Gospel Reflection For The 20th day of February in the year of Our Lord, 2024
Gospel
Matthew 6:7-15
6 But thou when thou shalt pray, enter into thy chamber, and having shut the door, pray to thy Father in secret: and thy Father who seeth in secret will repay thee. 7 And when you are praying, speak not much, as the heathens. For they think that in their much speaking they may be heard. 8 Be not you therefore like to them, for your Father knoweth what is needful for you, before you ask him. 9 Thus therefore shall you pray: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. 10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our supersubstantial bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil. Amen. 14 For if you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences. 15 But if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offences.
Continuing in the same vein as yesterday’s Gospel, here our Lord makes everything so very simple. He offers to us something no man since Adam had ever experienced. God is to be our personal Father and we can speak directly to Him without great ceremony. Even Abraham did not have this privilege, nor did Moses or Elijah. No matter how close they were to God, God was far above them. They had to approach Him reverently and with physical signs denoting their devotion. Of course, we pray reverently. But, we may pray in any circumstance, at any time.
Through our Lord, Jesus Christ, we are adopted into the Family of God. As the Bible teaches us, we speak boldly to God in a way that those who came before Jesus could not. We speak as children to our Father, just as Jesus spoke to His Father. This is something we must never take for granted. While the Jews had God as a father, no individual had Him as a personal Father. It is only through Jesus that we are elevated to this almost incomprehensible position. Not only can we not earn this position through our merits, to claim it without the grace of our Lord is blasphemy. The belief that Jesus was a mere man who claimed this relationship with God was a central reason for His condemnation by the Jews and His crucifixion. How more shocking would it be for you or I to claim to be sons of God, we who cannot perform miracles?!
Saint Josemaría Escrivá could be somewhat stern in his writings, but I recall a beautiful reflection that he wrote on the Our Father. He said that we should not worry when we are distracted in prayer. We should not be too hard on ourselves. We should simply pick ourselves up and start again. He said that God, as our Father looks on us as His children. Just as a child tries to recite something he has learned to please his father and forgets the words or becomes distracted, we are the same before our Father. We try and we fail. Our loving Father smiles and encourages us, pleased by our honest but stumbling effort.
My earthly father cared nothing for me. To understand that God is truly my Father has been quite a struggle. Saint Josemaría Escrivá’s words touched me deeply. Every day I pray that God will help me to understand that He is my Father and to understand my role as His son. Jesus gave us the way through this simple prayer.
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Gospel passages are taken from the Douay Rheims Bible.