Thursday 16 June

2 Cor.11:1-11, Ps.111, Matt.6:7-15

The perfect prayer

We learnt it as children, and we say it so often it can become almost automatic, a matter of rote. Yet the Lord’s prayer was Jesus’ gift to us and it really is the perfect prayer, containing in a few words all the essentials of true prayer. There is praise, worship, acceptance of the Father’s will, a simple request for all our needs, spiritual and material, prayer for forgiveness and protection, and it is a prayer not just for ‘me’ but for ‘us’. We could use our time of prayer today, and indeed for several days, just slowly and attentively praying the ‘Our Father’.