Father Help Us, Send Some Guidance from Above - Part VII

…and forgive us our trespasses…

Easy enough, right?  Well, easy enough when you think of “trespasses” as our “sins.”  We’re not only asking God to forgive the times we’ve wandered onto private property that we weren’t allowed on.  We hear all the time that “Jesus died for our sins,” and we touched a little on how that worked in Cause I Gotta Have Faith – Part V.  It makes sense, then, that when Jesus, who died so that our sins could be forgiven, would encourage us to ask God TO forgive our sins.  It kinda makes his whole “dying thing” worthwhile.  This petition (or really this “part” of a larger petition—don’t worry…we’ll get to that in a second) is made with the realization that we’re not perfect, and that we FIRST must recognize that we’re sinners and ADMIT that to God. 

The problem with asking for forgiveness, though, is that we as humans won’t let God’s mercy FULLY penetrate our hearts and grant us the forgiveness we ask for, unless we have first forgiven others who have done wrong to us.  As the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “In refusing to forgive our brothers and sisters, our hearts are closed and their hardness makes them impervious to the Father’s merciful love; but in confessing our sins, our hearts are opened to his grace.” (CCC 2840)  Remember, God IS powerful enough to penetrate even the hardest of hearts, but he has given us the gift of free will for us to freely choose whether or not to accept his love and forgiveness.  God CHOOSES not to “force” himself upon us, but asks that we let him into our hearts.  So while it seems like an easy enough request to make to ask God to forgive our sins, we have to first finish this particular petition:

…as we forgive those who trespass against us

The word “as” isn’t used here to indicate time, as in, “LSU punter Brad Wing taunted the Gators punt return team as he neared the goal line during the greatest fake punt in recent history (that unnecessarily got called back for “unsportsmanlike conduct”.  I mean, seriously…I heard the argument that he should “act like he’s been there before,” but he’s a PUNTER!!  He HASN’T been there before!!!  It was an unnecessary flag, in my opinion, but I digress…as usual…).”  It’s more of a comparison as in, “LSU Punter Brad Wing’s fake punt run for a would-be touchdown was as awesome as the Saints’ onside kick to start the second half of Super Bowl XLIV.”  (Ok, even I, the most rabid LSU fan/Florida Gator-Hater imaginable can admit that the onside kick was a way better play…I was just trying to prove a point.)  We’re asking God to forgive our sins, but we’re putting a condition on it that says that we want God to forgive our sins in the same way that we forgive others who do bad stuff to US.  We have to forgive others FIRST, and then we can really have a clear and open enough heart to fully accept the love and forgiveness of God.  (Told you this prayer was hardcore.)  We need to let go of things in the past so that we can always be looking forward toward eternity.  (Don’t feel bad, I need to listen to this as much as anyone else reading this blog.)

But how much should I forgive someone for something they did to me?  Jesus says to forgive someone 70 times 7 times.  So once you’ve already forgiven someone for something 490 times, and they do that same thing again, IT’S ON, right?  Well, not exactly.  Like many other things Jesus said, that whole “70 times 7 times” probably wasn’t a math riddle.  (By the way, this is just another reason you can’t take Jesus’ words literally all the time.  Do you really think Jesus would have told us to stop forgiving someone after forgiving them 490 times?  I didn’t think so.)  If we are to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48), we need to take our lessons in forgiveness from Him.  God forgives us over and over again (as long as we’re truly sorry and truly want to accept his forgiveness).  We should then do the same for others so that this petition in the Lord’s Prayer can be fulfilled to its fullest extent. 

Father Help Us, Send Some Guidance from Above - Part VI

Give us this day our daily bread...

There’s a quote that I really like that goes: “Success is getting what you want.  Happiness is wanting what you get.”  I really like that quote.  Just because we get what we WANT in this life, doesn’t mean that we’ll be truly happy.  I know that sounds a little, well, wrong, but think about the last time you really wanted something that you ended up getting.  Was your life really made monumentally better by getting that thing?  How long did it take you to lose interest in that one thing you just HAD to have, before you started wanting something else?  Things we NEED, on the other hand are always good.  The petition “Give us this day our daily bread” in the Lord’s Prayer is about those things we NEED—our basic essentials for survival.

