Our prayer. Encourage persistent and humble prayer.

We know when we don’t want anything and we fail! At that time, we take everything, even with prayer, as a burden, something we “have to” and not what we want! Even Jesus knew what, among other things, would await us in life, and therefore: “One of his disciples said to him: Lord, teach us to pray!” (Luke 11:2)

Today’s Gospel tells us precisely about prayer! And not just any prayer, but about the blessing of our Lord Jesus! If we read carefully not only today’s Gospel but all four Gospels where the life of Jesus is described, we see Jesus in them praying often. He prays with them in front of them. But now he prays alone in a lonely place, all night long… He prays not because he wants to teach them how to pray, not because he wants to give them a “good example.” Simply because it is his own, it is a spontaneous, ever-present manifestation of his connection with the Father, and this inner devotion and warmth shines through his entire external action, attitude, and style that he is always an example. He is the same when praying alone, with disciples, among crowds. But his prayer excites the disciples. They were, after all, men of worship, but they did not yet know and did not hear how to pray and ask. That is why they beg him: “Lord, “When you pray, say: ‘Our Father. . .’

He taught them the prayer “Our Father,” which consists of one address and six requests. The first three express our interest in the kingdom of God, which will be among us if we do God’s will. The other three express our desire for bread, forgiveness, and protection from sin, i.e., the desire for what we need daily to fulfill God’s wishes and thereby bring God’s kingdom closer. The address with which this prayer begins and the requests with which it continues are a brief but, at the same time, very comprehensive creed. This text is shorter in Luke than in Matthew, but it does not change that even though we have it in two variations, God is here for us as a Father, a representative of justice and love, gratitude and mercy. With this prayer of the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus indicated that the requests we present to God should be humble like the requests of subjects when they stand before a king, trusting like the requests of children when they stand before their father, and benevolent like the requests of those who have decided to help as many of them as possible, and they should also be persistent.

So we can confidently say it is the most sublime and complete prayer ever uttered by man’s lips. It is the Lord’s prayer, the prayer of our St. mass. He is the father of our joys and our pains. Jesus himself told us how to pray and what to ask for. He tells us this today and wants to teach us to pray like his apostles. The question is: Do I like to learn from him? Let’s not be afraid and trust him. Let us never forget and always remember that if we pray to our Father, we open the way to his heart!