Praying the 'Our Father'

There are times in a life when we feel our problems and pressures take over our days at the expense of our hopes and our faith; sometimes we feel that the issues we face are unique, that we must face them now alone. It is frightening to feel out on a limb, alone without the support of the community. Yet for many, their day to day existence is just that.
Author, theologian and Priest Alfred McBride O,Praem., writes a fine story that many will find useful as a springboard for their spiritual growth. His topic: the ever present prayer. He includes in his book, the Our Father (Pater Nostre). Prayed by millions for centuries the prayer is both simple for a child to recite and an adult to ponder. He calls his book, How to Pray Like Jesus and the Saints.

His book is composed of 10 chapters; each explores the spirituality of mystics, poets and Doctors of the Church, those from whom she has derived much wisdom over the centuries. The 'Our Father' prayer he writes, is "crisp and short." Each of its seven parts invites interpretation and consideration. The antiquity of this prayer, has invited many commentaries, some as ancient as those of Saint Cyprian of Carthage.
It is written in the plural, so that when one prays it, he or she prays not for them self alone but in the plural, we/our. It directs one to think of 'Our Father' rather than simply 'my father.'

This sets the universal tone which follows through the other six verses. It distinguishes God the Father, God the Creator, from the unique, personal father, our earthly father which each one of us may know. It encourages that we identify with this One, universal Father, that we may be community for one another, the Body of the Christ.

'Hallowed be thy Name' the next verse reflects the holy, divine nature of the Creator. The one who prays, prays for the gift of holiness of the Creator personally for all mankind.
'Thy Kingdom Come,' the third verse of the prayer asks that we accept God's will. It acknowledges that the kingdom has already arrived, that mankind might cooperate with the agency of Creation, so as to know their own spark of divinity. This unceasing prayer is for a "kingdom of love, justice, holiness, salvation [from evil]… and the grace of divine life." It lends its sanctity to the whole of human activity within every heart.
'Thy Will Be Done' is perhaps the most spiritually challenging directive of the seven verses. It seeks more than acceptance of the Kingdom, the created world that all can see and touch, but more abstractly, the will of the Creator itself a thing which cannot be easily perceived with the eyes; rather it is more of the heart.
'Give Us this Day Our Daily Bread' which in one sense is the literal daily food we eat to survive, but also it's about the spiritual side of our lives, that which sustains and enlivens us and our faith.
'Forgive Us Our Trespasses as We Forgive Those Who Trespass Against Us,' the spiritual and emotional pains of daily life are nearly unavoidable.
Spiritually everyone who suffers at times needs to be able to release their pains to return to the spiritual state of the child who is loving, without resentment and the essence of forgiveness, hopeful and forward looking.
'Lead Us Not Into Temptation' the Creator makes his creations free, without hold; this is his loving desire that is imparted upon all. While the freedom to choose to love is the ultimate spiritual desire, God recognizes that humanity may be tempted and drawn away from the common good; how many times we are tempted to choose what is our detriment! This verse strengthens our resolve to turn from evil, to walk in the light.
And finally, the seventh verse directly prays that we may be 'But Deliver(ed) Us From Evil.' author McBride recalls C.S. Lewis' book, The Screwtape Letters, a satire in which there is much tempting of mankind by a devil called, Screwtape who lures people to tolerate and perpetuate wrong doing.

In participating in acts of evil, ones' conscience is dampened over time; the harm which may result becomes more obscure to the perpetrator and establishes a new norm-- that they them self are at the center of their own universe. Sadly it more often leads to a slavery of the spiritual self, an attraction of evil for evil, deceit for deceit and a coldness of heart. Screwtape, we learn, is foiled by an encounter with love and the mercy of the Christ which brings Creation back into the community of the Creator.
Pray this prayer often; let it touch you deeply.

Love and the Body

"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you..." 1 Corinthians:1-19
"We are like little mirrors in which God contemplates Himself."
St. John Vianney

When the Body Speaks

Depeche Mode

Listen Here

To the soul's desires

The body listens

What the flesh requires

Keeps the heart imprisoned

What the spirit seeks

The mind will follow

When the body speaks

All else is hollow...

In matters of the body, there are some who see no body-soul connection, instead they see the body only. The physical, tangible body is their reality. There is nothing intrinsically evil or immoral in things, natural in creation. The Creator has seen to that, writes Thomas Merton. In his effort to express what he sees as the good, the beautiful, the holy, Merton addresses certain issues of the human body.

While all things, natural, created by the One cannot be in any way an impediment to realizing our own true divinity, the obstacles when and where they do exist take the form of "self." It is the tenacious need to maintain a separate egotistic, willfulness that alienates one from the Creator by means of an outwardly 'false self.'
By necessity and by function, this falseness demands an equally false environment in which to operate; the false self subsumes the real; in service to the imaginary, false self we use things for the betterment of this self to the detriment of the One, true, created self, the 'original face' as some call it. Engaged in corruption, evil easily enters as we use many illusions to increase our dependence and attachment to the false self.
The maintenance of such falseness tends to turn one into a fanatic, ever on the look-out for what is not whole or unified. Those who divide themselves, distract themselves in this pursuit to maintain a exterior identity and a second, hidden identity. We all know others whom we may have referred to as 'two-faced' and this is what Merton wishes to address.

The true joy of the world is escape from this little island of false self; instead of entering into union with the One who creates, we encounter much sadness; the grief we sometimes discover is due to the demands of our desire that there be more than there is: he who does not expect, then, has all things.
In any event, the false self is not to be 
"identified with the body. The body is neither evil nor unreal. It has a reality given it by God and this reality is therefore holy... The body is the temple of god, meaning that his reality, his truths are enshrined there... let no one then dare to hate or despise the body that has been entrusted to him by god, and let no one dare to mis-use this body... Soul and body exist together," writes Merton

There are many [persons] in the world, decent and moral, and also who recognize no other reality in life besides their body and its relationship to the environment, or a physical containment within its surroundings. While they may admittedly reduce themselves to their five, discrete senses--taste, touch, sound, smell and sight, their lives are based on their senses and nothing else.
Consequently, they easily fall into illusion-- but do not find fault in the body itself; rather it is the person them self who consents, finding a sort of security in the simplest senses. They will not answer to the secret, still voice of the One, the Creator, who calls them to take a risk, to come out of themselves, making visible all glory of the Created One. This risking, says Merton, is a task for a spiritually engaged person.