Obviously, the “daily bread” concept is directly linked to the Eucharist.  It’s no coincidence that Jesus decided to use bread as the medium for how we continually ask God to bless us with the presence of the Risen Christ in the Eucharist. Think about how much bread is mentioned in the Bible.  Bread is painted as THE essential food item needed for survival.  When the Hebrews wandered in the desert after being freed from slavery in Egypt, God gave them bread from heaven so they could have food.  Jesus multiplied 5 loaves of bread (and 2 fishes) to feed the 5,000 (5,000 men, that is…sorry, ladies, it was written to a patriarchal society…counting women and children, it was probably closer to 15,000, which is WAY more impressive).  Think about the references to wheat, also.  In fact, there’s a whole metaphor for the Christian journey wrapped up in the concept of bread. 

Bread is made from wheat.  Wheat is sown in a field, then cared for so it can grow.  It must be planted in fertile soil so it can root well.  If a sower is sowing seeds, and they fall on a path, they will never have a chance to take root and will be eaten by the birds.  This is like someone who is not brought up to have a firm foundation of faith in Christ and will be “eaten up” by the negativity of today’s society.  If they fall on rocky ground with little soil, they will root up quickly, concentrating on the stalk, rather than the roots, and when the sun comes, it will kill the plants because they do not have a firm root system.  We might learn about Jesus, but instead of nurturing our relationship with him deeply, we might let the world (especially in today’s society) take us down because we don’t have a firm foundation of faith.  If the seeds are sown among the thorns, they will grow, but the weeds will choke out the plants and they won’t produce grain.  Even if we try to live a good life, if we surround ourselves with people who don’t have our best interests in mind, we can be led away from God and won’t be able to be productive members of the universal Church.  The seed that is sown in fertile soil, however, will spring up, produce grain, and can be harvested.  (Read Mark 4 for that)  That wheat is then cut down and ground in a mill.  Much like Jesus tells us we have to take up our cross daily and follow him, there’s an element of sacrificing ourselves for the will of God that draws a parallel to the “wheat motif.”  Once it’s made into flower, it’s mixed with water to make dough.  Out of our suffering and sacrifice, we are given new life by God (water is used over and over again in the Bible as a symbol for life…since we need water to live).  When we are given that new life, we are kneaded like dough and shaped, molded, and formed into what GOD needs us to be—what God CALLS us to be (our “vocation”).  Once the dough is shaped, it still needs to be put in the oven and exposed to heat (fire) so that it can truly fulfill its purpose.  In the same way, once we pursue our true vocation, we will come under “fire” in our own ways so that we can truly become what we’re meant to be.  Another old saying is, “That which does not kill us only makes us stronger.”  This is the general idea of what is going on here.  We’re continually tested and strengthened by God so that we can be prepared to handle whatever it is we’re meant to handle in our lives.

…So there’s the whole “bread” analogy for the Christian life.  Now that we see the importance of bread in the Bible, it makes sense that when Jesus taught us how to pray, he decided to get metaphorical and say, “Give us this day our daily bread,” rather than being simple and saying, “Give us this day our basic needs.”  The Lord’s Prayer is a profound prayer that Jesus asks us to pray, and it asks for things as large as God’s will being done above our own will, and as small as asking to be blessed with the basic necessities we need for survival.  There’s more to come, though, ‘cause this prayer’s far from over.  Next we get to the REALLY hard prayers about forgiveness.  Until then………..

Father Help Us, Send Some Guidance from Above - Part V

…Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

“Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.”  Ever heard that before?  Probably from a painfully old person who never learned what the word cliché means?  The thing about clichés is that they became clichés because they’re true enough to be repeated.  Each petition seems to make the Lord’s Prayer even more dangerous than the last.  This petition, though, touches on some pretty profound fundamentals of Catholic teaching.

