Teach Us To Pray

Homily for Wednesday of the Twenty-seventy Week in Ordinary Time

A risk we take in memorizing and repeating prayers often is growing so familiar with them that we don’t often think about how profound they are. In today’s passage from St. Luke’s Gospel, we once again encounter Jesus in prayer. His disciples are obviously so taken with his example that they ask him to teach them to pray. So much a part of our faith today that we also teach our children this prayer as their first prayer, we might take these words for granted.

We might be surprised to realize that in the early church, the Christian community chose to withhold teaching the Lord’s prayer to those interested in becoming Christian until they were baptized. St. Ambrose of Milan considered it a “pearl of great price.” From the earliest times, there were theological and practical reasons for sharing the prayer this way. Not least of which was that in those days of the Roman Empire, the prayer that Jesus taught us was treasonous! Christianity proclaims one God in heaven, and – contrary to state doctrine at that time – that God was not Caesar. Christians had to be so committed to their faith that they would risk their lives just to pray.

The Church’s memory of this fact is enshrined in the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults. On the third, fourth, and fifth Sundays of Lent, those who are to be baptized at the Easter vigil participate in the Scrutinies. In the third scrutiny on the Fifth Sunday of Lent, the catechumens are presented with a copy of the Lord’s Prayer. It is ritualized, therefore, as the last step before presenting oneself for baptism.

For most of us who live in relatively Christian, or pluralistic cultures, this prayer is so commonplace that we run the risk of taking it for granted. Careful examination of what Jesus presents to us reveals that this prayer is our spiritual mantra, our holy plea, and our radical directive. In this prayer we not only praise God and God’s name, we also state that our priority is the realization or coming of God’s Kingdom. Everything else is subject to that concern. Once we have stated that priority, we turn to our needs in maintaining a faith so strong that nothing will take precedence over our desire for the Kingdom of God.

As we come together around the altar, let us be mindful of what the Lord has given us – both in himself and in the words to approach him with our needs. May both of these gifts empower us to “go out to all the world and tell the good news.”