"I Will Come to you"
YOU HAVE MADE US FOR YOURSELF, O GOD, AND OUR HEARTS ARE RESTLESS
UNTIL THEY REST IN YOU

[St Augustine, THE CONFESSIONS]

September 13, 2026: 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Last week I offered comments on the first part of the “Our Father.” This week I am concluding the reflections on the prayer taught us by Jesus. 

“Give us this day our daily bread” ─ most importantly, our “daily bread” is the Holy Eucharist, but in this prayer it means that we ask God to give us all we need, including of course Holy Communion. Our bread is whatever feeds and nourishes us, not only physical bread but all the things that feed us, including those that are spiritual, mental and emotional. People are fed not only with healthy things and experiences, but also with things that are spiritually harmful: “food” like sins of prideful egoism and arrogance, lustful indulgence in pornography and fornication or adultery, jealousy and gluttony and wrongfully-directed anger. Is there spiritually harmful “bread” in your life that needs to be removed and exchanged for good nourishment?

“and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” ─ this is the only part of the Our Father that Jesus repeats after giving his disciples this prayer. For many people it’s something they find hard or seemingly impossible to do when they are offended. If we find it hard to forgive offenses against us, we need to bring them to Jesus and ask him to forgive in our name, and ask him to change our stony hearts into forgiving hearts.

“and lead us not into temptation” ─ God doesn’t tempt us to sin, for he is all-Good. But we can be tempted to sin in our human condition, and so we ask God to protect us from being overwhelmed by our temptations and to remain faithful to him when we are tested.

“and deliver us from evil.” ─ the evil here refers to all the things Satan does to try to alienate us from God and reject God’s teaching. It also refers long-distance to the trials and temptations which the Bible says will accompany the finals days of the earth, whenever that will be.

As in all things familiar to us, it is good once in a while (or more often!) to stop and think about what we mean in the words we are saying. I believe it was St Teresa of Avila, if I’m not mistaken, who said she often could not get past the words “Our Father” when she prayed the Lord’s prayer because she was so overwhelmed with emotion by the idea that God was her loving father.

May your hearts always we nourished and bring you peace during your prayer time.

Msgr. Dzielak