Click here to read the daily readings from the USCCB website.
“Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”
Do we use this as an excuse to not pray? It’s a bit of a paradox, really. God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, so why do we have to tell Him anything? Doesn’t He already know? Yes, He does. No, we don’t have to tell Him anything.
Gosh, I can’t pretend to know God’s ways, but I can tell you this. God may know everything about me and everything I need and all that, but I don’t know everything about God and I certainly don’t know everything about me and everything I need and all that. Our relationship with God must be two-sided. It takes effort on our part. Otherwise we will become misguided. We will lose our way. We won’t be able to bring the Kingdom of God to earth as it is in heaven. We honestly won’t even know what our daily bread is! Do we need wheat? Rye? Sourdough? Cinnamon raison? I don’t know!
Excuse the joke there, but I truly believe that we don’t know ourselves as well as we often think we do. That’s why Jesus calls us to pray according to this model. Ultimately, everything is about God our Father and His will. That’s why we pray the first bit first. When we order our lives according to God’s vision, then we will be able to see the bread that we truly need. This is further affirmed in the conclusion of the prayer when Jesus calls us to walk the walk. “For give us as we forgive. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”
I have so many incomplete thoughts on this and other things… but I’ll leave it at that day. Offer an Our Father for me, for the staff at Nativity, for our Catholic Church, and for Chris Herrig whose memorial mass we celebrate today.
Peace.
-Amanda Benner, Director of Evangelization