“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.””  The prayer of Jesus was at the heart of his union with the Father.  Through his daily prayer, Jesus experienced his communion with the Father.  In his prayer, Jesus listened to the voice of the Father speaking to him through the Holy Spirit.  The deepest desire of Jesus was to live the will of the Father and to accomplish the mission that the Father had entrusted to him in the Incarnation.  Through a lifetime of prayer, Jesus was able to come to the assurance that “the Father and I are one.”  When we have ordered and purified our desires in the proper manner through a fruitful life of prayer and communion with God then we are able to experience a deep sense of inner peace in our lives that leads us to true joy.  Before we begin to ask the Father for anything in prayer we need to first discern what it is that we should be asking for.  The Father wants to give us good things in our lives but what are these good things that we should be desiring in our lives?  If we know that the things that we are asking God for in prayer are good things then we can be assured that the Father will answer our prayer and give us the good things that we need in life.  This will lead us to a deep sense of inner peace in our knowing that what we desire for our lives and what God desires is the same.

     Sin has its roots in disordered desires.  When we desire selfish and petty things for ourselves in our lives then we are missing the purpose of our lives.  When our desires are rooted in fulfilling the desires of the flesh, seeking material pleasures and placing our needs before the needs of others we are out of harmony with the Father’s will for our lives.  James tells us in his letter to the Church, “Rather, each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire conceives and brings forth sin, and when sin reaches maturity it gives birth to death…Where do the wars and where do the conflicts among you come from? Is it not from your passions that make war within your members?”  Disordered desires feed the passions and cause conflict and division in our interior lives.  James goes on to say, “You ask but do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”  When the Lord offered Solomon the chance to have anything he asked for, Solomon asked for wisdom to serve his people and because he asked for wisdom from the Lord he received every other blessing in his life.  James also counsels us to ask the Lord for wisdom in our prayers, “But if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and he will be given it.”  He assures us that, “But the wisdom from above is first of all pure, then peaceable, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, without inconstancy or insincerity.  And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for those who cultivate peace.”

     The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us, “The Sermon on the Mount is teaching for life, the Our Father is a prayer; but in both the one and the other the Spirit of the Lord gives new form to our desires, those inner movements that animate our lives.  Jesus teaches us this new life by his word; he teaches us to ask for it by our prayer.  The rightness of our life in him will depend on the rightness of our prayer.” (CCC 2764)  The Our Father is a beautiful prayer that transforms our interior life.  It purifies our desire of selfish things, of material pleasures and of the desire to control God and to bend him to our will which leads us to idolatry.  Through the Our Father, like Jesus, we experience a deep sense of communion with God and we experience deeply the truth of our being the beloved children of God.  In this way, God reveals himself to us and reveals to us our own true identity as the children of God.  True wisdom is discovered in knowing God, knowing ourselves and living in faith.

     As true children of a loving Father we have confidence that we can ask God for any good thing and he will give it to us.  In this way we “dare” to pray for the needs that we experience in our lives and we can persevere in our prayer, knowing that the Father will give us every good gift.  The greatest gift that God gives us is the gift of himself in love and communion through the Holy Spirit.  Jesus assures us today, “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.”  Through the gift of the Spirit, God gives us everything our hearts truly desire for life.