Luke Chapter 11

 Lord's Prayer (Luke 11:1–4):

A 15th-century French miniature depicting Jesus teaching the Our Father.

1 He was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples."

2 He said to them, "When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.

3 Give us each day our daily bread 

4 and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test."

In Matthew 6:9–13 there are some additional lines:

    "Our Father in heaven,
    hallowed be your name.
    Your kingdom come,
    your will be done,
    on earth as it is in heaven.
    Give us this day our daily bread,
    and forgive us our debts,
    as we also have forgiven our debtors.
    And lead us not into temptation,
    but deliver us from evil."

The Lord's Prayer is as a guideline on how to pray rather than something to be learned and repeated by rote. The New Testament records Jesus and his disciples praying on several occasions

Our Father in heaven: It implies the Majesty of God and his presence. Christ teaches us to pray to our Father in heaven in order to remind us to seek not that which is below but that which is above. Commentators underline the fact that Jesus teaches us to begin with the word “our.” As the eminent Scripture scholar John Meier reminds us, “we experience God’s fatherhood not as isolated individuals but as members of the church, the family of Jesus the Son”. Benedict XVI suggests that this word “our” requires us to “step out of the closed circle of our ‘I.’ It requires that we surrender ourselves to communion with the other children of God.”. Jesus taught us to pray as people who are inherently relational beings. When we come to prayer we bring with us all of our relationships, those that are flourishing and life-giving as well as those that are troubled. So, while the Lord’s Prayer is a deeply personal prayer, it is also the prayer of those who are called to strengthen our communion with the people whom God has put into our lives.

Hallowed be your name:  In the Lord's prayer, the phrase, "Hallowed be Your name" is appropriate, because not only is God holy, but His name is holy too. We should never treat God's name with disrespect as some do when they curse and use God's name in vain. We should give the same respect and honor to God's name that we give to God because He and His name are one in the same. The praise and love of God is the foundation of our lives.

Your kingdom come: In place of this petition, some early church Fathers record: "May your holy Spirit come upon us and cleanse us," a petition that may reflect the use of the "Our Father" in a baptismal liturgy. The request for God's kingdom to come is commonly interpreted at the most literal level: as a reference to the belief, common at the time, that a Messiah figure would bring about a kingdom of God. Scripture teaches that the "kingdom of God is in the midst of you" or "within you" (Luke 17:21), suggesting a psychological or spiritual condition of the individual. In this interpretation, the petition in the Lord's Prayer also asks for this inner kingdom—that is, attainment of personal salvation, moral and psychological, and reference to this condition as "thy kingdom" suggests an implicit contrast between it and conditions dominated by selfish egoistic desires.

Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven: We are praying that God would use us to do his will. We are making ourselves available to do the will of our heavenly Father, to fulfill his purpose. Praying for the will of God to be done in and through our lives on earth, as it is in heaven, means that we are willing to go through whatever might prevent that purpose from being accomplished. Our prayer is that we want to be so aligned with the will and purpose of God that we ask God to empower us to accomplish it. The prayer is a battle-cry in the struggle to bring about God’s purposes on earth. We are praying that we and others might be the means whereby God’s purpose might be accomplished: that the justice and peace of God’s kingdom will become a reality in peoples’ lives.

Give us this day our daily bread:  we ask for "our" bread and not "my" bread. Jesus teaches us that, even when we pray in private, we do not pray alone (cf. Mt. 6:6). We pray in solidarity with all the children of God, the Church of the living and of the saints in heaven. And we pray for the whole Church, that all may have the bread they need today. For all the early Christian commentators, "our bread" meant not only their everyday material needs, but also their need for communion with God. "Our bread," in common speech, meant the Eucharist.  In the generations after the death of the apostles, we find that the common practice of Christians was to receive the Eucharist every day. St. Augustine said that there are three levels of meaning to the bread we ask for: (1) all those things that meet the wants of this life; (2) the Sacrament of the Body of Christ, which we may daily receive; and (3) our spiritual Food, the Bread of Life, who is Jesus. One word of this petition has baffled both scholars and saints since the early days of the Church. It is the word epiousios, which we usually translate as "daily." Some English translations have us pray for our "daily bread"; others, for our "bread for tomorrow"; still others, for our "supersubstantial bread." The truth is that the word is impossible to translate, since it appears nowhere else in all of ancient Greek literature; nor does it appear in personal correspondence, legal documents, or business records that have survived from the time of Christ. The greatest Fathers of the Church wrestled with the mystery — Cyril of Alexandria and Jerome are among the giants who have left us studies. Tradition, however, leaves us with a solution: It's all true. We pray for our daily bread, for the material needs of the day. We pray for our daily spiritual communion with Jesus. We pray that God will give us grace in superabundance. And we pray even today for our "bread for tomorrow" — our share, right now, in the heavenly banquet of Jesus Christ, every time we go to Mass.

The doxology "For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, the Father's, the Son's and the Holy Spirit's, now and for ever and to ages of ages. Amen." is not considered to be part of the original text of Matthew 6:9–13 but is present in the manuscripts representative of the Byzantine tex and The Prostestants have added it to the Father's pray. The Catholic Church has never attached it to the Lord's Prayer, but has included it in the Roman Rite Mass as revised in 1969, not as part of the Our Father but separated from it by a prayer called the embolism spoken or sung by the priest.

It is estimated that many of the two billion Catholic, Anglican, Protestant and Eastern Orthodox Christians who are sharing in the celebration of Easter would read, recite, or sing the short prayer in hundreds of languages. Although theological differences and various modes of worship divide Christians, according to Fuller Seminary professor Clayton Schmit, "there is a sense of solidarity in knowing that Christians around the globe are praying together..., and these words always unite us."

comments by Edward Sri, professor of theology and Scripture, "The gospel of Matthew" :

Hallowed be your name: “Your name” was a Jewish way of reverently referring to God. In the Old Testament, God revealed himself with his name (Exod 3:13-14); to know God’s name is to know God (Gen 32:28-29; Isa 52:6). To “hallow” God’s name does not mean to make it holy, for it already is holy (e.g., Ps 30:4; 97:12; 103:1; 111:9). The petition is for God’s name to be recognized and treated as holy. This petition calls on God to fulfill his plan of salvation for Israel, so that the holiness of his great name would be made known among the nations (Ezek 36:22-27).

Your kingdom come: God is king, and the prophets foretold that he would come to Israel to establish his reign over all the nations (Isa 40:9-11; 52:7-10; Zech 14:9, 16-17; see Ezek 34). This second petition prays that these prophecies be fulfilled that all people submit to God’s reign. The one praying is also asking that God reign in his or her own life.

The third petition sums up the first two: your will be done, on earth as in heaven.

In heaven God’s kingship is accepted and his name is hallowed by the angels and saints. His will is done perfectly in heaven. In this petition, we pray that everyone on earth join the angels and saints in serving the king, revering his holy name, and doing his will perfectly—just as it is done in heaven.