First, there’s the concept of a “separation” of earth and heaven.  God is infinite, yes; and because of this, God is all around us and, in fact, IN us.  The problem is because of the original sin of Adam and Eve, we’re made to live a short, mortal life here on earth where we make the best of what we’ve been given and strive to live according to the teachings of Christ before we die and leave our mortal bodies so that our souls can be united with God in a perfect state of eternal happiness and love which we call “heaven.”  (Heck of a sentence there, huh?)  Since there is this conscious “separation” between the perfection of heaven, and the “imperfection” of our mortal world, we recognize the need to desire to be perfect (or at least as perfect as possible) in accordance with the will of God.

The next concept that is implied here is that of free will.  As Catholics, we believe that each individual has been given the gift of “free will” by God, that we may FREELY choose what we do in this life.  God does not force himself on us, but INVITES us to seek his love and do what he has asked us to do in our lives.  The best way for us to figure out what God wants us to do—what God’s WILL for us is—is to pray for guidance and answers.  Now, don’t expect a booming voice to come from the clouds and give you an answer.  God typically doesn’t operate like that.  God’s will might come in the form of a “good feeling” you have about a job offer, or a simple suggestion a friend made to you about how he thought you’d be a good fit to teach a Religious Education class.  Sometimes when trying to figure out God’s will for you in your life can be incredibly hard to reason out, the answer can be as simple as telling God, “This is what I’ve decided to do because I feel it’s what you’re asking of me, but if I’m wrong, I’m asking you to put something in my life to stop this from happening.”  Many times, though, we can EASILY do things in our lives that are not done according to the will of God.  Often, this comes in the form of sin.  Other times, we may not follow God’s will exactly, but if our intentions are good, God will often bless our lives based on our decisions, anyway.  This line in the Lord’s Prayer asks that God have HIS will—not OURS—be done in the world.

This brings us into the pretty deep question of the ultimate purpose of prayer.  Luckily for you guys, I just had this discussion with a priest buddy of mine last night.  In south Louisiana, we have a pretty universal prayer we include in the Prayer of the Faithful during Mass every hurricane season.  It’s a simple prayer that asks that God would spare us from any major storms or hurricanes during this hurricane season.  Now that raises an obvious question.  If we pray for no storms, and get hit by a storm, is God listening?  Even more deeply, what’s the point of praying to be spared from a storm if God has already decided that we WOULD be hit by a storm this year?  The answer is not a simple one, but in the end, does make sense. 

Obviously, God doesn’t want his people to suffer any unnecessary hardships, but he typically is not acting like a “puppet master” pulling the metaphorical strings of the world and our existence.  He sets things in motion, and works through natural processes, intervening when he sees necessary to do so.  But again, there’s the question is if that’s all decided already (since God is eternal and unchanging), what’s the point of prayer if God has already decided when a storm will hit, or when someone will get killed in a car crash, or even something as simple as whether you will have enough patience to get through reading the rest of this blog post?  The answer is time.  We are bound by time.  God’s not.  It’s not that God has already decided everything and our prayers have no bearing on God’s plan.  The fact remains that we cannot fundamentally “change” God’s plan, but that God knew from before the world began that you would, right now at X:XX o’clock am/pm on Month-X Date-X, Such-and-Such a Year be praying for something in particular.  Then he took that prayer and considered it based on what would be best for you in your life, and decided accordingly…long before he said “Let there be Light.” See, God WANTS to give us what we ask for, but in the end he knows what’s BEST for us.  If you’ve ever been in a bad relationship or have had a drinking problem, you probably understand the principle of how we sometimes want things that are not good for us.  God takes our petitions and gives us what we want and ask for when it’s in our best interest, and denies our prayers when it’s not what will fall in line with his ultimate plan.

