[AI translation] We all know very well that the prayer that the Lord Jesus taught us begins with these words. He did not give us a liturgical form in the Lord's Prayer, but an example of the right way to pray. He gave us a sample of what to ask and how to ask it. Its content is maximal: it contains everything that concerns God and the soul, the kingdom of God and man, the church and the individual. In form, it is minimal: for this "all" is stated in five short petitions, each petition being not only man's but also God's most personal concern.The Lord's Prayer is the most complete series of thoughts in the whole realm of the human spirit, yet it is thrust into the consciousness of most people every day. Every praying person says it to himself almost every day. Let us begin the New Year with the Word with which we begin our daily prayer, "Our Father, who art in heaven". There is in this short address the encouragement that we have a Father, that we are children and that we can pray! And that is enough to start the year 1955 with confidence and good hope.
1) So: we have a Father! Fatherhood is the eternal human symbol of power, of goodness and wisdom, of law-giving and mercy, of authority and love, all in one. We who are here do not need to prove to ourselves that there is a God, that there is an invisible, ultimate reality, a power above visible things and realities, whose sovereign will governs and directs everything from the blade of grass to the Milky Way, from the course of the wind to the course of history, from the strand of my hair to the shape of my destiny. We believe there is! We are here now and not at a movie theater or a matinee because we are aware of someone who creates and holds all things!
Well: this great Someone is the Lord God Almighty: our Father! Have we ever wondered what this means for us? How much do we appreciate the greatness of the earth? We should be afraid of them if we do something not according to their will, proud of them if they even know about us, or even more so if they are our friends. Have we ever seriously reckoned that the Creator of the visible and invisible universe, the King of kings, the most powerful of all lords: is more than our friend - our Father! There is a heavenly kingdom above the earth, an invisible but real impulse, a will, in which the power, wisdom, goodness and holiness of God are manifested, in which His kingdom is already being realized. This earthly world, which is the home of relativity, impermanence, sin and unhappiness, is surrounded and sustained by another world, that which is absolute, eternal, perfect and blessed, in a word, heaven. And its Lord, its creator, its protector and its giver in relation to us: the Father!
How much consolation, how much hope there is in the knowledge that this earth, however muddy, dirty, bloodstained, does not wander orphaned and forsaken in the great universe, but has a Father to whom it belongs! Yes: this earth, the buds and trees, the stones and animals that grow upon it, the life that struggles upon it, the history that is so unpredictable and so alarming to us, has a Father in heaven, without whose will not a sparrow can fall from the tree! And for this lost wanderer, the man who wanders on the muddy paths of the earth, who is often wrong, there is a Father in heaven! Let this consoling truth be made known to you whenever you want to say, "Our Father, who art in heaven!"
Fatherhood is the expression of the maximum of love. Everything the Scriptures say about God can be summed up in the fact that God loves this earth. He loves it, despite what it is. In fact, perhaps it is precisely because the state of life on it is so very troubling and perilous that he has not turned away from it. Just as every mother surrounds her distressed child with the tenderest love, so God turns his attention, his wisdom, his love, his heart, more especially towards the earth. He does not love her for her lovableness, but precisely in pity for her hatefulness. Yes: God loves this world because it is His world and He is its Father!
And so He loves you: with the love of a father! Do not believe anyone that God does not love you! Don't believe it if people tell you so, or if, in the sad turn of your life, you yourself see it so; don't believe it even if everything around you is shaken; don't believe it even at the accusing voice of your own conscience that God doesn't love you! If you know nothing else for certain, you can always know this one thing for certain, that He loves you: He is not far from you, He watches over you, He keeps you in account, He thinks of you, He is with you in joy and sorrow, He is there for you, for He is your Father!
See every journey, every stage, every twist and turn of this new year in the light of this paternal love, in the reality of our Father's love to care, to redeem, to educate, to discipline and to punish!
