Sunday, April 6, 2014

Praying the "Our Father" at Mass

Our Faith is so immensely deep that we will never stop unpacking it. At Mass, just today, I was struck by the placement of the Our Father within the Liturgy of the Eucharist:

The Our Father could be prayed at any point, but it is only after the Consecration, when Jesus is sacramentally and substantially present with us, that we pray "Our Father." Jesus is present to us in the Liturgy in several different ways - in the other members of the congregation, in the priest through Holy Orders, in the Word  proclaimed to us - but it is only after He becomes substantially present to us in the Eucharist that, together with Him, we say "Our Father." 

It takes my mind to two beautiful passages of Scripture. The first is from John's Gospel, when the Risen Christ sent Mary Magdalen to the Apostles with the message, "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God" (Jn 20:17). And the second is from the pen of Paul, "Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father!" (Gal 4:6).

The majesty of pronoun "Our" in the Our Father derives from its inclusion of Christ Jesus!


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