselves to enter into the presence of God as humans who are limited by our sinfulness. Each word that we dare to offer to God has much weight assigned to it; as each word that Abraham dared to offer in the presence of God was given much weight. Inside of Genesis these words of intercession on behalf of the people were so great that God was willing to allow the people of Sodom and Gomorrah to be spared due to the righteousness of only ten people. Abraham's words towards God were always offered with a focused heart that was filled with humility as he dared to speak, may we also do the same.
Saint Gregory of Nyssa spoke concerning our bravery to call upon the name "Father" at the beginning of the Lord's Prayer by saying: "See how great a preparation you need, to be able to say boldly to God, O Father, for if you have your eyes fixed on worldly things, or court the praise of men, or are a slave to your passions, and utter this prayer, I seem to hear God saying, ‘Whereas you that are of a corrupt life call the Author of the incorruptible your Father, you pollute with your defiled lips an incorruptible name. For He who commanded you to call Him Father, gave you not leave to utter lies. But the highest of all good things is to glorify God’s name in our lives." With this is mind we are daring to call upon the Father inside of our prayer and we therefore must include "hallowed by your name" because through this statement we are asking God that we may remain just and abstain ourselves from all forms of evil as we enter into the relationship of prayer with the Father.
Nothing that we encounter in the life of faith should be taken for granted. We should be able to think this concerning our prayer and also the reception of the sacraments. As Saint Paul instructed in his letter the bond against us has been obliterated through Christ's death upon the cross. This bond was brought about through the sin of Adam and Eve, but through our baptisms our original sin has been buried with Christ who restored us to life by His sacrifice. From this new life that we have experienced we cannot return to our old ways, but instead continue to endure in our living out of the Gospel. Therefore we cannot take for granted the many ways where we have the opportunity to come into relationship with the Father. To take these opportunities for granted would be allowing ourselves to deny the transformation that took place in our lives on the day of our baptisms. The disciples had this desire for transformation when they came to Christ with their desire to learn how to pray.
Let us not allow ourselves to refuse this transformation by our unwillingness to answer the door of faith due to our lack of persistence. This door always remains open to us if we are willing to trust in prayer and within the sacraments. If we take these experiences for granted due to repetition or a lack of concern is to allow the door of faith to remain closed. Let us not rush by the reception of Holy Communion where we don't give ourselves proper time for preparation or even following communion give no time to be thankful for Christ truly present in the Eucharist who has come into our lives by escaping out the door prior to the conclusion of the Mass. Let us not be so consumed with our own "so conceived" perfection that we are unable to admit that we are in need of the sacrament of reconciliation that will truly bring healing into our lives. Let us realize that in our prayers we call out to the name of the Father that is all holy and therefore let us not remain content with our sinfulness as we enter into the divine presence of God. We can remain persistent as we saw with Abraham when he dared to speak to God. His persistence brought about great transformation that can also be felt by each of us if we are willing to call on the name of the Lord for help.
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