Prayer as a conversation with God. What our prayer looks like.

We have certainly experienced many moments in our lives when we don’t want anything, and we don’t succeed in anything! Then we take everything, even with prayer, as a burden, something we “have to” and not what we want! Jesus said to the apostles: “You will pray like this:” (Mt 61,9).

He speaks to prayer! And not just any prayer, but about the prayer of 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. He prays not because he wants to teach them how to pray, not because he wants to give them a “good example.” It is a spontaneous, ever-present expression of his union with the Father because it is his own.

And this inner devotion, and warmth shine through his entire external actions, attitude, and style, and he is always an example. It is the same when praying alone, with disciples, or among crowds. But his prayer excites the disciples. After all, they were men of prayer, but they did not yet know how to pray and beg and did not hear. That’s why they beg him: “Lord, teach us to pray as you do!” Jesus says: “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”(Matthew 6:8). He teaches them the “Our Father” prayer, which consists of one address and six petitions. The first expresses our interest in God’s kingdom, which will be among us if we do God’s will. The others express our desire for bread, forgiveness, and protection from sin, that is the desire for what we require daily to be able to fulfill God’s wishes and thereby bring God’s kingdom closer.

This text is shorter in Luke than in Matthew, but it does not change the fact 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 the 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.

How is my prayer? Do I pray at all? And when I pray, what do I experience? Isn’t there a kind of superficiality or mendacity? Of course, we all know how to “recite” this prayer by heart from a young age, but how many times have we tried to address our Father with it in sincerity, humility, trust, and the silence of our hearts? Let us never forget and remember that if we say the words of the prayer to our Father, we open the way to his heart! Let’s ask the Holy Spirit to help us pray with joy in our hearts, religiously, sincerely, persistently, and with the most significant trust and then so that we can look forward to meetings with Him! Let’s start today!