First Week of Lent: Tuesday of 1st Week of Lent
“And when you pray, go to your private room, shut yourself in, and so pray to the Father who is in that secret place, and your Father sees all that is done in secret will reward you. In your prayers, do not babble as the gentiles do, for they think that by using many words they will make themselves heard.Do not be like them; your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.” When you pray, says Jesus, do not stay closed in on yourselves! Do not go on and on about your worries! Get together to offer to God the Father your prayer. Jesus gives us an extraordinary prayer : the Our Father. In the Our Father, we do not go alone but all together towards Him and this is a great Joy for us. Thanks to the One who makes everything happen we turn away from our own center! We go towards Him with Heaven and earth. what Joy knowing that we are all contained in the Heart of our Father. Any perfect gift comes from above. If we allow God’s action to come about in our lives we find this a marvelous reality seeing as He gives of Himself. Today Jesus proposes to us an ideal which is great but also a hard one : to forgive those who offend us. And he fixes a measure that is quite reasonable: our own. “For if you forgive others their failings, your Heavenly Father will forgive you yours; but if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive your failings either.” As well, He indicates the golden rule of human sociability: “Do to others what you would want them to do for you.”
“You, pray like this : Our Father, who art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name, may your Kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven. Forgive us our trespassers as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” We want God to forgive and others also, but for us forgiveness is
costly. It is hard to ask for forgiveness; but to forgive is even more costly. If we were really humble, it would not be difficult; but pride makes things painful. The greater the humility, the easier it is; the greater the pride, the greater the difficulty. When you pray, say : “Our Father, Hallowed be thy name.” Jesus asks that God’s name be magnified in each one of us! We are the shining face of the Father’s face, there where his Tender Love is going to shine forth. “May your Kingdom come!” A Kingdom of gentleness, humility, love, peace, goodness, justice. All the gifts above must flourish in our hearts, they manifest the universal royalty of God. He is the King of Love in our hearts, He is the King of Life, the King of our life! “May your will be done!” Not our own will but His! We remember the words of Jesus during his agony :“Father, not my will, but yours!”