Our Father in Heaven!

Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Is 55:10-11; Mt 6:7-15

In today’s Gospel, Jesus teaches us how to pray. 

Jesus contrasts his teaching with the pagan way of praying, which was wordy, meaningless, and impersonal. 

The prayer that Jesus teaches is meaningful, intentional, and relational. 

Meaningfulness: Jesus teaches us that prayer is a meaningful exercise. However, in Jesus’ time, the prayer that people made following the pagan methods was bereft of meaning because it was unintelligible and therefore hard to relate to or understand. In other words, their babbling in the name of prayer did not make them any better than a child’s gibberish utterances. While Jesus critiques their irrelevant approach in the name of prayer, he brings meaning to it by making it a form of communication or friendship with God. 

Intentionality: Jesus insists on intentionality in prayer. For Jesus, concentrating on making the prayer wordy steals the intent it should otherwise enjoy. In the name of spontaneity, we often miss out on the profundity that is integral to prayer. What Jesus means by intentionality is that though we need words to pray, words alone do not make a prayer. For Jesus, a prayer that lacks intent is not even a prayer. By using excessive words, we are not going to prove anything to a God who is all-knowing. For Jesus, prayer is an intentional turning to God and conversing at the level of the heart. 

Relationality: Another important dimension of prayer is relationality, which the pagan prayer lacked completely. The pagans or their prayers could not have been relational because they addressed them to an impersonal God who was not historical. Whereas Jesus talks of a loving Father who is both personal and historical, as we can understand from the Genesis and Exodus accounts. Hence, Jesus makes prayer a profoundly personal exercise because it is the loving communion between the beloved children and their affectionate Father. 

Let us pray that our prayers may be more meaningful, intentional, and relational. 

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar