From the responsorial psalm: “Praise the LORD, all you nations, glorify him, all you peoples! Go out to all the world, and tell the Good News.”
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke (Lk 11:1-4)
Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name, your Kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test.”
One of the disciples sees Jesus praying as he must have often seen him do and approaches him. The need to be close to God as Jesus is close to him stirs in the disciple the desire to know how Jesus prays. In Luke’s version of the familiar Lord’s Prayer, we hear the acknowledgment of God’s holiness and the Son’s commitment to accomplish his will. When forgiveness is ours to give to others, God is able in turn to forgive us our sins. In perfect filial trust, Jesus prays for the protection and care that only the Father is capable of. Our Father is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the Gospel acclamation, we hear: “You have received a spirit of adoption as sons and daughters through which we cry: Abba! Father!”
God, as much as I have hopes about the course of the day, its actual unfolding is not in my hands but in yours. Help me trust in your mercy and abandon all of my hopes and desires to you; do with them what you will. As Saint John Henry Newman said: “I come to you, O Lord, not only because I am unhappy without you, not only because I feel I need you, but because your grace draws me on to seek you for your own sake, because you are so glorious and beautiful.” Saint John Leonardi, pray for us!
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.