Lord’s Prayer | Keeping Company

Here is something to think about…

Today’s readings contain the version of the Lord’s Prayer found in the Gospel of Matthew. I learned this prayer as a child and pray it almost every day. It has become so routine that I often lose the power of the words contained in that simple prayer. Today, I would like to borrow extensively from an analysis of the “Our Father” from the Irish Jesuits:

“The prayer in this form (Luke has a shorter version) contains seven petitions. Seven is a favorite number for Matthew. In listing the genealogy of Jesus he divides it into three lists of seven (chap. 1); there were probably seven Beatitudes in the original text (chap. 5); there are seven parables of the Kingdom (chap. 13) and forgiveness is to be offered not seven times but 77 times (chap. 18); there are seven ‘Alas’ when denouncing the Pharisees (chap. 23). Finally, the gospel itself…

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