Pope: The ‘Our Father’ is the cornerstone of our
prayer life
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis
said that prayers are not magic words for Christians and when we pray the ‘Our
Father’ we can feel God looking at us and this prayer should be the cornerstone
of our prayer life. His words came during his mass celebrated on Thursday
morning in the chapel of the Santa Marta residence.
Jesus always turned to the
Father in the most challenging moments
Taking his inspiration from
the gospel reading where Jesus teaches his disciples to pray the “Our Father,
the Pope’s homily was a reflection on the value and meaning of prayer in the
life of a Christian. He noted that Jesus always used the word “Father” in the
most important or challenging moments of his life, saying our Father “knows the
things we need, before we even ask Him.” He is a Father who listens to us in
secret just like Jesus advised us to pray in secret.
“It’s through this Father
that we receive our identity as children. And when I say ‘Father’ this goes
right to the roots of my identity: my Christian identity is to be his child and
this is a grace of the Holy Spirit. Nobody can say ‘Father’ without the
grace of the Spirit. ‘Father’ is the word that Jesus used in the most important
moments: when he was full of joy, or emotion: ‘Father, I bless you for
revealing these things to little children.’ Or weeping, in front of the tomb of
his friend Lazarus: ‘Father, I thank you for hearing my prayer,’ or else at the
end, in the final moments of his life, right at the very end.”
Pope Francis went on to
stress how the word ‘Father’ was the one most used by Jesus in the most important
or challenging moments of his life. He warned that “unless we feel that we are
his children, without considering ourselves as his children, without saying
‘Father,’ our prayer is a pagan one, it’s just a prayer of words.
Praying the ‘Our Father’
is our cornerstone
In the same way, the Pope
stressed that the ‘Our Father’ prayer is the cornerstone of our prayer
life. If we are not able to begin our prayer with this word, he warned,
“our prayer will go nowhere.”
“Father.” It’s about feeling
our Father looking at me, feeling that this word ‘Father’ is not a waste of
time like the words in the prayers of pagans: it’s a call to Him who gave me my
identity as his child. This is the dimension of Christian prayer – ‘Father’ and
we can pray to all the Saints, the Angels, we can go on processions,
pilgrimages … all of this is wonderful but we must always begin (our prayers)
with ‘Father’ and be aware that we are his children and that we have a Father
who loves us and who knows all our needs. This is that dimension.”
Turning next to the part of
the 'Our Father' prayer where Jesus refers to forgiving those who “trespass
against us” just as God forgives us, Pope Francis explains that this prayer
conveys the sense of us being brothers (and sisters) and part of one family.
Rather than behaving like Cain who hated his own brother, he said, it’s so
important for us to forgive, to forget offences against us, that healthy
attitude of saying ‘let’s forget this’ and not harbour feelings of rancour,
resentment or a desire for revenge.
In conclusion, the Pope said
the best prayer we can say is to pray to our God to forgive everybody and
forget their sins.
“It’s good for us to
sometimes examine our own consciences on this point. For me, is God my
Father? Do I feel that He is my Father? And if I don’t feel that, let me ask
the Holy Spirit to teach me to feel that way. And am I able to forget offences,
to forgive, to let go of it, and if not, let us ask the Father: ‘these people
too are your children, they did something horrible to me … can you help me to
forgive them’? Let us carry out this examination of our consciences and it will
do us a lot of good, good, good. ‘Father’ and ‘our’: give us our identity as
his children and give us a family to journey with during our lives.”
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