Our Father

17th Sunday Of Ordinary Time, Year C

If someone were to ask you what is prayer, how would you answer? Do you find it difficult to pray?

The disciples who spent a lot of time with Jesus, witnessed him doing many great things. They saw him do miracles, they watched him teach and hold the people’s attention to every word he said, they saw him pray. And from all these things, they asked him to teach them how to pray. It could be that they realised that prayer was very important to Jesus; prayer gave him courage, and the will and the strength to do what he was sent to do. If prayer was essential for Jesus, can we do without it?

Prayer is communicating with God. If it is communication, it is an action, at least between two. Therefore, even our personal prayer should not be rendered a monologue. In prayer, we speak and God listens; then we need to listen to God. We need to give time to God to speak to us. This requires that our prayer time, includes time of silence. How should we pray? In today’s Gospel, Jesus gives us the necessary ingredients. First, he gives us the prayer which we learnt when children – the Lord’s Prayer. He teaches us above all else, that God is Father – far better than any earthly father. Who is God for you? Is he far away, is he your judge? Or is he the Father as Jesus describes? God is almighty, we can approach God and call him ‘dad’. We find God everywhere and anytime. God always listens to us and he answers us too. God is love and his answers are not always what we expect or wish for. Just as in our wisdom, we do not always give our children whatever they want, for various reasons, similarly God does not always answer our prayers in the way we want and the only reason for this, is because God is love. In the Lord’s prayer (Our Father), Jesus teaches us that we should start our prayer with praising God. Whatever the situation, we should always praise God. We pray ‘your kingdom come’. God’s kingdom is where there is love, justice, generosity, friendship, peace. We pray for God’s kingdom to come but do we realise that we are the ones who have to make this happen? We need to examine our actions and behaviour. Do we love others? Are we just? How generous are we with our wealth, with our time and talents? Are we true friends? Do we work to bring peace in our families, with our friends, at our place of work? The prayer continues by lifting our needs and those of others to God. We ask for mercy and for God’s forgiveness. In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus shows us the need for us to become better persons, “for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us.”

Our prayers should be enduring. We also need to grow in the virtue of patience. We should not give up but continue turning to God in prayer. We do not continue to pray the same prayer in the hope that God will change his mind, but rather, that prayer changes us. Prayer increases our faith in God, it deepens and strengthens our relationship with him.

We need to have faith when we pray. We need to believe that God is listening and that he is almighty. We are to believe in his love, mercy and providence. We also need to be humble. God can do anything, we are nothing without him. We should lift up our prayers with humility and not in arrogance.

“The Father in heaven gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.” The Father gives us the best gift – the Holy Spirit and his gifts – he gives us what we need, at the right time, and helps us to grow in virtue so that we become better persons, who love God above all and also love our neighbour, as we love ourselves.

A reading from the Gospel of Luke (Lk 11, 1-13) 

Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test.”

And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend to whom he goes at midnight and says, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, for a friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journey and I have nothing to offer him,’ and he says in reply from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked and my children and I are already in bed. I cannot get up to give you anything.’ I tell you, if he does not get up to give the visitor the loaves because of their friendship, he will get up to give him whatever he needs because of his persistence.

“And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”

The Gospel of the Lord
Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

  1. Read the Gospel story so that you are familiar with it.
  2. Reflect on what the Gospel story is saying to you. Which points would you highlight and why?
  3. How do you pray? Why do you pray? Are your prayers different from when you were young? If you feel that your prayers are poorly expressed, turn to the Lord and ask him, “Lord, teach me to pray.” 
  4. Do you teach your children how to pray? Do the children see you praying?
  5. Find time during this week, to stop from whatever you are doing, and slowly recite The Lord’s Prayer. Try to go deeper into the meaning of this prayer, to understand it better.
  6. Together with your family find the right time to read this Gospel. The environment helps, so before you start, prepare;
    i. The Bible reading from St Luke (11, 1-13)
    ii. A candle
    iii. Cover the table with a green cloth
    v. A computer/laptop with the readings and clips
  7. Go through the steps with your children (2 age groups are being suggested).
  8. Feel free to adapt to your situation
  9. Be creative 😊 

Do you know the Our Father (the Lord’s Prayer)? Do you know that Jesus taught us this prayer? Today’s Gospel is about that time when Jesus taught his disciples the prayer of Our Father.

  • God the Father always listens to us when we speak to him
  • Laptop / computer

Have you ever wanted something and asked mummy or daddy to buy it for you? If they did not buy it, what did you do? Did you continue asking for it until they bought it?

Why do your parents, give you what you wish for?