The next four petitions concern ourselves: give us, forgive us, do not subject us, and deliver us. Give us today our daily bread brings to mind the daily provision of manna for the Israelites in the desert, by which God provided just enough food for each person for each day (Exod 16:16-22). This prayer acknowledges our complete dependence on God and our trust in him to provide for our needs. The Greek words translated as “daily bread” have been interpreted various ways. They can mean “bread for existence” or “bread for the existing day”—both of which recall the manna theme in Exod 16. In addition, the words can mean “bread for the future day,” which would point to the “day of the Lord,” when the Jews expected the manna to return. Along these lines, almost all the Church Fathers interpreted this petition Eucharistically. Just as the Israelites received bread from heaven every day in the desert, so Christians are given the Eucharistic heavenly bread today as a pledge of the future bread of the kingdom (see Catechism 2836). This traditional view develops what is implicit in Matthew, that God’s gift of bread is Jesus’ own body, given for us on the cross (26:17).

Debt was a metaphor for sin. The petition to forgive us our debts would bring to mind the image of a lender releasing someone from the debt he owes (see 18:23-35). This petition has a challenging condition: we ask God to forgive us our sins as we forgive our debtors. We will receive God’s mercy only to the extent that we show mercy to those who have trespassed against us (6:14-15; Catechism 2840).

The sixth petition asks for protection from future sin: do not subject us to the final test. Testing is not bad. To be tested is to be thrown into difficult situations that prove one’s faithfulness. God tested his people in the desert to know what was in their hearts (Deut 8:2). The Holy Spirit led Jesus in the wilderness to be tested (see comment on 4:1). This petition does not seek to avoid testing but humbly recognizes our frailty and asks God to help us through the trials so that we do not stumble and fall. Pope Benedict XVI comments that in this petition we ask God not to test us beyond what we can bear. It is as if we are saying, “I know I need trials. ...When you decide to send me these trials ...please remember that my strength goes only so far. Don’t overestimate my capacity . . . and be close to me with your protecting hand when it becomes too much for me.” The NAB translation of this petition envisions a particular testing in the end times (“the final test”). However, while the final tribulations may be a part of this petition, the Greek text does not limit the scope of the petition in this way.

In the last petition, we ask God to deliver us from the evil one. Here we are reminded that evil ultimately is associated with a person, the devil, who opposes God, and we ask to be protected from all evil that he instigates. Hence, the common form of this petition (“deliver us from evil”) is a prayer to be protected not just from evil in the abstract but from Satan and all his malevolent works (Catechism 2851).

In the gospel of Matthew the lord's prayer is followed by these lines (Matthew 6:16-18):

16 "When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites. They neglect their appearance, so that they may appear to others to be fasting. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.

17 But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face,

18 so that you may not appear to be fasting, except to your Father who is hidden. And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.

Jesus now addresses the third main practice of piety: fasting. Before going out in public, people normally pay attention to how they look. In first-century Palestine, people might change their clothes and cleanse their skin with oil, especially their heads. However, it seems it was the practice of some people to neglect their appearance and look gloomy because they wanted to appear to others to be fasting. The attention these hypocrites get from fasting will be the only reward they receive. The true disciple, however, should try to appear as if everything is normal when fasting. He should anoint his head and wash his face so that you may not appear to be fasting, except to your Father who is hidden. The Father rewards the disciple who fasts but does not seek to draw attention to himself.

comments by Pope Benedict XVI (JN):

Prayer must not be an occasion for showing off before others; it requires the discretion that is essential to a relation of love. God addresses every individual by a name that no one else knows, as Scripture tells us (cf. Rev 2:17). God’s love for each individual is totally personal and includes this mystery of a uniqueness that cannot be divulged to other human beings.

This discretion, which is of the very essence of prayer, does not exclude prayer in common. The other false form of prayer the Lord warns us against is the chatter, the verbiage, that smothers the spirit. We are all familiar with the danger of reciting habitual formulas while our mind is somewhere else entirely.

We are at our most attentive when we are driven by inmost need to ask God for something or are prompted by a joyful heart to thank him for good things that have happened to us. Most importantly, though, our relationship to God should not be confined to such momentary situations, but should be present as the bedrock of our soul. In order for that to happen, this relation has to be constantly revived and the affairs of our everyday lives have to be constantly related back to it. The more the depths of our souls are directed toward God, the better we will be able to pray. The more prayer is the foundation that upholds our entire existence, the more we will become men of peace. The more we can bear pain, the more we will be able to understand others and open ourselves to them. This orientation pervasively shaping our whole consciousness, this silent presence of God at the heart of our thinking, our meditating, and our being, is what we mean by “prayer without ceasing.”

The more God is present in us, the more we will really be able to be present to him when we utter the words of our prayers. But the converse is also true: Praying actualizes and deepens our communion of being with God. Our praying can and should arise above all from our heart, from our needs, our hopes, our joys, our sufferings, from our shame over sin, and from our gratitude for the good. It can and should be a wholly personal prayer.

Normally, thought precedes word; it seeks and formulates the word. But praying the Psalms and liturgical prayer in general is exactly the other way round: The word, the voice, goes ahead of us, and our mind must adapt to it.

Before we enter into the detailed exposition, let us now very briefly look at the structure of the Our Father as Matthew transmits it. It comprises an initial salutation and seven petitions. Three are “thou-petitions,” while four are “we-petitions.” The first three petitions concern the cause of God himself in this world; the four following petitions concern our hopes, needs, and hardships. The relationship between the two sets of petitions in the Our Father could be compared to the relationship between the two tablets of the Decalogue. Essentially they are explications of the two parts of the great commandment to love God and our neighbor—in other words, they are directions toward the path of love.

The Our Father, then, like the Ten Commandments, begins by establishing the primacy of God, which then leads naturally to a consideration of the right way of being human. Here, too, the primary concern is the path of love, which is at the same time a path of conversion. If man is to petition God in the right way, he must stand in the truth. And the truth is: first God, first his Kingdom (cf. Mt 6:33). The first thing we must do is step outside ourselves and open ourselves to God. Nothing can turn out right if our relation to God is not rightly ordered. For this reason, the Our Father begins with God and then, from that starting point, shows us the way toward being human. At the end we descend to the ultimate threat besetting man, for whom the Evil one lies in wait—we may recall the image of the apocalyptic dragon that wages war against those “who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus” (Rev 12:17).

In his book of spiritual exercises, Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, the Superior General of the Jesuits, tells the story of a staretz, or spiritual advisor of the Eastern Church, who yearned “to begin the Our Father with the last verse, so that one might become worthy to finish the prayer with the initial words—‘Our Father.’” In this way, the staretz explained, we would be following the path to Easter. “We begin in the desert with the temptation, we return to Egypt, then we travel the path of the Exodus, through the stations of forgiveness and God’s manna, and by God’s will we attain the promised land, the kingdom of God, where he communicates to us the mystery of his name: ‘Our Father’” (Der österliche Weg, pp. 65f.).

Let both these ways, the way of ascent and the way of descent, be a reminder that the Our Father is always a prayer of Jesus and that communion with him is what opens it up for us. We pray to the Father in heaven, whom we know through his Son. And that means that Jesus is always in the background during the petitions, as we will see in the course of our detailed exposition of the prayer. A final point—because the Our Father is a prayer of Jesus, it is a Trinitarian prayer: We pray with Christ through the Holy Spirit to the Father.

Our Father in heaven,

“The Our Father begins with a great consolation: we are allowed to say ‘Father.’ This one word contains the whole history of redemption. We are allowed to say ‘Father,’ because the Son was our brother and has revealed the Father to us; because, thanks to what Christ has done, we have once more become children of God.  It is true, of course, that contemporary men and women have difficulty experiencing the great consolation of the word father immediately, since the experience of the father is in many cases either completely absent or is obscured by inadequate examples of fatherhood.

