Tuesday of the First Week of Lent
In any sport, profession, or discipline, no matter how far a person has advanced, it always helps to practice the fundamentals. As a kid playing baseball, I remember how we would always warm up with a simple game of catch. And professional ballplayers warm up in the same way.
Today’s Gospel reading, in which Jesus teaches the Our Father, invites us to go back to the fundamentals of prayer. This short prayer, with its seven petitions, has been called a summary of the whole Gospel (Tertullian). In this prayer, Jesus teaches us to call God Father, to stand in his own relationship to God. In this prayer, Jesus teaches us to ask for what is most necessary and fundamental: that God’s name be hallowed, or made holy, in us; that God’s Kingdom be established in fullness; that God’s gracious will be accomplished here on earth. In this prayer, we ask for our daily bread, both spiritual and physical; we ask for forgiveness; we ask for deliverance from temptation and evil.
Today, let us take time to ponder what we pray and ask for in the Our Father. And let us ask that the Spirit might cultivate the attitudes and desires this prayer calls forth in us, so that we might learn to pray it with ever-greater sincerity and love.