Gospel: Luke 1:1-13 Search and you will find
When it comes to prayer, it is often a question of finding what works for you. In recent times many people have found prayer apps – such as ‘Pray as you go’ – extremely helpful, because they allow for guided prayer at different moments of the day, even if you are on a bus or walking to work. They encourage us to make our whole day into a prayer, and they can help us to connect with prayer even when we don’t feel like praying or can’t pray. We’ve all been there, so we can sympathise with the disciples’ question to Jesus in today’s gospel, ‘Lord teach us to pray’. It may surprise us to hear that Jesus gives them a very direct response – actual words in a formula to be recited. In Jesus’ time there were many Rabbis – teachers – who had certain prayers they expected their followers to say, almost as a mark of identity for their group. The Lord’s Prayer is the prayer of the Jesus community, and it’s our prayer too. It is perhaps the first prayer we learn as children and, in a moment of crisis, it is often the go-to prayer when all other words fail us.
After the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus tells a story about a man whose friend goes to him at midnight requesting bread for an unexpected guest. It might appear to be a confusing story, but the parable teaches us to keep the needs of others in mind when we pray. In the early Church, and still today, this is seen as the work of the people of God. So, the first call is to prayer, and then to open that prayer out to the world.
© Triona Doherty & Jane Mellet, 2021. The Deep End: A Journey with the Sunday Gospels in the Year of Luke. (Dublin: Messenger Publications 2021
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“Prayer brings us back to solid ground … bends our attention away from ourselves back towards God, and then to those who have been entrusted to our love and practical care: finally, friends, community, and especially those who lack the blessings we have been given so abundantly. – Columba Stewart