But remember, we still have to ask.  Even though it’s decided already, the decision has been made (partially) based on our actions.  If we decide right now that we’ll never ask for anything again, God knew we would choose to do that, so he would never have decided to take our desires into account.  Catching this?  It’s pretty complicated, I know.  Just remember that when you want something from God, Jesus has told us in the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 7: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”  He goes on to say there, though: “Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asks for a loaf of bread, or a snake when he asks for a fish? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him?”

God knows what he’s doing.  He hears you.  Just because you don’t get everything you ask for, doesn’t mean he doesn’t hear you asking.  Before getting upset about the things you ask for and DON’T get, take a second to think about the amazing things you DID get—things you probably didn’t even ask for.  Keep praying.

Father Help Us, Send Some Guidance from Above - Part IV

Thy kingdom come…

The “kingdom” here is obviously the “Kingdom of Heaven.”  But that’s a tricky term to take at face value.  “The Kingdom” was here on earth when Jesus was made man.  “The Kingdom” comes alive when we hear the Gospel proclaimed at Mass.  “The Kingdom” has come in Christ’s death & resurrection.  “The Kingdom” has been coming into our midst ever since the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper.  So why do we pray that God’s kingdom should come to us?

St. Cyprian suggests that it may be that the “Kingdom” refers to Christ, himself, who we desire in our daily lives, so we should ask for the “Kingdom” to come to us in the form of Christ:  “For as he is our resurrection, since in him we rise, so he can also be understood as the Kingdom of God, for in him we shall reign.”  That may be a cool side thought, but it seems that this 2^nd petition of the Lord’s Prayer refers to the final coming of God’s reign through the return of Christ Jesus at the end of time.

When we stop and think about it in those terms, we might be a little more hesitant with this line.  If we’re praying for Jesus to come again, we need to be ready to face the consequences that come along with that.  Ever see those bumper stickers that say “Jesus is coming…look busy”?  Well, this petition is sort of reminiscent of that idea.  We’re asking that Jesus would fulfill his promise and come again one day, but what that implies is that we’re confident enough to think that we’re actually READY for that.  I don’t know about you, but I’m rarely in any shape to get a front row seat to the Parousia (Greek term meaning “arrival” but used in the Catholic faith with a capital letter to refer to Christ’s second coming…impressive word to know). 

Remember, this whole “Lord’s Prayer” did come straight from Jesus, himself.  He said, “This is how you are to pray.”  He didn’t say, “Here’s an easy way to pray so you can get whatever you want with no work on your part aside from just saying the words.”  It’s a dangerous prayer, and the words “Thy kingdom come” are three of the most powerful in it.  Almost as powerful as the next petition: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  WOAH!  Big “ask” there…we’ll check that one out next post.

Father Help Us, Send Some Guidance from Above - Part III

Let’s just get right into it (if you’re lost, go back a few posts and get caught up).

Hallowed be thy name…

First of all, let’s clear this up:  we’re not saying “hollowed”—we’re saying “hallowed.”  That second letter’s an “a”…not an “o.”  “Hollowed” (with the “o”) means that something is made empty, which is the exact opposite of the infinite nature of God.  “Hallowed” (with the “a”) means that something is made holy.  “Hallowed be thy name” is pretty self-explanatory once you clear up that confusion.  The other confusion is that crazy word “thy.”  We see words like this a good bit in our traditional Catholic prayers.  Basically, these words translate like this:

Thy/Thine: your

Thee/Thou: you

Some people like to translate these to the more common English words of “you” and “your”…nothing wrong with that.  The only “problem” comes in when one person is saying “you” and “your” while praying with a group where everyone else is saying “thy” or “thee.”  Remember, if you have a strong conviction about some aspect of prayer, be sure that your strong conviction doesn’t distract others from the focus of their prayers.

