Sharing 104

October 11, 2006

Attention – Getter

· Beside the throne of our Heavenly Father is a bell; praying and the intimate relationship with Him means ringing the bell continuously until God responds.

There are those who pray continuously, repeatedly and the bell rings the same. There are those who pray to God once or twice is enough and no more. Then they are disappointed and angry with God because seemingly nothing happens.

· How do we pray and establish our relationship with God, our Father?

There are two points I want to share and they were stated in the form of questions;

· first, How do I value the “Lord’s Prayer” .

In our gospel reading for today, Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray and this prayer was what we commonly know as “the Lord’s Prayer, Ama Namin, Ibpa Mi, Amahan Namo, AmaMi, Ama Niamo, Kitaffe or Pater Noster. Jesus gave the “Our Father as a perfect prayer expressing 7 petitions; (7 is a perfect number) the first 3 petitions (God’s number) refers to God, speaks of our relationship to God as our Father, that His name be glorified, that His kingdom has come near to us through the teaching of Jesus. And His will must be our attitude towards prayer not our personal will, not as if we are forcing God to act.

The last 4 petitions refers to our needs, we ask the Father for bread, our bodily nourishment and our spiritual bread – the Eucharist. We ask God for forgiveness to free us from hatred, to our own self and to others. To deliver us from somebody who is stronger than ourselves to deceive us, who is the evil one.

· Second: How is our relationship to God as our Father?

In the readings we see the intimacy of the relationship between Jesus and his Father. When we spoke about His Father in heaven he did so with tenderness and affection. There is a habit in psychology of blaming parents and fathers in particular for everything that is wrong in one’s life. E, may issue sa Father, takot sa tatay, may authority hang out, walang father figure, galit sa ama, broken family dahil iniwan ni tatay ang nanay, and so on and so forth. It is a sad reality that Fathers are being ridiculed, hated and blamed. Bakit pag mother ang pinag-uusapan we give them praise and high regards; but very seldom for the fathers. Maraming dahilan, kasi ganito, kasi ganyan, kasi, kasi puri sisi. There were writers now who mentioned that “ No one can relate meaningfully to God as Father, because fatherhood connotes negative impression or sometimes only as figure for authority and power. Maari siguro nating itanong sa ating sarili, “Paano ang relasyon ko sa aking Ama? Gaano ko kamahal ang aking tatay? At ating din itanong sa ating sarili kung gaano nating kamahal ang Diyos bilang ating Ama. Katulad din ba ng ating relasyon sa ating ama?

· Prayer is the way we can be of constant communication to God, a way of having an intimate relationship with God. And the model of prayer Jesus thought is the Lord’s Prayer.

· The bell beside the throne of God is the indicator of our prayer and relationship to God. On how we are sincere to our prayers and how intimate our relationship to HIM. Keep on ringing that bell. Let it rings, ring, ring for God.

· Ang panalangin at relasyon na nagsisimula sa katapatan at pagpupunyagi ay laging nagtatapos sa papuri’t pasasalamat.