“In praying, do not babble like the pagans,
who think that they will be heard because of their many words.
Do not be like them.
Your Father knows what you need before you ask him”
What is prayer? In the nearly 46 years of being a priest, that question has been asked of me in various ways down through the years. It was precisely in response to a similar question, ‘teach us to pray…’ that the Lord set before us that cherished ‘prayer’ called by his name, the Lord’s Prayer. However, it would be a mistake to think that Jesus was setting before his listeners another prayer text to be babbled through ‘like the pagans.’ Rather, Jesus in this prayer was pointing far more to the quality and texture that should inform all prayer –loving and humble trust.
That quality of loving and humble trust is conveyed in the first word of this prayer. Scholars tells us that Jesus did not use the more formal Hebrew word for the Lord, Adonai, but rather the familiar word that a child would use in addressing her or his own father, Abba.
During this Lenten pilgrimage, prayer is one of the three pillars of spiritual discipline together with fasting and almsgiving, that continually helps us to turn from sin and believe in the good news. May our prayer express our loving and humble trust in the one who knows what we need before we ask him.