Religious groups in Israel in Jesus’ time would be known by their specific practices of piety and their particular kind of prayer. The Pharisees’ group would have their own favorite prayer, and the “Baptist’s group” had theirs as well, as John taught his disciples.

The Baptist group would probably pray to God to soon reveal the Messiah, as John was preparing his way. Upon the request of his own disciples for their “own” prayer, Jesus gives them the Our Father. It is the prayer of the Messiah who knows the heart of God, born of Jesus’ intimacy with God whom he addresses as Abba/ Father when he thanks him and even when he struggles to do his will during his passion. It is a prayer that swells from the human spirit as the Holy Spirit prompts us to call God “Abba, Father!” (Gal 4:6).

The prayer evokes three petitions— for bread, forgiveness, and deliverance from evil. We pray for sustenance on a “daily” basis; it is “our” bread since God intends earth’s resources to be shared by all and not to be hoarded by the avaricious few. Again the words “as we forgive” are attached to our petition for God’s forgiveness to challenge us to be forgiving just as the Father is full of mercy and compassion.

The last petition pleads God “not to subject us to the final test”—meaning, that we do not succumb to temptations that lead us to sin, the kind of sin that spells an important option of our life.

Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry that God did not carry out the evil he threatened against Nineveh. He prayed, “I beseech you, Lord, is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? This is why I fled at first to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, rich in clemency, loath to punish. And now, Lord, please take my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.”

But the Lord asked, “Have you reason to be angry?” Jonah then left the city for a place to the east of it, where he built himself a hut and waited under it in the shade, to see what would happen to the city. And when the Lord God provided a gourd plant that grew up over Jonah’s head, giving shade that relieved him of any discomfort, Jonah was very happy over the plant.

But the next morning at dawn God sent a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. And when the sun arose, God sent a burning east wind; and the sun beat upon Jonah’s head till he became faint. Then Jonah asked for death, saying, “I would be better off dead than alive.” But God said to Jonah, “Have you reason to be angry over the plant?” “I have reason to be angry,” Jonah answered, “angry enough to die.”

Then the Lord said, “You are concerned over the plant which cost you no labor and which you did not raise; it came up in one night and in one night it perished. And should I not be concerned over Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot distinguish their right hand from their left, not to mention the many cattle?”

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.”

He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name, your Kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test.”

Source: “365 Days with the Lord 2025,” St. Paul’s, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 632-895-9701; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.