Homily for Ordinary
Time 17
July 27, 2025
The Most Powerful
Prayer
Of all the prayers we have in our Catholic Tradition, the
Our Father takes pride of place. Every other prayer was written by human
beings, but this prayer was written by God Himself – which means that God is
telling us how to pray to Him! Church Father Tertullian said that the Our
Father is the summary of all the New Testament. This prayer alone is enough to
make us a saint: one time a young nun asked St. Theresa of Avila, “Dear Mother,
what is the quickest way to reach union with God?” And the saint replied, “Say
one Our Father…but take an hour to say it.” So let’s dive into the richness of
this beautiful prayer that Our Lord taught us.
The first word: “our”. St. Paul writes that “we are
surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses” – we are never alone as we
approach the Father. We call it the “Communion of Saints” – that we are united
to the Church Triumphant (those who are seeing the Father’s Face in Heaven),
the Church Suffering (souls in Purgatory who are longing for Heaven) and the
Church Militant (souls on earth who are still fighting the good fight). We
belong to a Church that not only spans the globe but spans human history – so
we are never alone when we call God “our” Father. When we pray, we are praying for
others and in union with others, even if we’re alone.
“Our Father” – how amazing that God is not a distant,
unreachable deity, but one who invites us to call Him by that most intimate
name: Father! If you’ve had a good earthly father, realize that he reflected
the Heavenly Father’s love to you. But many of us have had absent or weak or
cruel fathers. If that is the case, realize that all the fatherly love you
lacked can be found in God the Father.
“Our Father who art in Heaven.” Sometimes children will
play that game of, “My dad is stronger than your dad.” Or “My dad has a better
job or a cooler car than your dad.” But Jesus makes clear that our Father is
the Lord of Heaven and earth – with complete power and perfect love. At some
point in our lives we realize that our parents are human – my father is now
suffering from Parkinson’s Disease and it saddens me to watch how this
once-strong man has grown weak under the burden of years…but it is consoling to
know that both he and I have a strong, perfect, majestic Father Who rules
Heaven and earth.
“Hallowed be thy name.” To hallow means to make
holy. But isn’t God already holy? How can we pray that God’s Name be holy? We
are praying that God may be praised in us. That others may see our lives
and praise God because of us. There was a certain clocktower on a courthouse in
America which had no hands on the clock. The clock worked perfectly well, but
nobody knew it because there were no hands. Likewise, if we are only a Christian
in our minds but not in our deeds, then God’s Name would not be praised.
Although we don’t do good deeds just to perform, still we want people to see
our lives and say, “How good God is, that He is doing such great things through
Sam! Through Lucy! Through John!”
“Thy Kingdom Come.” God’s Kingdom will come whether we
like it or not, but we choose to welcome His Kingdom when we allow Christ to
reign over every aspect of our lives. That means Christ is king of our
workplace, our car rides, our bedrooms; that He is the King of how we spend our
free time and what jokes we laugh at; King of the music we listen to, the
internet sites we visit, the plans we make for the future.
Closely connected is “Thy will be done on earth as it is
in Heaven.” In Heaven, the angels and saints fulfill God’s will perfectly. We
are asking to do the same – to be a docile instrument in the Hand of the Lord.
Which one would be a better tool: a pen that looks nice but constantly runs out
of ink, or one that looks plain but writes whenever we need it to? We, too, are
pens in the hands of God, and He loves those whom He can count on to say “yes”
to Him, no matter what He asks.
“Give us this day our daily bread.” This can mean two
things: first, we are asking God to give us the material things we need for
that day. Notice we are not asking for Him to make us rich and to give
us what we want, but to give us what we need. But there is a spiritual
sense, too – we are asking for the Eucharist. During the Covid lockdown when
churches were closed, I would spend my Sundays driving around to parishioners’
houses bringing them Holy Communion if they felt comfortable having visitors.
It was amazing to see tears streaming down the faces of those who had been
deprived of Jesus for six weeks, two months. There was such a hunger for Him –
this prayer asks that our spiritual hunger be nourished by the Eucharist, as
well as asking God to take care of our physical needs.
But notice that we are told to pray for daily
bread. We can’t eat enough on Monday to last through the whole week; nor can we
pray enough on Sunday to last until the following one. As a seminarian, I was
once assigned to a cranky older priest. One night I asked if he would lead
grace as we sat down to dinner, and he responded, “I blessed all the food I
will ever eat in 1983, I don’t need to say grace today!” He meant it
humorously, but perhaps Christians need to remember that we need Jesus daily,
hourly – hence, we pray for our daily bread.
“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who
trespass against us.” We are only forgiven in the measure we forgive others. We
grow angry with others because we think we are not at fault; but if we realized
the magnitude of our own sins, we would find it quick and easy to forgive the
sins of others, because of the amount of mercy we have received!
St. Joseph Vaz was a Portuguese missionary to Sri Lanka
in the 1700s who was effective at converting many of the natives to the
Catholic Faith. Some of the Sri Lankan King’s advisors, jealous of his success,
told the King that the priest must be a Portuguese spy, so the King unjustly
imprisoned him for quite some time. St. Joseph willingly accepted the
imprisonment, seeing God’s hand in it since it gave him time to learn the
language of Sri Lanka. Finally, the King realized that St. Joseph was innocent,
and had him released, but on one condition. The island had been stuck in a
devastating drought, and the King said, “Prove to me that your God is the true
God by praying for rain.” St. Joseph must’ve been tempted to shake the dust
from his feet and get out of there – after all the King had just put him in
jail for years, so why is the King’s problem, his problem now? But,
moved with compassion, Fr. Joseph Vaz agreed to pray for rain. Upon making his
prayer, a torrential downpour ensued, but miraculously Fr. Vaz stayed
completely dry – not a drop of rain fell on him. In gratitude, the King allowed
him to preach the Faith anywhere he wanted in his kingdom, and thousands more
souls became Christian, all because St. Joseph Vaz was able to forgive his
captor – knowing the mercy of God!
“Lead us not into temptation.” Pope Francis made
headlines back in 2017 when he asked the Italian Bishops to change the words of
the Our Father into “Do not abandon us in temptation.” That actually makes more
sense – God does not “lead us” into temptation, but He allows it so that we can
choose Him. Denying ourself one temptation is worth more than hundreds
of prayers, because it usually costs us a great deal to say “no” to our flesh
or the suggestions of the Evil One. So we ask God to remain by our side as we
fight the spiritual battle!
“Deliver us from evil.” In this fallen world, there are
so many evils we face: death and disease, strife in families, anxiety about
work or school. We conclude by asking that God may bring us through the fires
and trials, so that we may be stronger and more faithful to Him.
This prayer, first learned as young children, is still
the most powerful prayer of all, clearly articulating how we should turn to
God. Pray it well – with attention and love – and it has the power to grant you
a peaceful life, and to make you a saint!
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