Tuesday of the First Week of Lent
In Lent we are called to renew our efforts at living the Christian life through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. And I find myself at this time of year thinking more about what it means to pray well, that is to offer up prayer that is pleasing to God. Thankfully in the lectionary for today we have a couple of readings that help us to reflect on this topic. The gospel reading for today describes how Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray. The words of the Lord’s prayer are very familiar to us. We say them every time we go to mass. Perhaps we also say them daily at home. It’s interesting that Jesus contrasts this prayer to that of the pagans. We do not need to appease our God with sacrifice of many words. Instead, Jesus says, God knows what we need before we even ask for it. We need to pray in the confidence that God loves us and will hear our prayer.
Because the gospel passage was so familiar to me, I decided to focus on how I could understand it better by reflecting on it in the light of the first reading. When I did this I noticed three points of comparison between the two readings that seemed significant. First, Isaiah compares the words of God to rain that pours forth from the sky to water the earth. This water then nurtures plants and crops, which allows people to make bread. Isaiah here paints a very striking image of the effectiveness of God’s words in bringing about and carrying out his will in the world. I am reminded at this point of the fact that Jesus himself is sometimes called ‘the Word’ (see John 1). Seeing the connection between God’s word, as Isaiah describes it, and Jesus reminds me that Jesus himself is the Word who is sent out into the world to do God’s will.
Second, both Isaiah and Jesus mention bread. Isaiah talks about how God waters the earth so that farmers can grow grain for bread. Jesus teaches his disciples to pray that God will give us our daily bread. Daily bread here means not just the food we need to live or the satisfaction of our material needs but much more than this it refers to what will nourish us spiritually. Notable also is that Jesus himself is called the Living Bread (John 6). So in asking for our daily bread, we are asking to share in Jesus’ life. Furthermore I am reminded here of Jesus’ words: “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me” (John 4: 34). He is saying there that his one aim in life is to do God’s will.
That brings me to the third point. Jesus’ instructions on how to pray indicate that we do not just rely on Jesus to do God’s will but we ourselves are called to do God’s will. He tells us to start our prayers by saying, “Thy will be done, thy kingdom come.” So it is God’s will and not our own that becomes the focus of our prayer, even though we are supposed to ask God for what we need.
In response to the readings, then, I find myself asking some about my own prayers. Do I pray in confidence that God will hear my prayer? What is my intention in praying? Do I always think about what I am asking for? And do these prayers express an earnest desire to put my life in God’s hands?
Joel Schickel