We dare to say

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

The prayer of Abraham in the first reading stands in contrast to that of our Lord’s in the gospel. If Abraham struggled to find the words to intercede on behalf of the depraved inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah and even attempts to haggle and bargain with God in making a deal, our Lord provides us with the blue print of prayer in the gospel. There is no longer any need on our part to haggle with God or broker a deal like an astute lawyer, businessman or politician. God, the party on the other end of the transaction (if you see prayer as transactional), is already disclosing to us all His cards and the key to winning His favour and acquiescence.

Although what we’ve just read and heard is a different and shorter version of the Lord’s Prayer which we pray at every Mass and in our devotions, it doesn’t tamper the radical demands which we make of God. In fact, the prayer has the audacity of making the following demands of God: we demand intimacy and familiarity with God’s person and name that borders on the contemptuous and blasphemous, we demand the coming of the kingdom, we demand the terra-forming of our trouble ridden earth so that it may become more like a trouble free heaven, we demand daily sustenance from on high, we demand that our sins be forgiven, and finally we demand shelter from temptation and deliverance from evil. If the school of hard knocks has taught us anything, it would be this: never make unreasonable demands, don’t expect the impossible. Well, for man all these may seem impossible; but for God, everything’s possible! We shouldn’t, therefore, feel uncomfortable or embarrassed to recite this prayer, as it is the Lord Himself who teaches us to do so!

This point is recognised in the introduction spoken by the priest at every Mass before the community recites in unison the Lord’s Prayer, "At the Saviour's command and formed by divine teaching, we dare to say..." The phrase ‘we dare to say’ inherently recognises our insignificance before the Father. We are humbly admitting that it has nothing to do with us, in fact, it admits that it is not even something which we can ever hope to accomplish. The words convey a profound sense of unworthiness; we are in no position to make any claims or demands.

The whole phrase places the Lord’s Prayer in a different light – it is no longer to be seen as a cry of entitlement, a demand made on God to fulfill our petitions and wishes. But rather, it is a prayer of humility by someone truly unworthy to even stand before the august presence of God and yet dare to address Him with the familiar “daddy” and make a series of demands of Him. The catechism tells us that “Our awareness of our status as slaves would make us sink into the ground and our earthly condition would dissolve into dust, if the authority of our Father Himself and the Spirit of his Son had not impelled us to this cry . . . ‘Abba, Father!’ . . . When would a mortal dare call God ‘Father,’ if man’s innermost being were not animated by power from on high?” It is by placing ourselves into the position of a child, calling God our Father, that we open ourselves to the grace by which we approach God with the humble boldness of a little child.

This is how we should approach prayer. It should neither be some arcane magical formula that forces the hand of God nor just a mechanical and superficial repetition of words just to appease Him. Prayer should always be rooted in a father-child relationship where the child trusts that the father will always have his best interest in mind even if he doesn’t always get want he wants. The supplicant who comes before God doesn’t need to approach Him as a lawyer who comes before the judge, hoping to outwit and win an argument with the latter. He already knows that the Supreme Judge will always stand with Him and even stand in His place to take the punishment which he deserves.

There is a Latin maxim that addresses the centrality and priority of prayer in the life, identity and mission of the Church; “Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi”, the law of prayer reflects the law of faith which determines the law of life. Too often it is the other way around. Our lifestyle choices force our beliefs to conform to them and thereafter affect the way we pray. But when it comes to us Christians, everything begins with prayer. Our lives must be conformed to prayer and not the other way. How we worship and pray not only reveals and guards what we believe but guides us in how we live our Christian faith and fulfill our Christian mission in the world. As much as we are sometimes taken up with the spontaneity of the praying style of our Protestant brethren, and many of us too are tempted to venture into some innovative and creative explorations on our own, we must always remember that the best prayer, or as St Thomas Aquinas reminds us, the most Perfect Prayer, is still the prayer not formulated by any human poet or creative genius but by Christ, the Son of God Himself. In a way, God provides us the words to speak to Him.

Thus, our ability to pray in this way can only come to us by the grace of God - it is only because our Saviour has commanded it and because we have been formed by divine teaching, that ‘we dare to say.’ There is no arrogant audacity in the tone of our voice or the content of our prayer. We take no credit for this prayer. All glory goes to God and to His Christ, Jesus our Lord. We are not the natural sons and daughters of the Heavenly Father. We have no right to address Him by this familiar name. All our words seem banal and fall empty in the light of the pre-existent Word. But because of Jesus through baptism, I have become an adopted child. The Father is revealed to us by His Son and we can approach Him only through the Son. Because of Jesus, my prayer now derives an amazing and miraculous efficacy. For that reason, we dare to call God “Our Father.” Through this prayer, the unapproachable God becomes approachable. The unknown God is made known. The strange and unfamiliar God becomes familiar and a friend. The prayer unspoken is already answered!