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                           January 18, 2026, The Second Sunday of the Ordinary Time

                                    Reflection on the Lord’s Prayer – Introduction (2) 

Commenting on the Our Father, the Catechism of the Catholic Church makes a beautiful connection between the Beatitudes (the Sermon on the Mount) and the Lord’s Prayer. Both are taught by Christ: one instructs us on how to live a righteous life, and the other teaches us how to pray for the right things. The Catechism explains: The Sermon on the Mount is teaching for life; the Our Father is a prayer. But in both the one and the other the Spirit of the Lord gives new form to our desires, those inner movements that animate our lives. Jesus teaches us this new life by his words; he teaches us to ask for it in prayer. The rightness of our life in him will depend on the rightness of our prayer (CCC 2764). Therefore, this prayer enables us not only to ask for the right things in the right order, but also to live our lives according to the will of God, our Father.

Although the Lord’s Prayer is prayed billions of times each day by Christians of all denominations throughout the world, its most fitting time and place is within the Liturgy of the Eucharist. The Catechism teaches:

In the Eucharistic liturgy the Lord’s Prayer appears as the prayer of the whole Church and there reveals its full meaning and efficacy. Placed between the anaphora (the Eucharistic Prayer) and Communion, the Lord’s Prayer sums up, on the one hand, all the petitions and intercessions expressed in the movement of the epiclesis and, on the other, knocks at the door of the banquet of the Kingdom which sacramental Communion anticipates (CCC 2770).

The Catechism further explains: In the Eucharist, the Lord’s Prayer also reveals the eschatological character of its petitions. It is the proper prayer of “the end-time,” the time of salvation that began with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and will be fulfilled with the Lord’s return. The petitions addressed to our Father, as distinct from the prayers of the old covenant, rely on the mystery of salvation already accomplished, once for all, in Christ crucified and risen (CCC 2771).

From this unshakeable faith springs the hope that sustains each of the seven petitions, which express the groanings of the present age, this time of patience and expectation during which “it does not yet appear what we shall be.” The Eucharist and the Lord’s Prayer look eagerly for the Lord’s return, “until he comes” (CCC 2772).

Therefore, when we pray the Our Father within the Eucharistic Liturgy:

a) the whole Church is united in faith and expresses its deepest filial and communal relationship with the Father through Christ and in the Holy Spirit;

b) we express our petitions, needs, and desires, and above all our hope for eternal life and for the glorious coming of his Son, the Parousia.

For this reason, we are called to pray this prayer confidently, devoutly, humbly, with profound love for God, and in union with all Christians around the world. — Fr. Jesu