We must therefore let Jesus teach us what father really means. In Jesus’ discourses, the Father appears as the source of all good, as the measure of the rectitude (perfection) of man. “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good” (Mt 5:44–45). The love that endures “to the end” (Jn 13:1), which the Lord fulfilled on the Cross in praying for his enemies, shows us the essence of the Father. He is this love. Because Jesus brings it to completion, he is entirely “Son,” and he invites us to become “sons” according to this criterion.

There are two sides of God’s Fatherhood for us to see. First of all, God is our Father in the sense that he is our Creator. We belong to him because he has created us. “Being” as such comes from him and is consequently good; it derives from God. This is especially true of human beings. This brings us to the second dimension of God’s Fatherhood. There is a unique sense in which Christ is the “image of God” (2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:15). The Fathers of the Church therefore say that when God created man “in his image,” he looked toward the Christ who was to come, and created man according to the image of the “new Adam,” the man who is the criterion of the human.  Above all, though, Jesus is “the Son” in the strict sense—he is of one substance with the Father. He wants to draw all of us into his humanity and so into his Sonship, into his total belonging to God.

This gives the concept of being God’s children a dynamic quality: We are not ready-made children of God from the start, but we are meant to become so increasingly by growing more and more deeply in communion with Jesus. Our sonship turns out to be identical with following Christ.  The word father is an invitation to live from our awareness of this reality. Hence, too, the delusion of false emancipation, which marked the beginning of mankind’s history of sin, is overcome. Adam, heeding the words of the serpent, wants to become God himself and to shed his need for God. We see that to be God’s child is not a matter of dependency, but rather of standing in the relation of love that sustains man’s existence and gives it meaning and grandeur.

The word our is really rather demanding: It requires that we step out of the closed circle of our “I.” It requires that we surrender ourselves to communion with the other children of God. It requires, then, that we strip ourselves of what is merely our own, of what divides. It requires that we accept the other, the others—that we open our ear and our heart to them. When we say the word our, we say Yes to the living Church in which the Lord wanted to gather his new family. In praying the Our Father, we pray totally with our own heart, but at the same time we pray in communion with the whole family of God, with the living and the dead, with men of all conditions, cultures, and races. The Our Father overcomes all boundaries and makes us one family.

This word our also gives us the key to understanding the words that come next: “Who art in heaven.” With these words, we are not pushing God the Father away to some distant planet. Rather, we are testifying to the fact that, while we have different earthly fathers, we all come from one single Father, who is the measure and source of all fatherhood. God’s fatherhood is more real than human fatherhood, because he is the ultimate source of our being; because he has thought and willed us from all eternity; because he gives us our true paternal home, which is eternal.  The fatherhood that is “in heaven” points us toward the greater “we” that transcends all boundaries, breaks down all walls, and creates peace.

hallowed be your name.

The first petition of the Our Father reminds us of the second commandment of the Decalogue: Thou shalt not speak the name of the Lord thy God in vain. But what is this “name of God”? When we speak of God’s name, we see in our mind’s eye the picture of Moses in the desert beholding a thornbush that burns but is not consumed.  In the world of Moses’ time there were many gods. Moses therefore asks the name of this God that will prove his special authority vis-à-vis the gods. But the God who calls Moses is truly God, and God in the strict and true sense is not plural. God is by essence one. For this reason he cannot enter into the world of the gods as one among many; he cannot have one name among others. God’s answer to Moses is thus at once a refusal and a pledge. He says of himself simply, “I am who I am”—he is without any qualification.

What began at the burning bush in the Sinai desert comes to fulfillment at the burning bush of the Cross. God has now truly made himself accessible in his incarnate Son. He has become a part of our world; he has, as it were, put himself into our hands.

This enables us to understand what the petition for the sanctification of the divine name means. The name of God can now be misused and so God himself can be sullied. The name of God can be co-opted for our purposes and so the image of God can also be distorted.

Your kingdom come,

With this petition, we are acknowledging first and foremost the primacy of God. Where God is absent, nothing can be good. Where God is not seen, man and the world fall to ruin. This is what the Lord means when he says to “seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well” (Mt 6:33). These words establish an order of priorities for human action, for how we approach everyday life.

This is not an automatic formula for a well-functioning world, not a utopian vision of a classless society in which everything works out well of its own accord, simply because there is no private property. Jesus does not give us such simple recipes. What he does do, though—as we saw earlier—is to establish an absolutely decisive priority. For “Kingdom of God” means “dominion of God,” and this means that his will is accepted as the true criterion.

With the petition “thy Kingdom come” (not “our kingdom”), the Lord wants to show us how to pray and order our action in just this way. The first and essential thing is a listening heart, so that God, not we, may reign. The encounter with Christ makes this petition even deeper and more concrete. We have seen that Jesus is the Kingdom of God in person. The Kingdom of God is present wherever he is present.

By the same token, the request for a listening heart becomes a request for communion with Jesus Christ, the petition that we increasingly become “one” with him (Gal 3:28). What is requested in this petition is the true following of Christ, which becomes communion with him and makes us one body with him. To pray for the Kingdom of God is to say to Jesus: Let us be yours, Lord! Pervade us, live in us; gather scattered humanity in your body, so that in you everything may be subordinated to God and you can then hand over the universe to the Father, in order that “God may be all in all” (1 Cor 15:28).

 your will be done,
 on earth as it is in heaven.

Where God’s will is done is heaven. The essence of heaven is oneness with God’s will, the oneness of will and truth. Earth becomes “heaven” when and insofar as God’s will is done there; and it is merely “earth,” the opposite of heaven, when and insofar as it withdraws from the will of God. This is why we pray that it may be on earth as it is in heaven—that earth may become “heaven.”

But what is “God’s will”? How do we recognize it? How can we do it? The Holy Scriptures work on the premise that man has knowledge of God’s will in his inmost heart, that anchored deeply within us there is a participation in God’s knowing, which we call conscience (cf., for example, Rom 2:15).

Because our being comes from God, we are able, despite all of the defilement that holds us back, to set out on the way to God’s will. The Old Testament concept of the “just man” meant exactly that: to live from the word of God, and so from his will, and to find the path that leads into harmony with this will.

Jesus’ whole existence is summed up in the words “Yes, I have come to do thy will.” It is only against this background that we fully understand what he means when he says, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me” (Jn 4:34).

And in this light, we now understand that Jesus himself is “heaven” in the deepest and truest sense of the word—he in whom and through whom God’s will is wholly done. Looking at him, we realize that left to ourselves we can never be completely just: The gravitational pull of our own will constantly draws us away from God’s will and turns us into mere “earth.” But he accepts us, he draws us up to himself, into himself, and in communion with him we too learn God’s will. Thus, what we are ultimately praying for in this third petition of the Our Father is that we come closer and closer to him, so that God’s will can conquer the downward pull of our selfishness and make us capable of the lofty height to which we are called.

