Re: Introduction to the 'Daily Meditation on the Lord's Prayer'
Daily Meditation on the Lord’s Prayer
1. Our - Not just yours or mine but our Father. When our Lord Jesus taught us thus, He wanted us to bear in mind that we are brothers and sisters of the one, same Father.
~ “…love one another, as I have loved you.” (cf., Jn.15:9 –12)
2. Father - God is indeed the Great, Almighty King of Kings but when Jesus Christ, God Himself, taught us to pray He seemed to prefer that we call God Father. “…God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him;…” (Gen.1:27)
~ “Lord, what is man, that You notice him; mere man , that You pay attention to him? He is like a puff of wind; his days are like a passing shadow.” (Ps.144:3-4, cf., Ps.8:4)
~Thus says the Lord: “Can a woman forget her own baby and not love the child she bore? Even if a mother should forget her child, I will never forget you…I have written your name on the palms of My hands.” (cf., Is.49:15-16,GNB)
~ “Don’t be afraid, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name, you are Mine.” (Is.43:1)
3. …Who art in Heaven - What is Heaven? Where is Heaven? When we have God/Love in our hearts we have Heaven. When God/Love is absent, even the Garden of Paradise is but a grand, magnificent, beautiful cemetery. (cf.,1Jn.4 : 16, St. Therese of Lisieux)
~ “No one will say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is’; for the Kingdom of God is within you, among you.” (cf., Lk.17:21, GNB, JB)
4. Hallowed be Thy Name – “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment.” (Matt.22 : 37-38)
~ “Our hearts are made for You O Lord, and they are restless until they rest in You.”
(St. Augustine of Hippo)
~Carl Gustav Jung, a psychiatrist of international repute and former student of Sigmund Freud, says something similar in his book Modern Man in Search of a Soul: “Among all my patients in the second half of life – that is to say, over thirty-five – there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. …and none of them has been really healed who did not regain his religious outlook.”
5. Thy Kingdom come - “It is not those who say to Me ‘Lord, Lord’, who will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but the person who does the will of My Father in Heaven. “When the day comes many will say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord did we not prophesy in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, work many miracles in Your name?’ Then I shall tell them to their faces : I have never known you; away from Me, you evil men!” (Matt.7:21-23)
~Why? Because… “If I can speak like an angel, have the gift of prophecy, understanding all the mysteries there are, and knowing everything,… have faith in all its fullness, to move mountains,… give away all that I possess, piece by piece,… even let them take my body to burn it, but am without love, it will do me no good whatever.” (cf., 1Cor.13:1-3)
~ "The Lord does not consider the greatness of what we do so much as the love with which we put into it." (St. Teresa of Avila)
6. Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven -What is God’s will? Love, charity…
~ “God is love and anyone who lives in love lives in God, and God lives in him.” (1Jn.4:16)
~ “We are to love, then, because He loved us first.” (1Jn.4 : 19)
~ “The Lord does not consider the greatness of what we do so much as the love with which we do it.” (St. Teresa of Avila)
~ “…the slightest movement of disinterested love has more value than all the other acts of a human soul put together.” (St. John of the Cross : Spiritual Canticle XXIX)
~ “ The progress of a soul does not consist in thinking much of God, but in loving Him, and this love is gained by resolving to do much for Him.” (St. Teresa of Avila)
~ “…and from everything and in every knowledge, to seek the fruit of utility, and the praise and honour of God.” (Imit.3:54:17)
~ “ You want a guide to dictate your actions to you? Then you must read in the book of life, which contains the whole science of loving.” (Words of our Lord to St. Margaret Mary, quoted by St. Therese of Lisieux in Autob. XXX )
7. Give us this day, our daily bread - “Ask, and it will be given to you;…Everything is possible for anyone who has faith” (Matt.7:11, Mk.9:23)
~ “God does not command the impossible; but in commanding He tells you to do what you are able, to ask when you are not able, and He helps that you may be able.”
(St. Augustine of Hippo, in St.Alphonsus’ Pr.P.14)
~ “Read and meditate as much as you like; you will not please God and keep His law unless you ask Him for the help to keep it.” (St.Alphonsus Liguori, Pr.P.24)
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~ “Come to Me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest…learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matt.11:28-29)
8. Forgive us our trespasses – “My sins have caught up with me and I can no longer see… I’ve lost my courage. (Ps.40:12)
~ “…for though the will to do what is good is in me, the performance is not, with the result that instead of doing the good things I want to do, I carry out the sinful things I do not want.” (Rom.7:18-19)
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~ “The Lord is near to those who are discouraged; He saves those who have lost all hope.” (Ps.34:18)
~ “We are healed by the punishment He suffered, made whole by the blows He received.” (Is.53:5)
~ “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”(Lk.23 : 34)
~ Because You love Lord,
I want to love others.
I will love others.
I can love others (cf.,1Jn.4:19)
9. As we forgive those who trespass against us - “…our love is not to be just words or mere talk, but something real and active; like forgiving and other works of mercy; only by this can we be certain that we are children of the truth…” (cf., 1Jn.3:18-19)
10. And lead us not into temptation – “You should be awake, and praying not to be put to the test. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matt.26 : 41)
~ “I am the vine , you are the branches…cut off from Me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in Me withers;…” (Jn.15:5-6)
~ “Who are we? What is our strength to resist so many temptations? This is undoubtedly what God wanted that we, seeing our weakness, and there was no help elsewhere, in all humility should fly to him for merciful aid." (St.Bernard of Clairvaux)
11. But deliver us from evil - For it is not against human enemies that we have to struggle, but…the powers who originate the darkness in this world, the spiritual forces of evil…” (Ephes.6:12, cf.,Mk.13:21-23, Matt.24:23-25)
~ “In the world you will have trouble, but be brave: I have conquered the world.” (Jn.16 : 20, 22, 33)
~ "Be not afraid of sudden fear, or the desolation of the wicked, when it comes. For the Lord shall be your confidence..." (Prov.3:25)
~“ The power [of darkness] works secretly: it must be secretly undermined by loving Christians to fill the world with the power of Love.” (Gerald Vann, OP)
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