“Your Father Knows What You Need” by Beth
DeCristofaro
Like a fire there appeared the prophet Elijah
whose words were as a flaming furnace. … Then Elisha, filled with the twofold
portion of his spirit, wrought many marvels by his mere word.
(Sirach 48:1, 12)
Jesus said to his disciples: “In praying, do
not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like
them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him. “This is how you are
to pray: ‘Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…
(Matthew 6:7-9)
Piety
I will sing to the LORD all my life;
I will sing praise to my God while I live.
May my meditation be pleasing to him;
I will rejoice in the LORD.
May sinners vanish from the earth,
and the wicked be no more.
Bless the LORD, my soul! Hallelujah!
(Psalm 104:33-35)
Study
Morning Prayer yesterday included Psalm 104,
one of my favorites:
Bless the LORD, my soul!...
How many are your works, O Lord!
In wisdom you have made them all. …
The ships are moving there,
and Leviathan you made to play with. …
God looks on the earth and it trembles;
touches the mountains and they smoke. (Verses
1, 24, 26, 32)
These brief verses touch on why this Psalm
moves me. It is a song of praise for the
glories, the might, the inventiveness and the playfulness of God. Amazingly, God made me able to praise, able
to stand in awe, able to sense reverent fear and able to laugh. And God also told us personally how to
converse with him.
Fr. Michael Simone at Boston College presented
his study of the Our Father. In calling
God by name, he says, God welcomes us into God’s presence and any action taken
in the divine name also makes the divine present. We are promised not only
earthy “daily bread” but also a “reliance on pure grace” which nurtures our
eternal souls.
Fr. Simone deliberates on the prayer’s private
and mediation elements. “I think all of
this, especially the mediative aspects, bring us back around to the first word
that we only see in Matthew, which is ‘Our Father.’ This is not just a prayer
for ourselves, it’s a prayer for the whole world. Every time we say it, it’s a
prayer for the whole world. I know how easy it is to rattle off this prayer
because I’ve probably been doing it since first grade. But we pray on behalf of
the world with this, and this is Jesus praying on behalf of the world. This is
a prayer for that kind of freedom and hope in providence, and in a sense of
being protected by God. But again, I think even more so, a sense to have this
kind of heart and spirit to be God’s trustworthy agents in the world. I think
that’s what Jesus was doing with this. I think that’s what he inherited from
his own Hebrew Bible tradition.”[i]
Action
Say the Lord’s Prayer slowly. Imagine the
infinite immensity of the Divine Being holding you in love. Breathe in the
truth that you are one of God’s unique works. Say the Lord’s Prayer again now
picturing the Divine Love holding our injured world and its billions of
suffering creatures. Ask for the grace
to hold all God’s works sacred.
[i] Fr. Michael Simone, SJ Boston College School Of Theology And
Ministry Continuing Education, Encore Access
https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/schools/stm/sites/encore/encore-access/our-father.html
Illustration: https://sfist.com/2019/10/18/multiple-whales-were-breaching-wildly-in-monterey-bay-right-after-tuesday-earthquake/
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