Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Kerry WeberJune 13, 2025
Worshippers join hands during the Our Father. Sunday Mass offers us several reminders on the importance of forgiveness, such as during the Our Father. (CNS photo/Jim West)

A Reflection for Thursday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

You probably say it often, and without thinking. The words come automatically, maybe murmured while driving or waiting in line or by a hospital bed. Perhaps part of a plea or in gratitude. Maybe you’ve known these words since childhood, learned them without trying simply by hearing them over and over at bedtime with your parents. Maybe you sat down and memorized them for class or O.C.I.A. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…

The Our Father is perhaps the most famous Christian prayer. The magnitude of this prayer can feel overwhelming. These are words given to us by Jesus, who prefaced them by saying, “This is how you are to pray.” There is a beautiful sense of certainty in that. But the prayer’s familiarity also can result in its meaning being overlooked. Yet when we take a moment to contemplate these words, the message is simple: Praise God, follow God’s will, ask for forgiveness and offer it.

Prayer can too often feel high-pressure. It’s easy to feel that a particular formula is needed to prompt God’s graces. But the truth is that all we need is a willing and open heart. God has given us these words, but there is no single right way to pray. And today’s Gospel reminds us that we never need to worry about finding the “right” words for prayer. In the Our Father we have a given prayer that can fit any need. But even in our own words, our pleas, our gratitude, we can seek and receive God’s grace. No matter what you say, you need not worry, because God already “knows what you need before you ask him.”

More: Scripture

The latest from america

Israeli activists take part in a protest against the war in the Gaza Strip, Israel's measures regarding food distribution and the forced displacement of Palestinians, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Tuesday, July 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Observers around the world have grown weary of the images of starving children and desperate people gunned down while trying to collect bags of flour or boxes of food.
Kevin ClarkeJuly 24, 2025
A woman reads a book while sitting on the bank of a calm river, with mountains in the background. (iStock/swissmediavision)
After four decades in education, both secular and Catholic, I have witnessed teaching models come and go. The moment before us, however, is not a passing phase; it is a threshold.
Sarah GallagherJuly 24, 2025
The relics of Blesseds Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis, who are set to be canonized later this year, will be displayed in Rome for the Jubilee of Youth.
The Irish government “has done nothing to reduce the numbers of abortions…and seems not to care why women choose abortion, or what happens to them afterwards,” Bishop Kevin Doran of Elphin and Achonry said.