Reflection on the Gospel – Thursday, June 19, 2025

Every time I pray the Our Father—whether in Mass, other celebrations, or personal prayer—I find myself wondering:
When will we actually start believing it?
Every word in that prayer is important, but just the beginning already raises a big question in my heart. Do we really believe it, with all that it means?
Our Father!

I read a story many years ago about a man who would often go to church and spend hours in prayer. One day, the priest in charge, curious about how long he stayed there, asked him what he prayed during all that time.
The man answered, “I pray the Our Father, but I never really finish it. Just saying the word ‘Father’ to God fills me with awe and wonder. I just stop there, amazed that I can call God ‘Father.’”

We have to admit that the prayer Jesus taught us—and that we’ve repeated so many times—starts in a way that places us on a whole different level.
Calling God “Father” changes everything about how we relate to Him.
Jesus invites us to talk to God with the same trust and closeness that He Himself experienced.

We know that Jesus didn’t just use the formal word “Father” the way we do in English—which often carries a tone of distance or formality. He used the word “Abba,” the word little children used for their dad.
It’s more like saying “Daddy” or “Papa.”

So when we pray the Our Father, that’s what we’re really saying—we’re placing ourselves in a relationship of deep closeness and intimacy with the One who, like a loving parent, makes us feel safe, cared for, and unconditionally loved.

This way of relating to God connects perfectly with what we read in another New Testament passage:

“God is love” (1 John 4:16).

If we could begin the Our Father by truly giving weight to that one word—“Father”—maybe the rest of the prayer would come more naturally.
And we’d say it with more meaning and more heart.