Questions for reflection

As you slowly read this Gospel passage, allow its words to soak into your mind. You may want to light a candle to help you ponder the passage, reflect on the image above or on the words of Pope Francis below. You might want to imagine how it feels to have Jesus teaching you how to pray.

1. What is this passage saying to you?

2. What word(s), sentence or phrase in this Gospel passage most caught your attention; most touched your heart; most challenged you; most comforted you? Is there anything in this passage that you found uncomfortable or startling?

3. ‘Jesus was praying in a certain place’. Where is your place of prayer?
How do you feel when you take time to go to your own place of prayer?

4. ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’ Who taught you to pray? How do you pray? What forms of prayer do you find most intuitive? What does praying mean for you?

5. ‘Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.’ When have you felt the forgiveness of another? Have you in turn shown forgiveness? Do you find this challenging?

6. I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.’ Are you persistent in praying for what you really want? Can you think of a time when you have persistently asked, sought and knocked and the door was opened to you? How did it make you feel?

7. ‘If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’’’ What gifts, graces and blessings has God bestowed on you? How do you share these God given gifts with others?

Pope Francis tells us:

“Lord, teach us to pray”; and He says in reply, “When you pray, say: ‘Father…’”. This word is the “secret” of Jesus’ prayer, it is the key that he himself gives to us so that we too might enter into that relationship of confidential dialogue with the Father who accompanied and sustained his whole life.

With the name “Father” Jesus combines two requests: “hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come”. Jesus’ prayer, and the Christian prayer therefore, first and foremost, makes room for God, allowing him to show his holiness in us and to advance his kingdom, beginning with the possibility of exercising his Lordship of love in our lives.

Three other supplications complete this prayer that Jesus taught, the “Our Father”. There are three questions that express our basic needs: bread, forgiveness and help in temptation. One cannot live without bread, one cannot live without forgiveness and one cannot live without God’s help in times of temptation. The bread that Jesus teaches us to ask for is what is necessary, not superfluous. It is the bread of pilgrims, the righteous, a bread that is neither accumulated nor wasted, and that does not weigh us down as we walk. Forgiveness is, above all, what we ourselves receive from God: only the awareness that we are sinners forgiven by God’s infinite mercy can enable us to carry out concrete gestures of fraternal reconciliation. The last supplication, “lead us not into temptation”, expresses the awareness of our condition, which is always exposed to the snares of evil and corruption. We all know what temptation is!

We shall now spend 10 minutes reflecting on this scripture passage by reading, repeating, responding and resting as described above. We will then share what we thought, felt etc. only if you are comfortable to do so.