Our Father: Prayer

IntroductionThis is the eleventh volume in the Daily Gospel series and it contains one complete week of complete Daily Gospel reflections. The purpose of this series is to introduce timely topics from the Gospel, which integrate critical values we face in the digital age. The purpose of this series is to introduce appropriate topics from the Gospel, which incorporate critical values we face in the digital age.The Daily Gospel series follows the Catholic Church’s liturgical calendar and seeks to offer small portions of the Gospel on a daily basis. The Daily Gospel has been at the heart of the Catholic Church for many centuries, but we have now entered a digital age. This has not changed the desire the faithful have for listening to the Gospel, but only the medium by which they find the word of God and apply it to their lives. This series of reflections dedicated to the Daily Gospel as given to us by the Catholic Church by the Bishops is hoped to be another means that the faithful can retrieve the Gospel thru various electronic Kindle, iPhone, tablets and iPad.In this daily Gospel reflection, we will turn our attention to Jesus teaching on Prayer, especially the Our Father, since this is the one prayer that he taught his disciples. Our focus will be on the passage St. Matt. Left of the Lord’s teaching in Matt. 6:7-15. The Lord’s prayer is also taught thru Mark 11:25 and Lk. 11:1-4. St. Matthew covers all of the petitions of the Our Father as we know and use it today in the Holy Mass and our private prayer. Your Father knows what you needIn praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.(Matt. 6:7-8) Jesus reminds the disciples that true prayer is not valid because of the beauty or number of words, but in the simplicity, purpose and kinds of petitions that are used. This type of prayer is traditionally referred to as vocal prayer since the person speaks to God in the form of setting requests or themes. St. Ignatius of Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises refers to this kind of prayer as a sort of pray that fills up other times, not within moments of contemplation. Other religious writers, such as St. Teresa of Avila says that the petitions of the Our Father lead to the highest forms of contemplation. St. Augustine himself refers to the Our Father as a prayer that captures a kind of petition to God. Jesus teaches his apostles to avoid any flattering words or useless and vain petitions that do not reveal the purpose of our prayer.The main point in this passage is that God knows all things, whether we speak to him about it or not, God will understand our needs and desires. He wouldn’t be God without being All-knowing. On the other hand, when we unveil our minds to God and speak to Him directly in faith, we become aware of God’s presence within us and his awareness of our inner life. Just as we talk to ourselves in an internal dialogue, which is not heard by others, so we speak to God thru interior prayer of faith, which is a secret prayer between our conscience and God. Often there is more repugnance on our part for our desire, not to reveal what we have going on in ourselves because we are so close to it, but God is more intimate still. God is always willing to receive us in prayer and wants for us to pray to him in secret. “The Kingdom of God is among you.” (Lk. 17:21) God is present invert person thru Creation, but he is also in some as his friends thru grace and the Holy Spirit. (Froget,1921) According to Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, who follows St. Thomas Aquinas, the Gifts of the Holy Spirit and the Beatitudes, which is God’s true presence in the soul, is contained in sanctifying grace which is infused in the soul and reaches it maturity thru conf