Friends,
our Gospel for today gives us an opportunity to reflect on the great
prayer that Jesus taught us. Think how this prayer links us to all of
the great figures in Christian history, from Peter and Paul to
Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Francis of Assisi, John Henry Newman, G.K.
Chesterton, John Paul II, and right up to the present
day.
A
desire to pray is planted deep within us. This just means the desire to
speak to God and to listen to him. Keep in mind that prayer is not
designed to change God’s mind or to tell God something he doesn’t know.
God isn’t like a big city boss or a reluctant pasha whom we have to
persuade. He is rather the one who wants nothing other than to give us
good things—though they might not always be what we want.
Can
you see how this prayer rightly orders us? We must put God’s holy name
first; we must strive to do his will in all things and at all times; we
must be strengthened by spiritual food or we will fall; we must be
agents of forgiveness; we must be able to withstand the dark powers.
Wednesday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 463
Brothers and sisters:
After fourteen years I again went up to Jerusalem with Barnabas,
taking Titus along also.
I went up in accord with a revelation,
and I presented to them the Gospel that I preach to the Gentiles–
but privately to those of repute–
so that I might not be running, or have run, in vain.
On the contrary,
when they saw that I had been entrusted with the Gospel to the uncircumcised,
just as Peter to the circumcised,
for the one who worked in Peter for an apostolate to the circumcised
worked also in me for the Gentiles,
and when they recognized the grace bestowed upon me,
James and Cephas and John,
who were reputed to be pillars,
gave me and Barnabas their right hands in partnership,
that we should go to the Gentiles
and they to the circumcised.
Only, we were to be mindful of the poor,
which is the very thing I was eager to do.
And when Cephas came to Antioch,
I opposed him to his face because he clearly was wrong.
For, until some people came from James,
he used to eat with the Gentiles;
but when they came, he began to draw back and separated himself,
because he was afraid of the circumcised.
And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him,
with the result that even Barnabas
was carried away by their hypocrisy.
But when I saw that they were not on the right road
in line with the truth of the Gospel,
I said to Cephas in front of all,
"If you, though a Jew,
are living like a Gentile and not like a Jew,
how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?"
Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished,
one of his disciples said to him,
"Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples."
He said to them, "When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name,
your Kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread
and forgive us our sins
for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us,
and do not subject us to the final test."
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