“Everything has been given over to Me by My Father. No one knows the Son except the Father and no one knows the Father except the Son –– and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal Him” (Lk 10:22). In today’s Gospel passage, the only begotten Son gives us a formula for praying to His Father. In fact, we’ve been given permission to call the God of the universe, “Our Father” (Mt 6:9). “You did not receive a spirit of slavery leading you back into fear, but a spirit of adoption through which we cry out, ‘Abba!’ (that is, ‘Father’)” (Rm 8:15; cf Gal 4:6).

Although we repeat the Our Father countless times during our lives, we must guard against presumption: “In your prayer do not rattle on like the pagans. They think they will win a hearing by the sheer multiplication of words” (Mt 6:7). The Church has consistently taught prayer must lift us up to God. “Christian prayer tries above all to meditate on the mysteries of Christ” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2708).

In the end, even though “all mankind is grass” (1 Pt 1:24), God the Father still deeply cares for each of us. Accept the Lord’s invitation to intimacy. You are His adopted child. Pray with hopeful expectation to your Father.

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