St Vincent de Paul Spiritual Reflection April 2018

April 2018

Gospel of Luke (Luke 11:1-4)

 He was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.”

He said to them, “When you pray, say:

Father, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread
and forgive us our sins
for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us,
and do not subject us to the final test.” 

Vincentian Reflection

This reflection is intended to look at daily prayer.

For anyone confused by the short form of Luke’s “Our Father”, I can clarify that the longer and more familiar long form is from Matthew and the “Sermon on the Mount”. The Church tells us this Lucan version is “an example of a Christian communal prayer that stresses the Fatherhood of God and acknowledges Him as the one to whom we owe our daily sustenance, forgiveness, and deliverance from the final trial”.

But back to prayer. The Catechism tells us:

(2697) Prayer is the life of the new heart. It ought to animate us at every moment…This is why the (early) Fathers of the spiritual life… insist that … “We must remember God more often than we draw breath.”  But we cannot pray “at all times” if we do not pray at specific times.

The Catechism goes on to say (2699) (That)

Christian Tradition has retained three major expressions of prayer: vocal, meditative, and contemplative. They have one basic trait in common: composure of heart. This vigilance in keeping the Word and dwelling in the presence of God makes these three expressions intense times in the life of prayer.

So to try and put a point on this – these themes, “the Fatherhood of God”, “salvation and deliverance” through our risen savior, “vigilance in keeping the Word” and most especially “dwelling in the presence of God through prayer” form our foundation, inform our thoughts and guide us in our service.

So I remind myself and perhaps some present of the importance of persistence in our daily prayer life, so that we can truly dwell in the presence of God in all ways.

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