Word to the Wise
Sunday, July 28, 2019 - 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time - C
[Gen 18:20-32; Col 2:12-14; Luke 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." [Luke]
Jesus' response to the request by the disciples is the prayer we call "the Our Father," or "the Lord's Prayer." Recently, Pope Francis caused a fuss when he suggested that one of the phrases in the prayer, "and lead us not into temptation..." was being misunderstood. He pointed out that God never "leads" anyone into temptation. I went to a special Bible that I have which has four of the most prominent translations of the Bible side by side. I looked first at the one from the Gospel According to Luke and then at the one from the Gospel According to Matthew. Not one of them has the word "temptation" in it! They all use the word "test." And all of them show a plea to be protected from that test by Satan.
The version of the Lord's Prayer that we are accustomed to at Mass is an old one, and is taken from the one in the Gospel According to Matthew. We are so used to it that any suggestion of a change is unacceptable. The American bishops took that attitude into account with regard to the liturgical recitation of the prayer even though the New American Bible, the one they sponsor, does not use the phrase, "and lead us not into temptation," nor does it have the arcane words "art" and "thy." Objections to Pope Francis' statements show that most folks don't go beyond what they're used to!
In the Gospel According to Luke, the setting for the prayer speaks to trust in God that God will hear and respond appropriately to prayer. The important thing is to pray. The foundation of any good relationship is communication. It requires constant and consistent effort. And it is often complicated by our expectations. Jesus urges us to persist. God will know how to respond. AMEN