God’s Spam Folder

How can we learn how to pray? In today’s technological age, if you grow up in a world where every form of communication takes place on a screen – computer screens and tablet screens and smartphone screens, to name a few – then it may be natural to think about praying to God in the same way.

In a recent magazine cartoon, God is seated, looking intently at a laptop with a worried look on His face. The caption reads: “God finds all the prayers of mankind in his spam folder.”

In today’s Lesson from Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is praying and one of the disciples says to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray.” Jesus answers, “When you pray say, ‘Father, hallowed be Your Name'” (Lk. 11:1-2).

Everyone knows the Lord’s Prayer. Without a doubt, it is the best-known passage in the Bible. One problem we have with the Lord’s Prayer is that it is so familiar we often repeat it mechanically. We say the…