And we called God, Father! Wednesday, 27^th Week in ordinary time – Lk 11:1-4

Values are not taught, they are caught and if prayer is a value then the only way to reiterate it as a value is to live it by example. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus does precisely that. It would do well to read the texts mentioned in Luke3:21, 5:16, 6:12, 9:18, 9:28, 10:21-22, 11:1, 22:41-4, 23:46. You will observe that in the Gospel of Luke Jesus is constantly at prayer and the disciples have observed the Master.

To have one’s own distinctive form of prayer was the mark of a religious community and so the disciples seeing Jesus in prayer desire to be taught to pray as John taught his disciples to pray. In response Jesus gives the disciples a prayer, a parable on prayer and a few sayings on prayer ( read 11:1-13) of which today’s Gospel forms the first part.

The prayer given by Jesus has come to be known as the Lord’s Prayer though it can also be called the disciples prayer considering that the disciples asked to be taught how to pray ad it was given to them. This prayer is also found in the Gospel of Matthew but in a much longer format. In the Gospel of Matthew it is Jesus who is instructing His disciples about prayer. He does not want them to pray like the hypocrites and so he gives them a pattern of prayer. In the Gospel of Luke, the prayer is given as a response to a request, “Lord teach us to pray.”