Give us this day our daily bread.
We return to the first person plural: the language of “we” and “our.” And in the verb “give,” we hear the universal voice of our primordial desires. It is the voice with which all creation groans, a voice calling out to God from the ends of the earth. Our desire is to receive; our call is “give us”; our longing is for “bread.” Not just any bread, but “daily” bread, to meet our constant need. “Supersubstantial” bread, to be literal. What else is this daily bread, then, but the very God we call “Father”? It is God, our origin, who alone nourishes and feeds us, whose life we long for.
Our desire, then, corresponds to and expresses a great truth which becomes prayer in the Our Father. “One does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (cf. Dt. 8:3). This is “the bread of God come down from heaven” that “gives life to the world” (cf. Jn.
This petition naturally flows from “thy Kingdom come,” and redeems our notions of “the will of God” as something to be resigned to, to be borne with or suffered through.
Pope John Paul’s Theology of the Body offers a lovely image of the
Thy kingdom come
Citizens of a democracy may be really tripped up by this petition. For many of us, God-as-King is strictly a biblical concept, unrelated to anything we have ever known or experienced. We are used to self-governing, to a vote, to majority rule. We are at the very least suspicious in the face of claims to royal prerogative. “Kingship” doesn’t go over real well. But
When we ask “thy Kingdom come,” we are asking to be “led by the Spirit of God,” with a resultant outpouring of the “fruits of the Spirit: charity, joy, peace, patience…” (cf. Gal. 5:22). Earthly rule cannot impose requirements for life on that level. All an earthly kingship can hope to do is limit harmful behavior and coordinate whatever good there is. The indwelling Spirit of God establishes us in an entirely different realm. It is the Spirit within us who cries out “Abba” (cf. Gal. 4:6), and in this Spirit we pray “thy Kingdom come!”
What’s in a name?
A name could be just a label: canned “TUNA” and not canned “CHICKEN”; “John SMITH” and not “John DOE.” But that’s not the real point of a name. “Name” bespeaks relationship. To withhold one’s name, to remain deliberately a-nonymous, is to refuse relationship, to cut off future possibilities, and even to thwart memory. On the other hand, how meaningful it is to hear our name from the lips of a person who knows us well, and who treats one’s name like a treasure. Like Mary Magdalen in the garden, we may not even recognize the other until we hear our own name pronounced. That sound brings to the fore the whole weight of the relationship: its history, its depth, its extent, its yet-to-be-realized hopes. Amazingly, the Our Father hints that we can, as it were, awaken all this in the very heart of God when we “call upon the name of the Lord” (cf. 1 Cor. 1:2), the name by which God has introduced himself to us.
May your name always be uttered by those who love you: “Hallowed be your name.”
The whole topic of fatherhood is a delicate theme for many who were subject to abuse, neglect or various forms of paternal abandonment. For this reason, it can be helpful for us to notice that Jesus doesn’t just give us the word “Father” as is, but “Our Father who art in heaven” (and the Greek in Matthew’s rendering of the prayer doesn't even have a verb, but simply “Our Father, the one in the heavens”). Jesus gives us an image for our prayer, “Father”—but then he takes it away with what follows: “in the heavens.” Immediately, the term is given a cosmic context that takes God’s fatherhood “out of this world.”
The appeal to “the heavens” opens up an overwhelmingly vast reference that we in the 21st century may miss. We do not even see “the heavens” in our night sky. The light of our cities dulls the edge of night’s darkness and dims the very stars. The few flickering lights we do see are as likely to be satellites as stars. We can’t even “see the heavens, the work of your hands, the moon and stars which you arranged” (cf. Ps. 8: 3), much less wonder at the care of the “Creator alma siderum” for the human being, so small on the face of the earth. And yet Jesus gives us the language of fatherhood: of origin, sharing of life, intimacy, connection, similarity. This Father in the heavens reigns in the interior castle in the center of our souls: not apart, not away, not beyond, not “out of reach” (cf. Dt. 30:11-14). To say “Our Father in the heavens” is to say that each one of us, too, is somehow “of the heavens,” or, to use Merton’s expression, “blazing like the sun.” Our interior depths are “platytera tou ouranou” (vaster than the heavens). This celestial reference also puts all of us on earth on an equal footing. In the Lord’s prayer, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (cf. Gal. 3:21), all in need of the same blessing. We are more than “brothers and sisters,” because Jesus’ reference to “the heavens” takes us far beyond the range of earthly fatherhood. It is the maker of the stars Jesus brings us before: “Our Father who art in heaven.”
Schoenstatt
We are receiving hospitality from the Schoenstatt Sisters, God bless them. This is my first encounter with their charism. The tiny chapel was dedicated by their founder.
In Wisconsin
Helping for a few days with book displays. Please pray for the catechists we'll meet.
Whom to cheer for? That is the question.
Conductor Paul French prepares for an evening recording session at St Josafat's Church. A Christmas album coming soon from the Mt. Carmel choir. (We have two more recording sessions this week, both at Mt. Carmel.)
Ya gotta love Chicago
Where else would a local 'Festival Italiano' feature a pint-sized Trevi Fountain--in the shadow of a Picasso?