Give us this day our daily bread,

While he says to his disciples, “Do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat” (Mt 6:25), he nevertheless invites us to pray for our food and thus to turn our care over to God. Bread is “the fruit of the earth and the work of human hands,” but the earth bears no fruit unless it receives sunlight and rain from above. This coming together of cosmic powers, outside our control, stands opposed to the temptation that comes to us through our pride to give ourselves life purely through our own power. Such pride makes man violent and cold. It ends up destroying the earth. It cannot be otherwise, because it is contrary to the truth that we human beings are oriented toward self-transcendence and that we become great and free and truly ourselves only when we open up to God. We have the right and the duty to ask for what we need. We know that if even earthly fathers give their children good things when they ask for them, God will not refuse us the good things that he alone can give (cf. Lk 11:9–13).

We pray for our bread—and that means we also pray for bread for others. Those who have an abundance of bread are called to share. Father Kolvenbach adds: “If we invoke our Father over the Lord’s Table and at the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, how can we exempt ourselves from declaring our unshakable resolve to help all men, our brothers, to obtain their daily bread?”

Saint Cyprian makes a second important observation: Anyone who asks for bread for today is poor. This prayer presupposes the poverty of the disciples. It presupposes that there are people who have renounced the world, its riches, and its splendor for the sake of faith and who no longer ask for anything beyond what they need to live.

The Fathers of the Church were practically unanimous in understanding the fourth petition of the Our Father as a eucharistic petition; in this sense the Our Father figures in the Mass liturgy as a eucharistic table-prayer (i.e., “grace”). This does not remove the straightforward earthly sense of the disciples’ petition that we have just shown to be the text’s immediate meaning. Saint Cyprian says: "We who are privileged to receive the Eucharist as our bread must nevertheless always pray that none of us be permanently cut off and severed from the body of Christ". “On this account we pray that ‘our’ bread, Christ, be given to us every day, that we, who remain and live in Christ, may not depart from his healing power and from his body” (De dominica oratione 18; CSEL III, 1, pp. 280f.).

and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.

Every instance of trespass among men involves some kind of injury to truth and to love and is thus opposed to God, who is truth and love.

The result is a chain of trespasses in which the evil of guilt grows ceaselessly and becomes more and more inescapable. With this petition, the Lord is telling us that guilt can be overcome only by forgiveness, not by retaliation. God is a God who forgives, because he loves his creatures; but forgiveness can only penetrate and become effective in one who is himself forgiving. “Forgiveness” is a theme that pervades the entire Gospel. We meet it at the very beginning of the Sermon on the Mount in the new interpretation of the fifth commandment, when the Lord says to us: “So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Mt 5:23)

You cannot come into God’s presence unreconciled with your brother; anticipating him in the gesture of reconciliation, going out to meet him, is the prerequisite for true worship of God. In so doing, we should keep in mind that God himself—knowing that we human beings stood against him, unreconciled—stepped out of his divinity in order to come toward us, to reconcile us.

If we want to understand the petition fully and make it our own, we must go one step further and ask: What is forgiveness, really? What happens when forgiveness takes place? Guilt is a reality, an objective force; it has caused destruction that must be repaired. For this reason, forgiveness must be more than a matter of ignoring, of merely trying to forget. Guilt must be worked through, healed, and thus overcome. Forgiveness exacts a price—first of all from the person who forgives. He must overcome within himself the evil done to him; he must, as it were, burn it interiorly and in so doing renew himself. As a result, he also involves the other, the trespasser, in this process of transformation, of inner purification, and both parties, suffering all the way through and overcoming evil, are made new.

The petition for forgiveness is more than a moral exhortation—though it is that as well, and as such it challenges us anew every day. But, at its deepest core, it is—like the other petitions—a Christological prayer. It reminds us of he who allowed forgiveness to cost him descent into the hardship of human existence and death on the Cross. It calls us first and foremost to thankfulness for that, and then, with him, to work through and suffer through evil by means of love. And while we must acknowledge day by day how little our capacities suffice for that task, and how often we ourselves keep falling into guilt, this petition gives us the great consolation that our prayer is held safe within the power of his love—with which, through which, and in which it can still become a power of healing.

And lead us not into temptation,

Temptation comes from the devil, but part of Jesus’ messianic task is to withstand the great temptations that have led man away from God and continue to do so. As we have seen, Jesus must suffer through these temptations to the point of dying on the Cross, which is how he opens the way of redemption for us. Thus, it is not only after his death, but already by his death and during his whole life, that Jesus “descends into hell,” as it were, into the domain of our temptations and defeats, in order to take us by the hand and carry us upward. The Letter to the Hebrews places special emphasis on this aspect, which it presents as an essential component of Jesus’ path: “For because he himself has suffered and been tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted” (Heb 2:18). “For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb 4:15).

The Book of Job can also help us to understand the difference between trial and temptation. In order to mature, in order to make real progress on the path leading from a superficial piety into profound oneness with God’s will, man needs to be tried. Just as the juice of the grape has to ferment in order to become a fine wine, so too man needs purifications and transformations; they are dangerous for him, because they present an opportunity for him to fall, and yet they are indispensable as paths on which he comes to himself and to God. Love is always a process involving purifications, renunciations, and painful transformations of ourselves—and that is how it is a journey to maturity.

When we pray it, we are saying to God: “I know that I need trials so that my nature can be purified. When you decide to send me these trials, when you give evil some room to maneuver, as you did with Job, then please remember that my strength goes only so far. Don’t overestimate my capacity. Don’t set too wide the boundaries within which I may be tempted, and be close to me with your protecting hand when it becomes too much for me.” It was in this sense that Saint Cyprian interpreted the sixth petition. He says that when we pray, “And lead us not into temptation,” we are expressing our awareness “that the enemy can do nothing against us unless God has allowed it beforehand, so that our fear, our devotion and our worship may be directed to God—because the Evil One is not permitted to do anything unless he is given authorization”

When we pray the sixth petition of the Our Father, we must therefore, on one hand, be ready to take upon ourselves the burden of trials that is meted out to us. On the other hand, the object of the petition is to ask God not to mete out more than we can bear, not to let us slip from his hands. We make this prayer in the trustful certainty that Saint Paul has articulated for us: “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Cor 10:13).

but deliver us from evil.

The last petition of the Our Father takes up the previous one again and gives it a positive twist. The two petitions are therefore closely connected. In the next-to-last petition the not set the dominant note (do not give the Evil One more room to maneuver than we can bear).

The Christian in time of persecution calls upon the Lord as the only power that can save him: “Deliver us, free us from evil.”

The new German translation of the Our Father says “vom Bösen,” thus leaving it open whether “evil” or “the Evil One” is meant. The two are ultimately inseparable. Indeed, we see before us the dragon of which the Book of Revelation speaks (cf. chapters 12 and 13). John portrays the “beast rising out of the sea,” out of the dark depths of evil, with the symbols of Roman imperial power, and he thus puts a very concrete face on the threat facing the Christians of his day: the total claim placed upon man by the emperor cult and the resulting elevation of political-military-economic might to the peak of absolute power—to the personification of the evil that threatens to devour us.