Now we’re looking at this phrase meaning “May your name be made Holy.”  Great…now we have to clear up another issue:  Isn’t God the only one who can make things holy?  In short, yes.  This isn’t really meant in the “causative” sense, as if we are praying these words in hopes that God’s name will be holy—I mean, come on…seriously?  How are WE going to make God holy?  Not really possible since he’s already the perfection of holiness by his very nature.  This is meant as more of a recognition of the holiness of God’s name, although, it is also a petition (i.e. a prayer asking for something in particular) of sorts that draws us into the greater plan of God by asking—albeit (that’s a weird word) a circular request—that his name be perpetually holy.  By the way (*Tangent Alert*) that little “i.e.” thing you sometimes see in writing just before something that was just said is better explained…yeah, that’s Latin, too.  Go figure, huh?  It stands for id est, i.e. “that is.”  (See what I did there, using “i.e.” to further explain “i.e.”?  Don’t think about that too long…you might hurt yourself.)  Now back to the show…As the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it, this petition “draws us into his plan of loving kindness for the fullness of time, ‘according to his purpose that he set forth in Christ,’ that we might ‘be holy and blameless before him in love.’” (CCC 2807)  There are seven petitions in all wrapped up into the Lord’s Prayer, and this “Hallowed be thy name” line is the first one.

Now I’m SURE after reading that last sentence you’re asking yourself, “Why SEVEN peititions?”  If you weren’t, you probably are now.  If you’re STILL not, get up, go get a cup of coffee or some nice, hot herbal tea, come sit back down, and once you re-read that sentence and have your “A-ha!” moment, you can continue reading…

Seven is used throughout the Bible to signify “Spiritual Perfection.”  Think about it: seven days to create the world, seven days between loading Noah’s ark to the flood, seven parables of Matthew’s Gospel, seven miracles in John’s Gospel, seven years in Tibet…wait, nevermind—that was a Brad Pitt movie.  It seems fitting that if Jesus is teaching us how to pray, he would teach us the “perfect” prayer, and so would have a spiritually perfect number of things to ask for in that prayer, right?  I thought so, too.  Next time we’ll continue unraveling this perfect prayer.

Father Help Us, Send Some Guidance from Above - Part II

Last post was an entire post about just two words: “Our Father.”  I’m going to try to double my efforts here and go for 4 words, because at the rate of 2 words per post, it would’ve taken 27.5 posts, and that, even for THIS blog, is quite ridiculous.

The next 4 words of the Lord’s Prayer, “Who art in Heaven,” have pretty significant meaning, and are pretty confusing at the same time.  Paragraph 2794 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church paints a pretty good picture of the deeper meaning behind this phrase:

This biblical expression does not mean a place ("space"), but a way of being; it does not mean that God is distant, but majestic. Our Father is not "elsewhere": he transcends everything we can conceive of his holiness. It is precisely because he is thrice-holy that he is so close to the humble and contrite heart. (CCC 2794)

Addressing God the Father as being “in Heaven” can sometimes (for me, anyway) make God seem distant.  Unless Belinda Carlisle was some unexpected prophet, heaven is NOT a place on earth, which inherently makes us feel alienated from God.  We’re down here—He’s up there.  But we need to remember (as the Catechism points out very well here) that not only is Heaven not a place on earth, it’s not a place at all!  God is infinite and has no boundaries or physical limits.  Being in heaven with God seems to logically imply that heaven would have no bounds, because God has no bounds.  With me so fra?  FRA?? I meant to say “far.”  Typographical errors ARE a problem, but the REAL problem is why didn’t I just hit the backspace button?  Why did I go into this completely and ridiculously unnecessary tangent about a typographical error?  We can’t, then, legitimately call heaven a “place,” because our human (and even further, our English) definition of a “place” implies that there are boundaries that separate one “place” from another.  Saying that God is in a place called heaven implies that there is some other “place” where God is not.  This is not possible, because God is infinite and has no boundaries. 

