The Lord’s Prayer is one of those things that is so familiar to us that we might actually have a hard time remembering just how powerful, profound, and perfect a prayer it truly is.  We should work hard to avoid become complacent, or casual about this greatest of all prayers.  These are the words provided to us by the Eternal Word Himself, given to teach us what prayer is.  These few statements that make up this prayer, are a powerful summary of how to pray, what it means to pray, a summary of our relationship with our Creator.  

The deep meaning begins with the first two words: Our Father.  We should never forget just how surprising these two words are in what they tell us about our God.  God is all-powerful, infinite, eternal, immortal;  he’s unthinkably different from us.  But, he wants to be known as a Father, a Father to us.  He wants his relationship with us to be personal.  And more than that, not just personal, but family, a father no less.  This is stunning actually.  Sometimes we forget this because of the way God is often depicted: but God the Father is not a really old powerful human.  He’s not one of us: He’s God: but he wants to have a relationship of love and family with each one of us.  He wants to be “Our Father.”  He wants to have a personal, intimate, family relationship with every human person.  And Christ makes this possible.  Jesus Christ is truly God as well.  He really is the Son of God.  That’s his nature.  He’s God too. He has existed for all eternity as the perfect Son of the Father.  But he also has a human nature, like us.  Mary is really his mother.  He’s true God and true man.  And so he can be our bridge.  By living in him, by being part of his Body, baptized into him, we can participate in the relationship he has with his Father.  We can call His Father, Our Father.  

The Lord says, “What Father would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish, or a scorpion when he asks for an egg?”  And here is the key to our confidence in the love of the Lord.  If he loves us like a Father, we know that we’re not just chess pieces to him: we’re not just little playthings he’s made up out of boredom; we are loved.  And he’s the perfect Father, which means we are perfectly loved.  We can be absolutely sure that everything he asks of us, will be for our good.  We can be sure that he only wants what’s best for us.  Because he’s a loving Father.  He’s the perfect, perfectly loving Father.  So when we are struggling, when we’re alone or afraid, we can turn to him.  We can turn to him using the great prayer he gives us for this very purpose.  Even just those great two words: Our Father.  Just two words, but already an incredibly powerful prayer.  And if we have things that we long to talk to God about, but we can’t find the words; if we have longings and pains and hopes and dreams deep within our heart, but we just can’t express them; if want to pray, but we don’t know how: that’s when we fall back on the greatest of all prayers.  Our Father who art in heaven.  

Let this prayer be our place of safety and security.  May we use it every day to express what we cannot express, to pray when we cannot pray, to trust when we cannot trust.  We let Christ build this bridge for us, this bridge to the Father who art in heaven.  For we know, that when we live in the love of Our Lord Jesus Christ, all the Father has, is his, and all he has, is ours.