Aug 3 Thu
Often we pray the Lord's Prayer, with the petition, "Give us this day our daily bread." It refers not so much that material food, which is the support of the body, as the Eucharistic bread which should be our daily food.
But then here is the puzzle. Why is it that many who pray this prayer do not, as a rule, make an effort to attend daily Mass and receive the Eucharist each day? They ask for daily supersubstantial bread; it is there to be received, but some do not receive it.
In general, the situation is alright. One might say, our prayer has been answered; God has indeed given us our daily food, most abundantly. He has upheld his end of the bargain, so to speak.
The problem is that we don't realize. And why would one expect God to answer that prayer? Only a fool would pray, "God, bring me my cup of coffee," and complain if it were not answered.
My puzzle then becomes: why haven't we been changed by praying the Lord's Prayer?
Part of the problem, surely, is that we think of vocal prayer as “artificial” because it is not a spontaneous and "sincere" expression of what we naturally think.
Or we suppose that vocal prayer's main use is to solve a coordination problem: when many of us are together, the only way we can pray the same thing is by following a set text.
Or we imagine that the recital of a vocal prayer is a ritual, which confers grace through its mere performance.
Some suppose that "daily bread" refers to the necessary means of life, solely. They view the petition as a humble admission of our reliance on God and also as an implicit commitment to keep our needs modest.
It is that, of course, but it is infinitely more. St. Thomas says, “A vocal prayer is an ‘interpreter’ of our desires before God.” An interpreter is a middleman, a mediator, a broker, a negotiator who knows how to say the right thing.
And then, if this mediator was skillful, wouldn't we correct and adjust our intentions, to match precisely what he said? The Lord's Prayer is like that.
St. Thomas says, that "in the Lord's Prayer not only do we ask for all that we may rightly desire, but also in the order we should desire them, so that this prayer not only teaches us to ask, but also organizes all our affections."
Consider some heretics, stubborn sinners; the Lord's Prayer, as "interpreter," instructs us, first, to pray for them—and then, to "forgive those who trespass against us."
Moreover, "We do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words." (Romans 8:26).
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