Today there are on one hand the forces of the market, of traffic in weapons, in drugs, and in human beings, all forces that weigh upon the world and ensnare humanity irresistibly. Today, on the other hand, there is also the ideology of success, of well-being, that tells us, “God is just a fiction, he only robs us of our time and our enjoyment of life. Don’t bother with him! Just try to squeeze as much out of life as you can.” These temptations seem irresistible as well. The Our Father in general and this petition in particular are trying to tell us that it is only when you have lost God that you have lost yourself; then you are nothing more than a random product of evolution. Then the “dragon” really has won. So long as the dragon cannot wrest God from you, your deepest being remains unharmed, even in the midst of all the evils that threaten you. Our translation is thus correct to say: “Deliver us from evil,” with evil in the singular. Evils (plural) can be necessary for our purification, but evil (singular) destroys. This, then, is why we pray from the depths of our soul not to be robbed of our faith, which enables us to see God, which binds us with Christ. This is why we pray that, in our concern for goods, we may not lose the Good itself; that even faced with the loss of goods, we may not also lose the Good, which is God; that we ourselves may not be lost: Deliver us from evil!

What could the world make you fear if you are protected in the world by God himself?” (De dominica oratione 19; CSEL III, 27, p. 287). This certainty sustained the martyrs, it made them joyful and confident in a world full of affliction, and it “delivered” them at the core of their being, freeing them for true freedom.

This same confidence was wonderfully put into words by Saint Paul: “If God is for us, who is against us?…Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?…No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:31–39).

In this sense, the last petition brings us back to the first three: In asking to be liberated from the power of evil, we are ultimately asking for God’s Kingdom, for union with his will, and for the sanctification of his name.

This very human way of interpreting the petition has entered into the liturgy: In every liturgy, with the sole exception of the Byzantine, the final petition of the Our Father is extended into a separate prayer. In the old Roman liturgy it ran thus: “Free us, Lord, from all evils, past, present, and future. By the intercession…of all the saints, give peace in our day. Come to our aid with your mercy that we may be ever free from sins and protected from confusion.” We sense the hardships of times of war, we hear the cry for total redemption.

commentary by Pablo T. Gadenz, Roman Catholic priest of the Diocese of Trenton (NJ) :

Praying the Lord’s Prayer:  Since Christians pray the Our Father frequently, there is a risk of reciting it routinely and without sufficient recollection. It is thus helpful every so often to ponder it slowly during an extended time of quiet prayer (e.g., thirty minutes). In this way, one can contemplate each of its phrases and petitions, applying them to one’s life and accompanying them with one’s own prayer. “We can be aware that we are with him, of what we are asking him, of his willingness to give to us, and how eagerly he remains with us.”

The Friend at Night (Luke 11:5–13)

William Holman Hunt's The Importunate Neighbour (1895) depicts the beginning of the parable.

5. And he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend to whom he goes at midnight and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread.

6.for a friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journey and I have nothing to offer him,'
 
7. and he says in reply from within, 'Do not bother me; the door has already been locked and my children and I are already in bed. I cannot get up to give you anything.'
 
8. I tell you, if he does not get up to give him the loaves because of their friendship, he will get up to give him whatever he needs because of his persistence.
 
9. "And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
 
10. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
 
11. What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish?
 
12. Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg?
 
13. If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the holy Spirit to those who ask him?"

The holy Spirit: this is a Lucan editorial alteration of a traditional saying of Jesus (see also Matthew 7:11). Luke presents the gift of the holy Spirit as the response of the Father to the prayer of the Christian disciple.

Monsignor Charles Pope (Washington DC) explains this passage:

Jesus tells a similar parable in Luke 18 of an unjust judge and a persistent widow. Finally the judge gives her justice because of her demanding persistence. The upshot of both of these parables is that if even a grouchy neighbor and an unjust judge will respond to persistence, how much more will God the Father who is neither unjust or grouchy respond to those who call out to him day and night.

Now in the end, the teaching that we persist in prayer is something of a mystery. God is not deaf, he is not forgetful, he is not stubborn. But yet, he teaches in many places that we are to persevere, even pester him, in our prayer. Why he teaches this cannot be for his sake, it must be for ours. Perhaps he seeks to help us clarify what we really want, perhaps he wants to strengthen our faith, perhaps he wants to instill appreciation in us for the finally answered prayer. What ever it may be there is something of a mystery here as to the exact reason. But persistent prayer is taught and insisted upon by Jesus, here and elsewhere.

Some may ponder as to why our prayers are not always effective. Some of the usual explanations are:

1. Our faith is not strong enough. the Book of James says, "But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord"; (James 1:6-7)

2. We ask for improper things or with wrong motives - The Book of James says : “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures” (James 4:3)

3. Unrepented sin sets up a barrier between us and God so that our prayer is blocked -  “Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor His ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities (sins) have separated you from God; your sins have hidden his face from you so that He will not hear” (Isaiah 59:1-2).

4. We have not been generous with the requests and needs of others - “If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered” (Proverbs 21:13) 

5. God cannot trust us with blessings for we are not conformed to his word or trustworthy with lesser things - “If you remain in me and my word remains in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be given to you” (John 15:7) and Again: "So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?" (Lk 16:11-12)

Pray, Pray Pray – The insistence on persistence is taught to us all, not only to the sinful and weak in faith. The Lord says here quite simply: pray, pray, pray pray, pray. Realize that this is part of what is required of the Christian. Prayer is about more than “calling and hauling” or “naming and claiming.” It is also about persevering, about persisting.

Exorcising the blind and mute man (Luke 11:14-20)

Exorcising the blind and mute man by James Tissot, late 19th century

14 He was driving out a demon (that was) mute, and when the demon had gone out, the mute person spoke and the crowds were amazed.

15 Some of them said, "By the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons, he drives out demons."

16 Others, to test him, asked him for a sign from heaven.

17 But he knew their thoughts and said to them, "Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste and house will fall against house.

18 And if Satan is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that it is by Beelzebul that I drive out demons.

19 If I, then, drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your own people drive them out? Therefore they will be your judges.

20 But if it is by the finger of God that (I) drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

Beelzebul is a name for Satan, probably derived from a title of the false god of the Canaanites, "Baal
the Prince" .

The claim that Jesus is using demonic power to cast out demons is disproved by its logical absurdity. How can Satan drive out Satan? (Mark 3:23). In three parallel statements Jesus likens Satan to the ruler of a kingdom or house, who would naturally act in self-interest. What ruler would instigate a revolt against his own rule? Everyone knows that civil war in a kingdom or internal strife in a household spells destruction. If Satan were making war on his own subordinates through Jesus' exorcisms, Satan's dominion would have quickly collapsed.

Explanation by Rev. Dr. V Kurian Thomas, Valiyaparambil:

Jesus refutes his accusers with logic. Jesus said, Satan will not attack his own subjects. If he does, his kingdom would fall.

We live in a would full of division based on envy, greed, dishonesty, greed and so on. We live in a world that is separated from the Word of God.

Unity was present on the day of Pentecost when the Christian Church was established. Acts 2:1 says,"the apostles were all in accord in one place."

What happened since then is a different story. Now there is deep divisions in the world, in the nation, in the community, in the family, in the church, and so on. Lack of fellowship in Christ is a destructive factor in today's life style. Missing link of fellowship in Jesus Christ can only bring back the lost unity.

We see a striking parallel that is mentioned in Ephesians 4:3-6 about Corinth. The City of Corinth, located on the narrow neck of land connected to the mainland of Greece, was at the time a booming city, intellectually superior, materially affluent, but was morally bankrupt. The people were indulged in immorality, greed, dishonesty, drunkenness, lust, selfishness, and so on.. There was deep divisions in communities, as well as families. Different groups were forming and quarreling among themselves was very common.

