1st WEEK OF LENT (A) : Tuesday 24th February 2026

Jesus teaching His disciples the (famous) Lord’s Prayer stems from His aversion to the way the pagans and the sanctimonious Pharisees prayed, that is, using many words and making the act known to anyone who cared to notice. For Jesus, prayer is not a public display of one’s piety, but the deepest communication of one’s heart and soul with God, the Creator and Provider.

Indeed, if God knows everything we need, why do we even need to pray to God? The answer is simple: we pray not to convince, cajole or pester God, but to align ourselves with the Divine Will which is without error and eternally determined for our own good and wellbeing. Thus the “Our Father” becomes the complete, succinct prayer that reminds believers of their needful disposition when praying to God.

With this prayer, we pray with humility, conscious of our sinfulness yet sincerely hoping that God will receive the prayer. We pray to connect to God, as is proper to any relationship, for God cannot be treated like a convenience store. We pray intentionally, expressing our desires but always remembering to submit them to the Will of God. Finally, we pray alone with God as an expression of our personal and intimate connection to Him. We can, of course, pray as a community but Jesus also reminds us to pray in the privacy of our room. The Lord’s Prayer is the most complete prayer we ever need. And it is the one that the Lord Himself taught us.

PRAYER:  Our Father, who is in heaven…