Dear Readers
God is a spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.
Our Father is a prayer for all people dictated by Jesus in response to the request from the disciples when they saw Jesus praying. They were so amazed they wanted to pray in the same way. The disciples said to Jesus, “Teach us how to pray.” That lesson from Jesus is so important, as the one lesson on how to pray. The Our Father consists of seven requests, (for wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord) and we should not be afraid of asking the Lord, because He is willing to offer us what we need. Some people say that to request or to ask is not the best way to pray.
We know we have to thank God, and to praise Him but, it is a part of our life, if we are humble, that we depend on God completely. We turn to Him and ask. When we pray the Our Father we turn to the Father. We not only believe in God but in the Holy Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “When you pray say, ‘Our Father’”. It is a tremendous thing because we dare to say it. God is all powerful, omnipotent, the creator but, we dare to say, ‘Thanks to the Lord’.
So we say, “Our Father”. If you have a great experience of your earthly father, you understand when we say ‘Our Father’, who is the real Father of us all. It helps us to understand that when we turn to God, when we realise that He is Our Father, we dare to ask as Jesus taught us: we are allowed to ask God who is Our Father.
Try and say to God daily, “Father, Father.” it is very pleasing to Him. If you have a son and he says, “Daddy, daddy, daddy.” it is pleasing to your heart.
We say this prayer in the plural form as this is not about me, but about us. We belong to a community of people when we say, “Our Father who art in heaven.” It means that God is over us, above us, somewhere else. He is the mystery itself. We should have reverence for God when we pray because He is in heaven, He is transcendent over us, beyond or above the range of normal or physical human experience, which reminds us of the holiness of God.
I assure you of the constant daily prayers of the priests of the Congregation of St Michael the Archangel for all our readers and their families.
God bless you.
Fr Peter Prusakiewicz CSMA