Thursday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
Although short and seemingly simplistic, Jesus provides an archetypical model of prayer in the passage from Matthew today that profoundly encapsulates all the essential elements for cultivating right relationship with God.
First and foremost are praise and reverence. By addressing God as “Father”, we recognize our created-ness and our total dependence on God to provide for us as His little children. We likewise recognize that God is in Heaven and that Heaven is Heaven because God is there. With Him comes the fullness of all beauty, truth, and possible goodness. As such, we ask that God’s Kingdom and will be done on Earth because the fulfillment of true human happiness is only possible through union in love with the will of God.
We pray for God’s Providence when we ask for our daily bread, but we do not ask merely for physical necessities. We also ask for the spiritual nourishment of the Eucharist that contains the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ to strengthen us that we might be more and more willing and able to participate and live into the divine life and will of God (John 4:34).
In acknowledging our fallen human weakness and instances of personal sinfulness, we justly ask God to forgive us. In this, we trust in His infinite mercy and desire to forgive and heal. We likewise recognize the necessity of imitating God in forgiving and reconciling with those who have wronged us as well. With the final line, we pray that God give us the strength that we might not stray from relationship with Him, but rather that we might live ever more fully into loving relationship with God with every thought, word, and action of our lives.