Today, Jesus tells us that we have a daddy in heaven and we can ask him what we need and that we should continue asking him for it. Jesus tells us how we should ask, and he taught us a prayer, which we say every time we go to mass, a prayer we should say every day, alone or with others. This is Our Lord’s Prayer. Jesus tells us that God the Father is our daddy. He loves us and cares for us. He gives us what we need (“our daily bread”). He gives us these gifts because God loves us. He also gives us courage and strength to make good choices (“do not subject us to the final test”).

Today’s Gospel is about prayer. When we pray, we are talking with God. What do you talk about when you are with your friends and family?

We can also tell God everything … we can tell him how we spent our day, about what makes us happy, we can tell him about our fears and about our wishes. Another amazing thing is, that we can speak with God anything, even when everyone is asleep and we wake up because of a bad dream; we can speak to him anywhere, because God never sleeps, and he is always with us. 

Jesus tells us that we need to pray often, even if we pray for the same thing and we always use the same words. When we continue annoying mummy and daddy with the same questions, most probably we are asked to stop. However, God never tells us to stop. We can continue praying for the same thing, over and over again! We need to believe that God always listens to us and gives us what is good for us, because God loves us. However, God will not necessarily give us something at the time that we pray for it. 

We need to talk with God often, so that we get to know him better. 

The Our Father that we pray, and the one he heard in the Gospel are slightly different. Maybe you do not know how to say this prayer alone yet. With the help of your parents, visit and you will not only find help how to learn this prayer, but you will also find fun activities to do!  

Listen to the song, The Lord’s Prayer.

Sign of the Cross

Thank you, Lord, that we are your children, and we can call you daddy.

Say the Lord’s Prayer.

In today’s Gospel, we will listen to Jesus teaching the disciples, and he teaches us to, how to pray.

  • In prayer we talk with God, who always listens to us
  • Strips of papers, wide enough to write a prayer on them, you need three different colours
  • Pencils
  • A container to hold the strips of paper

What is prayer?

When do you pray?

Why do pray? 

What do you pray for?

Prayer is communicating with God. Through prayer we speak with God. Although it is a conversation, different from those we have with our friends or family, it is made up of the same elements. Since it is a conversation, there are least two: you and God. Since it is a conversation, both speak and not just one. We speak and God listens to us; then God speaks and we listen. Therefore, we need to spend time in silence, to listen to God.

Prayer requires faith. We believe that God always listens to our prayers. When we pray, we show that we trust God and we trust in his providence. We pray with humility.

What else do we learn from today’s Gospel? God is not far away. We call him father, daddy. God is a father who loves us, who takes care of us and protects us. God gives us all that is good and this what we pray for in the Lord’s Prayer (the Our Father). In the beginning of this prayer, we recognise that he is the Father of all. God is not just my father but our father. This means that we are one family. We then proceed to praise God. We ask God to give us what we need; “our daily bread.” Notice how we pray and say “our”, so we are not praying only for our needs but also for the needs of others. We ask for his mercy and forgiveness. We ask God to be with us in difficult times, when we are tempted to act wrongly. We ask for the courage to forgive others. 

Jesus teaches us that we should not give up. Have you ever bought a soft drink or sweets from a vending machine? You put in the money, and instantly receive what you want. This is not prayer. God always listens to our prayers. Nevertheless, we do not always receive what we pray for immediately. It could be that God grants us something else, always for our own good.

In the Lord’s Prayer, we praise God, we ask him for our needs and for the needs of others. We also ask God to forgive our wrong choices. You have strips of paper, in three different colours. Choose one colour and on these write down prayers of praise, for example: “Lord, I praise you because you always listen to my prayers.” On another colour write prayers to ask for your needs or for the needs of others. On the last-coloured strips of paper, write down prayers of forgiveness. Make these prayers nonspecific, so for example write, “Forgive me Lord for when I lied”, rather than “Forgive me for when I blamed my brother for taking the ice cream from the freezer, when in reality, it was I.” Everyone should write his/her own prayers. When they are ready, put them in the container and leave it in an accessible place. Every day, everyone should take one of the papers and say that prayer a number of times during the day. In this way, all the family at one time or another, will be praising God, praying for others or for himself/herself, or else asking God for forgiveness. If it is a prayer of forgiveness, you can pray for a specific wrong you did.

When you are ready, listen to, Ask, seek, knock, because Jesus taught us that God is always near and listening to our prayers. 

Sign of the cross.

Everyone prays one of the prayers he/she wrote. At the end pray the Our Father. 

Gospel in symbolsDownload

How to use this space

God speaks to us in many ways, including through the Sunday Scripture readings. Here you will find useful background and activities to better understand the upcoming Sunday's Scripture readings, helping you to connect the Scripture to daily life in a meaningful way.