Gospel Reflection For The 19th day of June in the year of Our Lord, 2025
Matthew 6:7-15
6 But thou when thou shalt pray, enter into thy chamber, and having shut the door, pray to thy Father in secret: and thy Father who seeth in secret will repay thee. 7 And when you are praying, speak not much, as the heathens. For they think that in their much speaking they may be heard. 8 Be not you therefore like to them, for your Father knoweth what is needful for you, before you ask him. 9 Thus therefore shall you pray: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. 10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our supersubstantial bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil. Amen. 14 For if you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences. 15 But if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offences.
The Our Father is the most important of all prayers, because it is the one taught to us by God, Himself. Jesus, who became man for our salvation, made us His brothers and sisters. This is unfathomable. Grace is a gift freely given, and that such grace is given to us is even more difficult to comprehend. As both our God and our Brother in the person of Christ, He gives to us His Father and His mother. He even allows us to share in His divinity and eternal life. Truly, His generosity knows no bounds!
Saint Teresa of Avila wrote a classic work on this simple prayer in Her Way of Perfection. This great saint used this simple prayer as a simple meditation, opening riches of the spirit to even the most simple of us. She advised us to envision Jesus teaching us the Our Father, just as He did to His Holy Apostles. In the interior of our minds, we may have fellowship with our Lord as we consider each phrase of this prayer. She wrote beautifully and with far deeper meaning than I will represent. The following is merely my interpretation and understanding.
Our Father – God is our Father!
Who art in Heaven – Where is Heaven? Heaven is where God is. Where is God? God is within our hearts!
Hallowed be thy name – God is Holy and this is proper worship.
Thy Kingdom come – God's Kingdom is His Church and Heaven, of which we are a part.
Thy Will be done – Complete trust in our loving Father leads us into absolute submission to His divine providence.
On earth as it is in Heaven – As the Kingdom of God reigns on earth through us and the Church.
Give us this day our daily bread – We trust in God to provide for us as our Father both in our material needs and spiritually, especially through the Eucharist.
And forgive us our trespasses – We acknowledge our sins and ask forgiveness.
As we forgive those who trespass against us – we must show mercy and the love of God.
And lead us not into temptation – we are weak and sinful and we ask God's help.
But deliver us from evil – We ask God's protection.
Amen – let it be, we give our full consent and participation in the salvific mission of Christ as soldiers and servants in the Kingdom of God.
Judson Carroll is the author of several books, including his newest, A Daily Catholic Devotional, Reflections on the Daily Mass Readings July-December, 2025 It is Available in paperback on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F5BHFZ7X
and
Confirmation, an Autobiography of Faith. It is also Available in paperback on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C47Q1JNK
His podcast is The Uncensored Catholic https://www.spreaker.com/show/the-uncensored-catholic
I find this post to be most compelling. When as a child of 3 or 4 and was first taught to pray, as often as possible I would go off and pray alone. I would ultimately, almost without exception, find myself in the magnificent and irresistible presence of God and in rapt attendance to Him. My child's mind and heart could not want to resist any opportunity to be with Him. I recall that, without a word passing between Us, I would express to God my own dispositions along with my inquiries which always seemed to be most graciously compelled by His while I received His of me as well in this same manner. At the time, I also tendered, out of obedience to my mentors, the simple prayers which were mostly those of the Rosary that I had only recently learned from them. I found pretty much all of these to be less than compelling expressions of my increasingly relentless desire to please God in a manner I perceived would actually get a rise out of Him, and these really did not at the time. Because of this, for Half of my life I ignorantly abandoned their use in my prayer except in liturgical expressions of worship.
At midlife, after a life of much greater conflict and strife than I would care to relive here, these learned prayers began to filter back and be recalled to me in my contemplation of God, one prayer by one, and one phrase before another. The first words I became assured were presented to me by God for my deliberation were simply "our Father". That was it. Suddenly, I was compelled by them as never before. Rather than a deliberation of mere words or concepts, consideration of these two words became what I can only describe as a relentless immersion in the dispositions of God; truly a capturing of my heart and soul by my true Father that on the basis of these alone continued for weeks. Later subsequent phrases that are included in the "Our Father" followed, one by one to the end over the next months, and for years by the phrases of other prayers from the Rosary. When the plea, "Do not lead us into temptation" was proposed to be removed from the Our Father, I was incensed and repulsed and greatly offended in my spirit because I had become aware of precisely why these words had long ago been included.
Today, I admit that tendering one decade of the Rosary in prayer may take me an entire night or so when expressed in contemplation of the dispositions of our Father, our Savior, Beloved Holy Spirit, and our Mother. I cannot bring myself to conclude that my incomplete recitation of the Rosary, which I regret occurs more often than not now, offends our Triune God or our Mother more than excluding these expressions from my prayer altogether as I once did. Largely because of this, since then I have a new expectation of every expression of prayer we may choose to tender to God. Within every expression of our prayer, our magnificent Benefactor beckons our entry into His blessed Heart, uniting in a perfectly mutual union, His with ours. Now. instead of my prayer arising out of my humanity as it once did, it now rises from participation in the nature of God and my destiny of Sainthood, as was obviously the case with St. Theresa. As a true Son of God, I can approach the throne of our Father in prayer attendant only to Him fully resident in Heaven while yet here on earth.
This in essence is the choice that our God offers every single one of us here on earth. We can strive in futility attempting to drag the life of earth to Heaven for its sanctification which is always a scrupulous exercise conducted in the worst of pride or we can choose to bring the life of God that is resident as a result of our embodiment by God within our unique Sainthood. This is a surrender of the truly exquisite selflessness and a full participation in that of our Savior on our behalf. It is one that becomes as incessantly and consummately vulnerable as His is, and is likewise always, without question or explanation, perfectly at risk to the convictions, the needs, and desires of our Father. I would suggest making the choice of our convictions here very wisely, carefully, and above all, without our pitiful assumptions about the absolute need, before our entry into Heaven, of a very personal and intimate communion with our God.
This touched my heart mightily!!!!!