Tuesday of the First Week in Lent
Matthew 6:7-15
“Pater Noster”
And when praying, do not choose many words, as the pagans do. For they think that by their excess of words they might be heeded. Therefore, do not choose to imitate them. For your Father knows what your needs may be, even before you ask him.
Therefore, you shall pray in this way: Our Father, who is in heaven: May your name be kept holy.
May your kingdom come. May your will be done, as in heaven, so also on earth.
Give us this day our life-sustaining bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation. But free us from evil. Amen.
For if you will forgive men their sins, your heavenly Father also will forgive you your offenses. But if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your sins.
What do the Fathers say?
St John CASSIAN. We should indeed pray often, but in short form, lest if we be long in our prayers, the enemy that lies in wait for us, might suggest something for our thoughts.
Pope St GREGORY the Great. True prayer consists rather in the bitter groans of repentance, than in the repetition of set forms of words.
St John CHRYSOSTOM. You do not pray in order to teach God your wants, but to move Him, that you may become His friend by the importunity of your applications to Him, that you may be humbled, that you may be reminded of your sins.
St AUGUSTINE. Still it may be asked, what is the use of prayer at all, whether made in words or in meditation of things, if God knows already what is necessary for us. The mental posture of prayer calms and purifies the soul, and makes it of more capacity to receive the divine gifts which are poured into it. For God does not hear us for the prevailing force of our pleadings; He is at all times ready to give us His light, but we are not ready to receive it, but prone to other things. There is then in prayer a turning of the body to God, and a purging of the inward eye, whilst those worldly things which we desired are shut out, that the eye of the mind made single might be able to bear the single light, and in it abide with that joy with which a happy life is perfected.