One of the beautiful lessons is that God wants Abraham to know how much God loves Abraham, stands by him, and supports him. Staying with Abraham patiently, God teaches Abraham to find goodness even amongst entire cities filled with people who do evil. Don’t be so quick to judge all by the behavior of others.

 

In Paul’s Letter to the Colossians, we hear of that great abiding love of God for sinner and saint alike. For no matter what our condition in life, faith in God is fulfilled in the love of Christ for us—a love so great that overcomes our guilt by dying for us, cleansing us, making us worthy of such love.

 

The humongous love of God for us is also one lesson in the Gospel today as well. If our earthly parents should love us unconditionally and give us those things that are beneficial to us, why would we think that God the author of all that is good would not do even more for us? One answer is that some of the images of God we make up are so lacking and weak. For example if we imagine God as this remote being up in the sky somewhere just waiting to zap us and punish us each time we make a mistake we lapse into a kind of paganism and deny the teachings of Jesus.

 

All of us suffer from time to time with doubts about just what God is like. We need Jesus to remind us over and over again. Whether it is in the words of Jesus in scripture telling us of God’s unconditional love for us, the image of Jesus/God on the cross suffering and dying out of love for us, or the faith that Jesus has provided a place in heaven for each of us out of love for us, we need to remember such great love as we go about our daily lives.

 

Jesus brings such love down to earth in the Lord’s Prayer. Down to what is truly important, and we have to strip away the layers of bunk we may have bought into and find the core of our humanity and the core of the Holy Spirit within us leading us to goodness through our ability to choose good over evil, turn away from temptations that surround us—that insane drive for consumption and ownership. However, there are true needs that we all have, the needs of our family for warmth—affection—time together. And the Lord helps us focus on those real needs in his prayer to the Father.

 

Prayer is what we are about, not just in Church but as people committed to Jesus Christ.   We need to nurture our dialogue with him, our prayer Life.  We come to Mass to pray the Lord’s Supper as a community and to reverence the Lord within us in communion.  We call out to the Lord throughout our day whether it is simply grace before meals, or speaking to the Lord “the three meditations: God loves me unconditionally, God forgives me and God is with me,” or whether it is devotional prayers like the Rosary, coming to church on First Friday’s or on Wednesday’s to learn Evening Prayer . 

 

St. Paul tells us to “pray always”. At first such a command might sound impossible, but our daily life is to be a prayer—communication with God. And if there is one thing that the Mass of Prayer teaches us, we need each other for our prayer life to grow.  Interestingly, Jesus chose the plural: “Our Father…give us this day our daily bread...forgive us…” And all this leads us to an intimacy with him at the altar. 

 

Perhaps, like me, you’ve had people tell you that they don’t need to come to church to pray-and that is certainly true—it is wonderful that they pray. However, what they are missing by not coming to the Mass of the Eucharist—the Mass of the Sacrifice...the Mass of The Lord’s Supper; is the greatest prayer of all-the prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper where he gives us—continually—his Real Presence—himself. And we receive him together…as his sisters and brothers-“wherever two or more are gathered…”

 

His Daily Bread taken for granted: one of the reasons that the Roman Missal- the Sacramentary is being revised for Mass is how casual many have become about the sacredness of the Real Presence—in the Eucharist and at Mass. We all need to reflect a bit about the mystery of the Eucharist.  Maybe we receive communion so often some may forget what we are doing and whom we are receiving. Maybe those that do should speak to those who are working on past marriages or other issues so that they can come and receive the Lord once more—it is a “hole” in their lives and hearts!

 

When we receive the Lord at Eucharist, his Spiritual Body and/or Blood, we truly receive him—he enters into our entire being. There is no Eucharistic service that is better than receiving Communion-no prayer—nor Adoration—nothing replaces true reception of the miracle he offers us in response to our prayer for HIS DAILY BREAD.

 

Take this and eat—he tells each of us…this is my body, this is my blood. Jesus is telling us this down through the millennia —from the cross—from his Last Supper and from the Resurrection and into heaven—all in one miraculous moment of time. Who of us can be worthy—who of us can adequately explain such profound gratuitous love! 

 

“Teach us to pray, Lord,” the apostles asked.  He taught the Lord’s Prayer, and He provides the forgiveness and the Meal we pray for and asks us to become what we receive.   May each of us pray to always revere His Daily Bread and His Cup of Salvation given to us in His miraculous love, Fr. Gordon