When the disciples asked our Lord Jesus, ‘Teach us to pray’ Lk 11:1-4, He responded by sharing with them how He normally expresses His thoughts and aspirations to the Father. He included everything that can and must be said to the Father. This is what we now call the Lord’s Prayer and the model prayer for everyone who acknowledges the existence of God. By petitioning God for the most basic of our needs like “bread”, the prayer is basically a prayer of dependence. It is an acknowledgment of the fact that we cannot manage even this simple task on our own, and we need God’s goodness to provide it to us. Just as we need bread we also need God’s forgiveness, because if He were to keep a grudge against us for every time we sinned, we would be lost. In this context, it must be noted that nowhere in the Gospels does Jesus tell us that we must be “sorry” for our sins if we want forgiveness. Rather if we want to be forgiven, we must forgive. Our forgiveness of others opens our hearts to receive the forgiveness that God constantly gives. The prayer is therefore not merely a prayer, therefore, but an attitude, a way of life.
Shalom!
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