<div dir="ltr">
Friends, our Gospel today gives us an opportunity to reflect on<b><span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)"> the
Lord’s Prayer,</span></b> the prayer for the Christian journey. I want to consider
three of the prayer’s petitions.<br><br><b><span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)">“Father, hallowed be your name.”
</span></b>We’re not implying that God should make his name holy (as though it
isn’t);<b><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"> we’re praying that we might make it holy for us, that God might
be honored above all. </span></b>Everything else in the spiritual life flows from
this prioritization.<br><br><b><span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)">“Your Kingdom come.”</span></b> God’s kingdom refers to God’s way of ordering things.<b><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"> Jesus’ teaching and his manner of life give us a
very good idea of what this kingdom would look like</span></b>: <b><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)">peace, nonviolence, forgiveness, healing, walking the path of compassion. </span></b><br><br><b><span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)">“Forgive
us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us.” </span><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)">How
central to the teaching of Jesus is forgiveness. And </span></b><span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)"><b>how central to the
suffering of the world is the incapacity</b></span><b><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"> to forgive, <span style="background-color:rgb(234,209,220)">both on the
smallest, most intimate level and on the grandest scale. </span></span></b><br><br><div>How
wonderful and how deeply challenging that at the very heart of the
prayer that the Son of God taught us is a petition to be given the grace
to forgive. <br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div><div id="DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2"><br><table style="border-top:1px solid #d3d4de"><tr><td style="width:55px;padding-top:13px"><a href="http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail" target="_blank"><img src="https://s-install.avcdn.net/ipm/preview/icons/icon-envelope-tick-green-avg-v1.png" alt="" width="46" height="29" style="width: 46px; height: 29px;"></a></td><td style="width:470px;padding-top:12px;color:#41424e;font-size:13px;font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;line-height:18px">Vírusmentes.<a href="http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail" target="_blank" style="color:#4453ea">www.avg.com</a></td></tr></table><a href="#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2" width="1" height="1"></a></div>