Let me quote a footnote from the New American Bible: "In answer to their question, Jesus presents them with an example of a Christian communal prayer that stresses the fatherhood of God and acknowledges him as the one to whom the Christian disciple owes daily sustenance (Lk 11:3), forgiveness (Lk 11:4), and deliverance from the final trial (Lk 11:4)."
You can't miss Jesus' starting point for prayer: We are not entering into a business transaction with some Supernatural Repairman with whom we negotiate a price for some service or other. Rather we are to pray to "our Father." Our Lord immediately puts prayer in the context of a family.
If the human Jesus first experienced "asking his father" in the context of a loving family where he was confident of being loved and accepted, then we can begin to see the kind of asking that Jesus is talking about when he teaches us to pray "Our father," and when he promises that if we ask, we will receive.
Jesus' God is not a repairman with whom we negotiate for help, nor an accountant who is keeping a carefully detailed balance sheet of our sins to see if we are worthy of being loved. Jesus' God is his "Abba," "my father and your father. (Jn 20:17)" And our Lord clearly wants to share that relationship with us: "I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us (Jn 17:20-21)."
So much for the "useful God" and "useful prayer!"
Enjoy and appreciate your weekly blogs.
ReplyDeleteI have a book unread: Blessings of St. Benedict by John Michael Talbot. I looked up Talbot and didn't get a feeling of he being akin to a Rohr or Merton, or yourself. Do you know of Talbot and whether his understanding of The Rule fits well with that of the Benedictine community?