St. Paul started to weave the thread of unity there. St. Paul preached continuously telling them that there will always be differences of opinions, but those differences can be healthy if they can be approached in a Christ-like manner by seeking the truth, and the will of God. If we are wrong about something, we must be willing to admit it. If it is a sin, repent and ask for forgiveness.

Jealousy, envy, and greed divide people in this world. Gossip and slander separates people.

Yes, there is a cure for the division, according to St. Paul. That cure is, "love, faith, kindness, truth, and forgiveness. The very nature of God is the cure for all the divisions. St. Paul says, "Love is patient, love is kind. It doesn't boast, it is not proud, it is not rude, it is not self-seeking, and it keeps no record of wrongs."

What St. Paul offered to Corinthians can be a practical lesson to achieve unity in today's world that is badly divided by disunity and blame.

comments by Deacon Keith A. Fournier (Diocese of Richmond, Virginia):

The successor of Peter, Pope Francis said:

'"There are some priests who, when they read this Gospel passage, this and others say: 'But, Jesus healed a person with a mental illness'. They do not read this, no? It is true that at that time, they could confuse epilepsy with demonic possession; but it is also true that there was the devil!

He proclaimed, "There is always the temptation to want to diminish the figure of Jesus, as if he were "a healer at most" and so as not to take him "so seriously".

Sadly, that temptation has made its way into too many homilies. Even worse, it has made its way into our daily lives as Christians. We often behave like the materialist to which CS Lewis referred.

Francis reminded us that "the Devil is a Liar - and we must resist him with the truth and use our faith as a shield because the devil "doesn't throw flowers at us but instead burning arrows."

The passage from Luke is one of many Gospel texts which clearly reveal the undeniable claim that the devil is not only real - but that the devil is our enemy precisely because he is the enemy of Jesus Christ - and we belong to Jesus Christ. This Pope does not simply allude to the reality of spiritual warfare, he reminds us all of it is real and teaches us to engage in it.

Pope Francis speaks clearly of the existence of the devil. He calls all Christians to take the Bible passages that mention the devil seriously. He speaks directly about the fact that spiritual warfare is part of the Christian life and mission. We all need to hear his message and respond - every day!

In his introduction to "The Screwtape Letters", a brilliant work exposing the unseen spiritual warfare taking place around all of us which uses a series of letters between two demons -  the older Screwtape, an instructor and the younger student Wormwood - the great apologist CS Lewis wrote:

"There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight."

We are engaged in a spiritual war for the souls of men and women in this urgent hour. The Evil One is a thief who seeks to kill and destroy. (See, John 10:10)  We face very real personal opposition from the devil in our own lives - and it is all around us. We must always remember that the struggle we face, even though it works itself out on so many different fronts, is, at root, a spiritual one, and requires spiritual weapons. That is why the Apostle Paul wrote to the Christians in Ephesus:

"Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we are not contending against flesh and blood; but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand." (Eph. 6:12,13)

From whom do I have to defend myself? What must I do?  Paul tells us to put on God's full armor, meaning that God acts as a defense, helping us to resist Satan's temptations. Is this clear?  No spiritual life, no Christian life is possible without resisting temptations, without putting on God's armor which gives us strength and protects us.

Saint Paul underlines that our battle is not against little things but against the principalities and the ruling forces, in other words against the devil and his followers.  "But in this generation, like so many others, people have been led to believe that the devil is a myth, a figure, an idea, the idea of evil".

He also wrote these words to the Christians in Corinth: "For though we live in the world we are not carrying on a worldly war, for the weapons of our warfare are not worldly but have divine power to destroy strongholds." (2 Cor. 10:4,5)

Christians (at least orthodox, faithful ones) are routinely presented as unenlightened, as somehow forcing our view on others. Our positions on the dignity of every human life, marriage, family, the nature and demands of authentic freedom, the nature of truth as being objective - are all what will actually free the people of our age from the bondage of disordered appetites and the emptiness they bring about in people's lives. These truths are objectively true for all men and women.

And the enemy of the Truth is the devil.

In this age of relativism, there are a growing number of folks who do not like us even making such a claim. Yet, the truth is still true. We were made for relationship. We were structured for authentic love and human flourishing within true marriage - and called to build a society founded upon the family. We were created by God, in His Image, and we will never find authentic happiness or human flourishing until we embrace His loving plan in our own lives.

We are living in a new missionary age. Pope Francis is reminding us regularly - and for good reason - that the devil is real. Also, he is reminding us that the Devil is our enemy. The Evil One hates Jesus Christ and hates all who bear His name and continue His redemptive mission by living their lives in the heart of the Church for the sake of the world.

Strong man (Luke 11:21-26)

Eric Armusik - The Temptation of Christ (2011)

21 When a strong man fully armed guards his palace, his possessions are safe.

22 But when one stronger than he attacks and overcomes him, he takes away the armor on which he relied and distributes the spoils.

23 Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

24 "When an unclean spirit goes out of someone, it roams through arid regions searching for rest but, finding none, it says, 'I shall return to my home from which I came.' 

 

25 But upon returning, it finds it swept clean and put in order.

26 Then it goes and brings back seven other spirits more wicked than itself who move in and dwell there, and the last condition of that person is worse than the first."

Explanation by G. Thomas Fitzpatrick  (Catholic writer and author of 'A Penitent Blogger'):

Our Lord is speaking of struggles against powerful forces of evil: struggles that can be permanently won only by the power of one stronger than the strong man of evil. Jesus, of course, is that stronger One (indeed, infinitely strong) and our fate is grim if we are not aligned with him. In a universe of many terrors and evils - seen and unseen, subtle and powerful – we need to stay close to the Lord.

Evil is not an impersonal force that just happens. It has a name and a face and it seeks to master every heart and soul on the face of the earth (1 Peter 5:8-9). Scripture identifies the Evil One by many names, ‘Satan’, ‘Be-el’zebul – the prince of demons’, the ‘Devil’, the ‘Deceiver’, the ‘Father of Lies’, and ‘Lucifier’, the fallen angel who broke rank with God and established his own army and kingdom in opposition to God.

What is the point of Jesus’ grim story about a vacant house being occupied by an evil force? It is not enough to banish evil thoughts and habits from our lives. We must also fill the void with God who is the source of all that is good, wholesome, true, and life-giving for us. Augustine of Hippo said that our lives have a God-shaped void which only God can fill satisfactorily. If we attempt to leave it vacant or to fill it with something else, we will end up being in a worse state in the end. What do you fill the void in your life with? The Lord Jesus wants to fill our hearts and minds with the power of his life-giving word and healing love. Jesus makes it very clear that there are no neutral parties in this world. We are either for Jesus or against him, for the kingdom of God or against it. There are ultimately only two kingdoms which stand in opposition to one another – the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness which is under the rule of Satan. If we disobey God’s word, we open to door to the power of sin and Satan. If we want to live in true freedom, then our “house” (the inner core of our true being) must be occupied by Jesus where he is enthroned as Lord and Savior. The Lord assures us of his protection from spiritual harm and he gives us the help and strength we need to resist the devil and his lies (James 4:7).

Blesses who hear the word of God (Luke 11, 27-28)

Antonio Gil Montejano - Blessing the dinner (1890)

27 While he was speaking, a woman from the crowd called out and said to him, "Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed."

