There Is Only Love

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

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 prayer, but it has no real meaning for us. We don’t tie it into the level of our hoping and dreaming and laughing and crying and living and dying. It’s like an Oriental “prayer wheel” which, I am sure, many of you have seen. You simply write out your prayers, put them inside the wheel and then start the wheel turning. And every time the wheel goes around you have said all of those prayers — even if you have given your attention to other things. Perhaps that is…