GOSPEL READING:
MATTHEW 6: 7-15
Jesus said to his disciples:
“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.
“This is how you are to pray:
Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,
thy Kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
“If you forgive men their transgressions,
your heavenly Father will forgive you.
But if you do not forgive men,
neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.”
“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.
“This is how you are to pray:
Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,
thy Kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
“If you forgive men their transgressions,
your heavenly Father will forgive you.
But if you do not forgive men,
neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.”
SHEDDING THE LIGHT
"The
mercy of God is beyond description. While He is offering us a model prayer He
is teaching us a way of life whereby we can be pleasing in His sight. But that
is not all. In this same prayer He gives us an easy method for attracting an
indulgent and merciful judgment on our lives. He gives us the possibility of
ourselves mitigating the sentence hanging over us and of compelling Him to
pardon us. If we are faithful in this prayer, each of us will ask forgiveness
for our own failings after we have forgiven the sins of those who have sinned
against us. Anyone who has not forgiven from the bottom of the heart the
brother or sister who has done him wrong will only obtain from this prayer his
own condemnation, rather than any mercy."
-Excerpted from the writing of John Cassian (360-435
AD), an early church father who lived for several
years with the monks in Bethlehem and Egypt before founding a monastery in
southern Gaul.
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