28 He replied, "Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it."

Explanation by Joe Heschmeyer (Family School of Faith Institute):

Jesus isn't denying that Mary is blessed. He's not contradicting the Holy Spirit. Mary is both the biological Mother of Jesus, and His most devoted follower.  But which of these two traits matters more to Jesus?  Would it be better to be a faithless blood relative, or a faithful foreigner?  The answer is obvious to us today, but it wasn't always so. So what Jesus is rebuking is the idea that if you come from a holy family, you're set.

The Old Testament contains plenty of multi-generational blessings and curses, and some people appear to have reacted by deciding that they must enjoy God's favor, since they come from a good family. 

He's showing that it's primarily faith, not blood relation, that matters.  In the case of Mary, She was connected to Christ in both ways.  It's precisely because of Her faith that She became His Mother.

Request for a sign (Luke 11:29–32)

Meeting between the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon - Piero Della Francesca

29 While still more people gathered in the crowd, he said to them, "This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah.

30 Just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.

31 At the judgment the queen of the south will rise with the men of this generation and she will condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and there is something greater than Solomon here.

32 At the judgment the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it, because at the preaching of Jonah they repented, and there is something greater than Jonah here.

Jesus mentions 'the queen of the South'. She is also known as the Queen of Sheba. Some scholars say she was from Yemen, others from Ethiopia. The visit of the Queen of the South is described in Kings 10:

1 Kings 10 - The Queen of Sheba Visits Solomon
1 When the queen of Sheba heard about the fame of Solomon and his relation to the name of the LORD, she came to test him with hard questions. 
2 Arriving at Jerusalem with a very great caravan—with camels carrying spices, large quantities of gold, and precious stones—she came to Solomon and talked with him about all that she had on her mind. 
3 Solomon answered all her questions; nothing was too hard for the king to explain to her. 
4 When the queen of Sheba saw all the wisdom of Solomon and the palace he had built, 
5 the food on his table, the seating of his officials, the attending servants in their robes, his cupbearers, and the burnt offerings he made at the temple of the LORD, she was overwhelmed.
6 She said to the king, "The report I heard in my own country about your achievements and your wisdom is true. 
7 But I did not believe these things until I came and saw with my own eyes. Indeed, not even half was told me; in wisdom and wealth you have far exceeded the report I heard. 
8 How happy your men must be! How happy your officials, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom! 
9 Praise be to the LORD your God, who has delighted in you and placed you on the throne of Israel. Because of the LORD's eternal love for Israel, he has made you king, to maintain justice and righteousness." 
10 And she gave the king 120 talents of gold, large quantities of spices, and precious stones. Never again were so many spices brought in as those the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.

The Ninevites believed Jonah.  The Queen of the South came to see the wisdom of Solomon. The Jews had the best sign they could possibly have, right in front of them, and didn't believe. Jesus’ paralleling of the Pharisees with the people of Nineveh is telling. The people of Nineveh repented of their evil ways (Jonah 3:4-10) after hearing Jonah’s call for repentance, while the Jews continued in their unbelief despite being eyewitnesses to the miracles of Jesus. Jesus was telling that their unbelief was culpable given the conversion of the people of Nineveh, sinners who had received far less evidence than they had witnessed.

Explanation by Father Daniel Ray:

Christ makes this reference to Jonah as a forewarning to his listeners: He is greater than Jonah.

As Jonah preached conversion to the Ninevites after coming back from the dead, so Christ would bring conversion and peace to some of the very ones who abandoned him or cried out for his crucifixion.

The whale was greater than Jonah. It swallowed him whole. Yet that violent death and subsequent resurrection was the key moment in Jonah's life and mission. It was necessary not only for Jonah's own salvation (he had been running from God), but it also was necessary for the salvation of the whole city of Nineveh.

When Jonah is swallowed by the whale he dies, and when he is spit out onto the shore, he comes to life again. This is the only sign that Christ promises to his listeners who seek a sign. Christ will be seen by them as truly dead, swallowed by the tomb of the earth. Then, after three days, he will come to life again in the Resurrection. As Jonah preached conversion to the Ninevites after coming back from the dead, so Christ would bring conversion and peace to some of the very ones who abandoned him or cried out for his crucifixion.

Christ is reminding his unbelieving listeners that the Queen of Sheba traveled from afar to hear Solomon's wisdom. The distance from the Kingdom of Sheba in southern Arabia to Jerusalem would have taken weeks to traverse. It would have been an exhausting and expensive journey, especially considering the entourage that would have accompanied the Queen.

She recognized the gift of God in him and relished the pearls of divine wisdom that he shared with her. We need to reflect on how often we avail ourselves of all that God offers us that is not a journey of weeks away, but is just a few miles away: Christ in the Eucharist. Closer still, the Bible on the shelf is filled with Christ's message of love. All this is within easy reach and is much more than anything Solomon could share with us.

 Eye and Light (Luke 11:33-11:36)

Anonymous (Goya follower) - The bonfire (circa 1850)

33 "No one who lights a lamp hides it away or places it (under a bushel basket), but on a lampstand so that those who enter might see the light. 

34 The lamp of the body is your eye. When your eye is sound, then your whole body is filled with light, but when it is bad, then your body is in darkness.

35 Take care, then, that the light in you not become darkness.

36 If your whole body is full of light, and no part of it is in darkness, then it will be as full of light as a lamp illuminating you with its brightness." 

Explanation by Father Michael Scully:

At one place in Luke's Gospel, Jesus becomes quite philosophical about light and darkness. First of all, he says that light must shine; then he says that the lamp of the body is the eye: the way the body becomes full of light is through the eye or through our minds that control what the eye takes in. The eye of the mind can create light or darkness, and Jesus tells us not to allow the eye of the mind to take in darkness. The darkness can be defined to be the evil that a corrupted human nature desires. The light is the light of Jesus who continually inspires us to higher thought.

In exactly the same vein, the good leaders in novel The Chronicles of Narnia are warned that before they can conquer the darkness outside of them, they must conquer the darkness inside of them. That is, before they overcome the evil that is intent on destroying their world, they must work on the selfish evil that is within each of them.

The message is one that we must all hear. Everyone, no matter how good they are, because of the corruption of human nature, has a tendency to satisfy themselves without regard for anything else. We must be aware of the direction our human natures can take us. Our human natures want more than anything to be satisfied. They will direct our minds and wills to control our circumstances with only what we want in mind. It brings about internal darkness, and it must be controlled before any external evil can be conquered.

The Christian must always be aware of internal darkness, or, as Jesus describes it, the light that can become darkness. Our task as Christians is to keep the light bright within us, and never let it become the darkness that it could become.

 Woes of the Pharisees (Luke 11:37–54)

Woe unto You, Scribes and Pharisees (1890) by James Tisso

37 After he had spoken, a Pharisee invited him to dine at his home. He entered and reclined at table to eat.

38 The Pharisee was amazed to see that he did not observe the prescribed washing before the meal.

39 The Lord said to him, "Oh you Pharisees! Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, inside you are filled with plunder and evil.

40 You fools! Did not the maker of the outside also make the inside?

41 But as to what is within, give alms, and behold, everything will be clean for you.

42 Woe to you Pharisees! You pay tithes of mint and of rue and of every garden herb, but you pay no attention to judgment and to love for God. These you should have done, without overlooking the others.

