LETTING OUR PRAYER BE THE EXPRESSION OF OUR LIVES

20151007 LETTING OUR PRAYER BE THE EXPRESSION OF OUR LIVES

Readings at Mass

First reading

Jonah 4:1-11 ©

Jonah was very indignant; he fell into a rage. He prayed to the Lord and said, ‘Ah, Lord, is not this just as I said would happen when I was still at home? That was why I went and fled to Tarshish: I knew that you were a God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in graciousness, relenting from evil. So now, Lord, please take away my life, for I might as well be dead as go on living.’ The Lord replied, ‘Are you right to be angry?’

  Jonah then went out of the city and sat down to the east of the city. There he made himself a shelter and sat under it in the shade, to see what would happen to the city. Then the Lord God arranged that a castor-oil plant should grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head and soothe his ill-humour; Jonah was delighted with the castor-oil plant. But at dawn the next day, God arranged that a worm should attack the castor-oil plant – and it withered.

  Next, when the sun rose, God arranged that there should be a scorching east wind; the sun beat down so hard on Jonah’s head that he was overcome and begged for death, saying, ‘I might as well be dead as go on living.’ God said to Jonah, ‘Are you right to be angry about the castor-oil plant?’ He replied, ‘I have every right to be angry, to the point of death.’ The Lord replied, ‘You are only upset about a castor-oil plant which cost you no labour, which you did not make grow, which sprouted in a night and has perished in a night. And am I not to feel sorry for Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, to say nothing of all the animals?’

Psalm

Psalm 85:3-6,9-10 ©

You, O Lord, have mercy and compassion.

You are my God, have mercy on me, Lord,

  for I cry to you all the day long.

Give joy to your servant, O Lord,

  for to you I lift up my soul.

You, O Lord, have mercy and compassion.

O Lord, you are good and forgiving,

  full of love to all who call.

Give heed, O Lord, to my prayer

  and attend to the sound of my voice.

You, O Lord, have mercy and compassion.

All the nations shall come to adore you

  and glorify your name, O Lord:

for you are great and do marvellous deeds,

  you who alone are God.

You, O Lord, have mercy and compassion.

Gospel Acclamation

Ps118:24

Alleluia, alleluia!

Train me, Lord, to observe your law,

to keep it with my heart.

Alleluia!

Or

Rm8:15

Alleluia, alleluia!

The spirit you received is the spirit of sons,

and it makes us cry out, ‘Abba, Father!’

Alleluia!

Gospel

Luke 11:1-4 ©

Once Jesus was in a certain place praying, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.’ He said to them, ‘Say this when you pray:

“Father, may your name be held holy,

your kingdom come;

give us each day our daily bread,

and forgive us our sins,

for we ourselves forgive each one who is in debt to us.

And do not put us to the test.”’

LETTING OUR PRAYER BE THE EXPRESSION OF OUR LIVES

SCRIPTURE READINGS: JONAH 4:1-11; LK 11:1-4

The disciples in the gospel today must have been very impressed by the life of Jesus that they asked Him to teach them how to pray.  Yes, their desire to pray must have sprung from their desire to share the kind of life that Jesus lived.  Somehow, they knew that this must be the secret to where Jesus got His strength and energy to live such a selfless and directed life.  And to such a request, Jesus responded by teaching them the Our Father.

However, we must not be so naive to think that Jesus was merely imparting another formula prayer.  No, the reason why the Church has always upheld the importance of this prayer is not simply because Jesus taught this prayer to His disciples.  More importantly, this prayer is but the summary of His fundamental attitude towards God, life and His fellowmen.  In other words, the Our Father is a fitting summary of the life of Jesus Himself, in the way He relates to God, the world and others.   And so, to pray the Lord’s Prayer is simply to share in His fundamental attitudes towards God and life. Anyone who makes this prayer interiorly his own will have all his prayers answered because he begins to share in the life of God.  That is why it has been traditionally accepted that the Lord’s Prayer is the prayer of all prayers, the pattern of all prayers.

What, then, are these basic attitudes that we are called to adopt for our life-style?  Firstly, the openness to the absolute transcendence of God.  In calling God, our Father in heaven, Jesus invites us to surrender ourselves to the transcendence of God, the Mystery of all mysteries in life.  It is this humble recognition that life is more than what we can see, understand and enjoy on this earth, that we can be open to the limitless.  It would therefore be foolish for anyone of us to cling to this life.  Not to live beyond this earth and not to see beyond what this world can offer would limit our capacity to live fully.

Secondly, we are also called to trust in the providence of God.  If Jesus’ life was lived in utter freedom, it is because He lived in faith and trust in divine providence.  It was His trust in divine providence that enabled Him to live from moment to moment.  To ask the Father to give us our daily bread is simply an invitation to trust Him and His providence.  And unless we trust His divine providence, we cannot but be anxious about our tomorrows always.  And in our insecurity and anxiety, we begin to hoard, to be greedy, to be ambitious, to be selfish by protecting our interests first.  Such a kind of life will surely bring us no peace or joy because we will always be hoping for that tomorrow that will never come.  But when we begin to live in the present, then His kingdom is immediately present already.   We start experiencing His love now.

The third life principle of life for Jesus is simply to let go. Firstly, letting go with regards to God.  This is expressed in the petition, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.   In other words, what Jesus is sharing with us is that the kingdom of joy and peace can be ours if we learn to let go of our own will and make the will of God our own.  If not, then we will find ourselves battling with God all our lives, which inevitably leads to unhappiness.  Yes, there can be real peace in our lives only when we live a life of harmony with God’s laws and will.

Letting go must be applied to our relationship with ourselves and our fellowmen.  When Jesus asks to pray that we forgive others as we have been forgiven ourselves, He is telling us that in life we must learn to let go of our mistakes, our past and our guilt.  We must first and foremost learn to forgive ourselves and not to condemn ourselves since God does not condemn us.  Only when we have learnt to forgive ourselves, will we have the strength to forgive others – to let go of the mistakes that others have made.  All these because we realize that we have all sinned through ignorance and blindness.  “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they are doing” and “forgive me Father for I know not what I am doing” should prevail in our lives.  Yes, when we learn to let go of our hurts and bitterness in life, we will find a newfound freedom waiting for us at the doorsteps of our hearts.

In contrast, we have in the first reading, the prophet Jonah whose attitudes toward life contradict the life-principles of Jesus.  Although a prophet of God, he was more adamant in doing his own will than God’s will.  We read of how Jonah initially ran away from God’s will.  Then in today’s reading, we see his stubbornness again when he got angry with God because God relented and did not punish the Ninevites as he prophesied.  He was not open to God’s providential love and he could neither forgive God nor himself, nor the people of Nineveh.  Yes, he could not let go and trust in God.  For that reason, he became miserable and angry with the whole world including himself, so much so that he even wished that he would die.

Yes, today Jesus is inviting us to live the prayer that He taught us.  For Jesus, this prayer was very dear to Him, not because He composed it but because it summarizes so well His fundamental attitudes towards life.  His prayer was His life.  If we make His prayer our life, we too will be able to enter into that Abba experience of Jesus, recognizing that God is indeed our Father and we are all brothers and sisters of Jesus.  Indeed, unless we live what we pray as Jesus did, then no matter how many prayers we are going to say, they will almost be in vain. On the other hand, when we take our prayer seriously, our lives will be transformed. When others see us transformed by our prayer life, they too, like the disciples, will be curious and want to learn how to pray.  When that happens, when everyone is truly praying, then God’s kingdom will surely be realized on earth as in heaven.

Written by The Most Rev William Goh

Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore

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