Saying, “Who art in Heaven,” should not give us a feeling that God is distant, but rather that he is, as the Catechism put it, majestic.  Heaven is that state of being we are in after we die once we have accepted God’s ultimate forgiveness and have been freed from sin.  It is a state of perfect being, and we should have a deep and profound respect for all entities in that state of heaven.  THIS is the image we need to mentally remind ourselves of when we pray the Lord’s Prayer.  Remember: without fully understanding what we say when we pray, we CAN fall into the trap of what many Protestants call “vain repetition.”

Now that we know who we’re praying to—the guide and provider for the universal Body of Christ here on earth who exists in a state of perfect existence and majesty—we can move forward in the next post and dive further into the (obviously) super deep meanings behind each and every word of this prayer.

Father Help Us, Send Some Guidance from Above - Part I

When I say that the Lord’s Prayer is addressed in an entire section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, I mean that there are over 100 paragraphs explaining it.  So when I say that I’m not going to be able to do justice to the Lord’s Prayer in one post, it’s the understatement of the millennium. I’ll try to do this in as few posts as possible, but I’m not making any promises.

St. Thomas Aquinas (smart dude…look him up) has this quote about the Lord’s Prayer:

The Lord's Prayer is the most perfect of prayers. . . . In it we ask, not only for all the things we can rightly desire, but also in the sequence that they should be desired. This prayer not only teaches us to ask for things, but also in what order we should desire them.

So let’s take a look at what that order of prayer is in the Lord’s Prayer and what each part of the larger prayer really means when we pray it…

Our Father…

You could write a whole book just on the importance of these two words in the context of this prayer.  I’ll try to keep it down to a (rather long) paragraph.  Let’s look at the word “Father” first.  In summary of this thought, we are “adopted” children of God as pointed out in Chapter 1, Verse 5 of St. Paul’s letter to the Church of Ephesus: “…he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of his will.”  So when we call God our “Father,” there is a deep, spiritual meaning to that.  We are all sons and daughters of God through our baptism where we make ourselves his, and receive the graces of the sacrament to carry us through our Christian life.  This gift of adoption by God requires us to be continually converted to new life in Him.  If we are going to call God our “Father,” we should strive to make ourselves worthy to be called His children.  There is also an important notion of being “children” at work here.  Children put their complete trust in their parents for their needs.  They look to their parents not only for the essentials for survival like food, clothes, and shelter, but also for the essentials for growth like how to speak, how to interact with others, and more profoundly, guidance on ethics and morality.  In the same way, we should look to our Heavenly Father for not only spiritual guidance (which seems to be easier to ask for), but also for our essentials.  In our society that puts a strong emphasis on “earning your keep,” so to speak, it’s easy to give ourselves credit for the things we are blessed with in this life, and forget that they are just that—blessings.  We need to constantly remind ourselves that we ARE children of God and that everything in this life that we get, we get only through his grace and love.  Now, directing this prayer to the Father does not negate, nor separate in any way the greater idea of the Holy Trinity.  The opposite is true, in fact.  By addressing God the Father, we are inherently recognizing the relationship of God the Son, and since they both exist because of the relationship of love (the Holy Spirit) that exists between them, we cover the concept of the whole Trinity just by using the word “Father.”  Then there’s the concept of “OUR” Father…which I don’t feel right about keeping it in the same paragraph, so I’ll just start a new one…here I go:

So there’s this “OUR Father” concept…pretty heavy when you think about it.  In the constant Catholic v. Protestant battle for integrity, authority, and authenticity, it often seems pretty difficult to focus on what we actually have in COMMON.  Here’s the big one:  we all have ONE FATHER in Heaven…OUR Father.  If we can agree on NOTHING else, we at least have that.  The word “our” doesn’t necessarily point to God as “our possession,” but rather as a unifying factor.  He’s not MY God…He’s OUR God.  We are all one body in Christ as baptized Christians, and we are united as children of this ONE God, so we say “our.”

That’s a lot to take in for only two words, so we’ll call it “good” for this post.  Next post will at LEAST cover double the words as this post with “Who art in Heaven.”  So until then.......ok, I can’t come up with anything clever.