Luke 11:1-13 — “Lord, Teach Us to Pray.” Though Jesus begins His model prayer with an outward-facing gesture: “Our Father,” we still so often begin our prayer with an inward-oriented focus: our needs instead of our Father. Though Jesus encouraged us to pray with confidence for “our daily bread,” we still so often pray as though one day at a time in God’s grace were not enough. Though Jesus reminds us that the Father knows well how to give good gifts, we still forget when we do not receive exactly what we wanted that we also prayed “…but deliver us from evil.” The simple opening of the model prayer, “Our Father,” places us in right relationship with Abba, Dad, and keeps us humbly yet trustingly focused on our path of discipleship.

July 28, 2013
Msgr. William J. King