Daily Gospel Reflection
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March 11, 2025
Jesus said to his disciples:
“In praying, do not babble like the pagans,
who think that they will be heard because of their many words.
Do not be like them.
Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
“This is how you are to pray:
Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,
thy Kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
“If you forgive men their transgressions,
your heavenly Father will forgive you.
But if you do not forgive men,
neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.”
When we pray, we choose words from millions of possible combinations. Which words shall we say to God in prayer, creator of our universe? Why? How shall we order these words? A reasonable answer: “How do I know?!” A world-changing response: “I, Christ, am how you know.”
In today’s reading, Christ articulates a perfect set of words for Christian prayer. In teaching us the “Our Father” (or “Lord’s Prayer”), Christ also upholds the key role of language in a flourishing human life. He instructs us, for instance, to revere and glorify God’s name, keeping it hallowed in our language.
As a Christian academic, I notice that Christ taught us as whole persons, not mere intellects. The “Our Father” exhorts us to hope wholeheartedly, both for the coming of God’s kingdom and that God’s will be done with us and within us. To say to God, “Do with me what you will,” is a radical act that requires constant recommitment. Fortunately, Christ gives us bread for our journey, physical and spiritual nourishment from his hand alone.
In university life and beyond, we constantly think ahead to the next deadline, the next challenge. The “Lord’s Prayer” does not exhort us to meet deadlines, however, but to resist temptation, for instance, and avoid evil. The challenge that matters most happens on the spiritual plane, distinct from the visible life we see unfolding.
The “Our Father” also calls us to forgive and to mold hearts disposed to forgive. When people carry grudges to the grave, they take pieces of civilization with them. Praying the “Our Father” is a personal commitment to refuse to diminish your community’s prospects for love, friendship, and mutual respect.
In the “Our Father,” Christ gives us a key page in the playbook of Christian living, with words wisely chosen and ordered to apply across cultures and eras ever into the future. Praise be to God, our Father, and hallowed be his name.
Prayer
Our Father in heaven, you are infinitely forgiving and merciful. Help us to live lives of forgiveness that your name may be hallowed throughout all the earth. Grant this through your son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, forever and ever. Amen.
Saint of the Day
St. Angus wanted only a humble life of prayer, but his holiness and wisdom brought him fame. His effort to escape notoriety ended up leaving behind an important record of saints.
He was born near Clonenagh, Ireland, in the middle of the eighth century. He joined the famous monastery near his home, and rapidly advanced in learning and holiness.
People at the time referred to a hermit as "servant of God," which in Gaelic was “Ceile De”—or “Culdee” as we have it now. Angus loved solitude. It was said that no one in Ireland could match him in virtue or learning, but his renown made him seek more time alone for prayer. He left the monastery to live as a hermit on the banks of a river, but people heard of his holiness and sought him out, so he retreated farther into the countryside. Still being found there, he decided to anonymously join a community at a monastery near Dublin.
As he was traveling to Dublin, he stopped in a church to pray and had a vision of angels singing around a tomb there. He inquired about the tomb from the priest of the parish, who replied that the man buried there was not exceptional in any way, but that his practice was to constantly recall the saints and ask them for prayers. Immediately, Angus was struck with the idea to compose a poem of praise to the saints to help people with this devotion.
He reached the monastery at Dublin, and joined the community as a simple layman and laborer without telling anyone who he was. He spent seven years working and praying there, but eventually his identity was discovered. The abbot, St. Maelruan, capitalized on his education, and the two set out to compose a lyrical hymn to the saints (known as the Félire in Irish, or as Festilogium in Latin). The work is the earliest metrical version of a martyrology—a list of saints and their feast days—to be written in the vernacular. It collected Irish saints and combined them with other known Christian saints. A page from his martyrology is pictured here.
After the death of St. Maelruan, Angus returned to Clonenagh, where he finished the work, and was raised to the position of abbot. The custom of the time made the appointment also a designation as bishop. He died on this date in 824, and his relics rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica. Variations on his name are Aengus and Oengus.
St. Angus, you were the Irish bishop who collected stories of the saints to help the faithful—pray for us!
Image Credit: Our featured image of St. Angus' martyrology is in the public domain. Last accessed February 4, 2025 on Wikimedia Commons.
