REFLECTIONS TODAY

Some beginners in prayer life are afraid to start because they do not know what to say. 

They do not know what to speak to God or how to approach him. A simple mnemonic device is often taught to the incipient: ACTS, which stands for Adoration, Contrition, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. 

In one of his letters, St. Augustine praises the Lord’s Prayer as the prayer par excellence. 

He says that there is no proper prayer that is not contained in this prayer that Jesus himself taught us.

Are we not glad that when having difficulty praying, there is a sure-fire formula we can rely on? 

This is just like having a cheat sheet for every trial that we might encounter in life. So, when we pray the Lord’s Prayer, let us pray it with firm conviction that what we cannot express in words, the Lord has already provided what we ought to say.

First Reading • Gal 2:1-2, 7-14 
 

Brothers and sisters: After fourteen years I again went up to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along also. I went up in accord with a revelation, and I presented to them the Gospel that I preach to the Gentiles—but privately to those of repute—so that I might not be running, or have run, in vain. 

On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the Gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter to the circumcised, for the one who worked in Peter for an apostolate to the circumcised worked also in me for the Gentiles, and when they recognized the grace bestowed upon me, James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave me and Barnabas their right hands in partnership, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. 

Only, we were to be mindful of the poor, which is the very thing I was eager to do. 

And when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he clearly was wrong.

For, until some people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to draw back and separated himself, because he was afraid of the circumcised. 

And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. 

But when I saw that they were not on the right road in line with the truth of the Gospel, I said to Cephas in front of all, “If you, though a Jew, are living like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

Gospel • Luke 11:1-4

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: “366 Days with the Lord 2024,” St. Paul’s, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 632-895-9701; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.