Our Father

Homily for Tuesday of the First Week in Lent

Today’s Gospel text offers us seven verses that were omitted from the Gospel text we proclaimed on Ash Wednesday. I am sure that you remember that first we were told to give alms in secret. Our left hand is not to do what the right hand is doing.

Secondly, we were to pray in secret. Immediately after this, Jesus gave what has become known as the Lord’s prayer. We were told to go into our rooms when we pray, and we are told not to babble like the pagans. This is a reference to people who simply repeat the name of their god or goddess over and over. An example of this is given in the First Book of Kings when Isaiah challenges the prophets of Baal. They chant over and over again, “Come to us, O Baal.”

Jesus gives us a typical rabbinic prayer that calls God “Father.” The interesting part follows as we say, “Hallowed be your name.” We all know that the word “hallow” means “holy.” However, stop and think about this for a moment. Are we simply stating that God is holy? Who gives us our daily bread? Who forgives us? Who never leads us into temptation? Who delivers us from evil?

Of course, the answer to all these questions is Our Father. If this is true of all these actions, does it not follow that it is God who hallows his name. Though the “hallowing” of the divine name could be understood as reverence done to God by human praise and by obedience to his will, this is more probably a petition that God hallow his own name, i.e., that he manifest his glory by an act of power, in this case, by the establishment of his Kingdom in its fullness.

We all yearn for the day when God will come in glory, as we read yesterday. By fulfilling the promise of God’s Kingdom, we pray that God will come soon, that God acts so that all come to know him as the only source of holiness.