43 Woe to you Pharisees! You love the seat of honor in synagogues and greetings in marketplaces.

44 Woe to you! You are like unseen graves over which people unknowingly walk."

45 Then one of the scholars of the law said to him in reply, "Teacher, by saying this you are insulting us too."

46 And he said, "Woe also to you scholars of the law! You impose on people burdens hard to carry, but you yourselves do not lift one finger to touch them.

47 Woe to you! You build the memorials of the prophets whom your ancestors killed.

48 Consequently, you bear witness and give consent to the deeds of your ancestors, for they killed them and you do the building.

49 Therefore, the wisdom of God said, 'I will send to them prophets and apostles; some of them they will kill and persecute'

50 in order that this generation might be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world,

51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah* who died between the altar and the temple building. Yes, I tell you, this generation will be charged with their blood!

52 Woe to you, scholars of the law! You have taken away the key of knowledge. You yourselves did not enter and you stopped those trying to enter."

53 When he left, the scribes and Pharisees began to act with hostility toward him and to interrogate him about many things,

54 for they were plotting to catch him at something he might say.

* The Zechariah mentioned here may be the Zechariah whose murder is recounted in 2 Chron 24:20-22, the last murder presented in the Hebrew canon of the Old Testament.

The Woes of the Pharisees is a list of criticisms by Jesus against the Scribes and Pharisees.  The woes mostly criticise the Pharisees for hypocrisy and perjury. They illustrate the differences between inner and outer moral states.

Jesus portrays the Pharisees as impatient with outward, ritual observance of minutiae which made them look acceptable and virtuous outwardly but left the inner person unreformed.

comments by Dr. Mary Healy, professor of Scripture at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit:

Over the centuries, an oral tradition of legal interpretation had developed, handed down by generations of leading rabbis. For the Pharisees, this oral tradition vvas just as binding as the 'vvritten Torah. It prescribed numerous and detailed rules of conduct for daily life, so much so that
carrying it out had become a burden that sometimes obscured the purpose of the law (see Matt 23; Luke 11:46; Acts 15:10). By the end ofthe sixth century AD, the oral traditions were fixed in writing in the Mishnah and its accompanying commentary known as the Talmud.

Jesus is saying that His accusers are hypocrites (literally, "stage actors"), people whose outward conduct does not correspond with the true state of their heart. In Mark 7:6-8 He goes even further invokes a prophecy of Isaiah (29:13):

6 Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written:
This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
7 In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts:
8 you disregard God's commandment but cling to human tradition.'

Isaiah is speaking to Israelites who have lost an intimate contact with God, and serve him with an empty formalism devoid of authentic love. Their worship is mere lip service, consisting of inherited rituals that are not rooted in interior conversion of the heart. In fact, they are promoting their own superficial religiosity as a substitute for true obedience to God's will (see Isa 29:10-12). But God's response, through Isaiah, is not so much a threat as a promise.

Notice Jesus is not rejecting tradition per se, which becomes an important term in the early Church for the handing on of authoritative apostolic teaching (1 Cor 11:2,23; 2 Thess 3:6). Rather, he is rejecting merely human traditions that are not based in God's word, that in fact negate the intent of God's word. Paul himself exhorted Christians to "stand firm and hold fast to the traditions which you were taught, either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours" (2 Thess 2: 15). The apostles handed down what they receiyed from Jesus and the Holy Spirit first in oral form through their teaching and example, and later in the written form of the New Testament (see Catechism, 96-100). Indeed, the formation of the canon of Scripture was itself an exercise of apostolic tradition.

This passage is also sometimes cited in disparaging Catholic liturgical and devotional practices as mere "human traditions:' This misunderstanding is due in part to a real problem: religious practice is often superficial and routine among those who have not been adequately evangelized and whose faith fails to impact their choices and behavior in any significant way.Jesus is speaking about an attitude toward God that he saw in the scribes and Pharisees and that can be found among Christians in every church: the tendency to substitute religiosity for genuine obedience to God and his word. What is needed is a personal encounter with Jesus leading to a deep transformation of heart. When that occurs, religious practices come to life and serve their true purpose.

comments by Edward Sri, professor of theology and Scripture:

The Lord’s indictment of the Pharisees should lead us, especially those involved in Christian leadership, to a sober examination of conscience. What is most alarming about the Pharisees is their total unawareness of their dire condition (Matthew 23:26; see Rev 3:15-17). Given this human capacity for spiritual blindness, we have every reason to pray for the grace of self-knowledge.

The questions that follow are based on Jesus’ reproof of the Pharisees. Using them to examine ourselves, we can strive to avoid the conduct that Jesus found so displeasing:

1. Do I practice what I preach ?

2. Do I help others live by God’s standards, or do I simply instruct them on what those standards are ?

3. Do I perform religious actions to impress others or to obtain God’s approval ?

4. Do I desire salutations of honor ?

5. Do I relate to people in a way that welcomes them to conversion, or do I imply by my actions that they are not welcome in the kingdom  ?

6. Do I evade responsibilities by legalistic reasoning ?

7. Do I emphasize lesser matters to the neglect of justice, mercy, and fidelity ?

8. In my spiritual life, do I seek to cleanse the inside of the cup—my heart and inner attitudes—or do I mainly focus on exterior matters ?

These questions identify the typical faults of people who are trying to live the Christian life on their own strength. To rise above them and so avoid the failings of the Pharisees we need the grace that God wants to give us through prayer and regular confession.

Explanation by St. Joseph's Parish - Cottleville:

The harshest dialogue that is recorded from Christ is reserved for the religious leaders of the time -- the Scribes, Pharisees, and teachers of the law. Over time, they had become so obsessed with the Law (ie, the old covenant Law laid out in Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy), that they had no sight of what is truly important. It had become more important to look pious and act pious than to actually be pious.

I think it's worth noting that many folks out there have this very complaint about Catholics. They say that we are good about following rules, but miss the boat when it comes to truly having a relationship with Christ. We have great tradition, we have the sacraments, we have ancient rituals with much meaning behind them, but at times we can appear like we've put the cart before the horse.

I try to think from that perspective as I consider this passage. I'm not a Scribe or Pharisee, so I'm not one of the people that Christ is speaking directly to here. That said, it is more important that I actually have a true devotion to Christ than to look like I have one. It is more important that I address the inside of my cup -- the part that only Christ and I can see --- than the outside of my cup that everyone else can see.

I have found that the more I allow God to transform the inside of my cup, the more Christ's light can shine through me.

comments by Marino J. Dasmarinas (Catholic writer):

Jesus is angry with the Pharisees because many of them were full of pretension their external actions were very much different with their internal thought. They command the people to do this and that yet they themselves were not willing to do it.

What Jesus wants for the Pharisees then and for us now is to lead by example; let us mean what we say and live what we say. This is where we are often lacking, yes we go to church and yes we worship God. But do we translate these to living acts of faith?

Let us not be like the Pharisees and the scholars of the law who are very good only at giving orders. Let us be like Jesus who put into action every word and phrase that He said.

Jesus lived every word that He preached, for example Jesus preached simplicity of lifestyle, He therefore lived this simple lifestyle. Jesus preached about forgiveness and He lived His preaching of forgiveness as well.

Do you live a simple lifestyle and are you forgiving?

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