But to address God in this way, "Our Father, who art in heaven," is not as natural and self-evident as it may seem. We can call the mighty God our Father because the only Son became our brother. Whoever wants to pray the Lord's Prayer seriously, whoever wants to truly believe in the Father, cannot do so without the Son, without Christ! Whenever we say: Our Father, always remember what happened at Christmas: the greatest gift of the heavenly Father; what happened on Good Friday: this bloody, moving revelation of the heavenly Father's merciful heart upon us; what happened at Easter: the power of our heavenly Father's love that transcends death! Only through Christ can you authentically say to God in heaven: 'Father, Father! Thus truly is our Father in heaven: through our Lord Jesus Christ!
2) The second great encouraging truth of this address is that we are children. I could also say that we can be children! This is the only possible and right attitude of man towards God: the position of a child. A richer and happier attitude towards the Creator could not be imagined. The child has nothing to worry about, since he lives under the protection of his Father. The child can entrust himself to the Father and live a carefree life. The child is allowed to be cheerful even in times of great peril. I remember how cheerfully our children cracked nuts in the shelter ten years ago, when everything was shaking above and below us! A child can even make mistakes and do silly things. A child is allowed to play. He is allowed to ask questions. They don't need to know everything. The child is free to go to his father, free to say to him. The child has a home in his father's house. Everything that belongs to his father, he can say: 'Ours! The child knows that his father loves him, and that from his father's hand can never come anything but good!"
And if he has opened it, let us enter through it and be truly children! People who take seriously the fact that they have a Father in heaven. Those who do not always separate themselves again and again from the Father, who live their lives in the Father's sight, who walk in the way He leads them, who understand and obey His word, who speak, think and act in the spirit of the Father's house at all times! You enjoy the blessings of the divine nursery to the extent that you undertake and fulfil its duties. The Father's love will be an empowering reality for you to the extent that you surrender yourself to Him in worship and filial obedience. The prodigal son was a child of the Father even at the trough of swine, that is why he was converted at all! You are a child, too, by all means - but it does not matter where! Are you at home, or away in a foreign land? In peace or in war? From a far stranger, one can only think of the Father at home, but one can only speak to him at home! Think that when you say, when you sigh, "Our Father, who art in heaven," this phrase becomes a living address, a personal contact, when you enter the nursery with it, when you are spiritually within the threshold of the Father's house with your cares, your plans, your pains, your will, your joys, your sorrows!
And here is something else: you are not only a child, we are children! Plural! When Jesus teaches us to pray, "Our Father," this also implies that it is not mine alone, but that it belongs to all of us, that is, it can be mine to the extent that I am incorporated, that I am included in His family, His household, His church, His chosen community. The Lord's Prayer means that you are never alone as a child before the Father, but always in communion with others, with all those who need what you need; with all those who are waiting for God's help and His salvation. Moreover, in place of those who do not know Him or deny Him, you stand with this address before the Father. God wants to embrace the whole created world in His compassionate love. When you say: Our Father, you are welcoming as your sweet brother even the man who can only take the Father's name in his lips when he curses!
3) Finally, from what has been said, from the fact that we have a Father, from the fact that we are children, the third great possibility follows freely: that we can pray. We know this, yet so few of us really take advantage of this opportunity! Prayer is the power that is most talked about but least used in this world. Through prayer, my puny soul can come into personal inner contact with the Spirit called God, and so I can come into common understanding with Him, bend my will to His, and through the contact I am strengthened, enlightened, comforted, my powers and abilities increased.
Prayer creates a real relationship through which life flows into life, will into will, love into love. The strength received in prayer helps us to overcome difficulties, to climb mountains that cannot be climbed, to accomplish impossible things. For God, the Almighty, works with us and in us if we truly pray. Prayer, then, is the kind of burden that is the sail to the ship, the wing to the bird! Put the readiness of filial obedience into your prayer, for you will know as much of God as you are willing to put into practice! Pray in this new year, pray more, more deeply, more truly, more truthfully than you have prayed so far, so that you may truly live as a child of God under the Father's protection and guidance!
Every day, when you begin to say "Our Father, who art in heaven", remember the encouragement and the commitment that God has given you for this new year: remember that we have a Father, that we are children and that we can pray! And that is enough to start the year 1955 with confidence and good hope!
Amen
Date: 1 January 1955.
Lesson
Mt 6,25-34