Summaries of popular books have become popular in our time with a popular website such as Spark Notes or Thinkr. This is because today we tend to alienate ourselves quickly and a book of 300 pages can discourage anyone from reading it.
But in the Gospel we can find one of the first summaries that became popular, a summary that Jesus himself came up with. One of the early writers of the Church wrote: “The Lord’s Prayer is really a summary of the whole Gospel.” Saint Augustine adds to this point and tells us: “Search all the prayers that are in the Scriptures, and I do not believe that you can find anything that is not in the Lord’s Prayer.”
Saint Thomas Aquinas writes that this is the most perfect prayer… in it we not only ask God for everything we need but also what things should come first, that is, what our desires should be.
Therefore, we keep the words of this prayer on our lips and every day we let it bring us closer to what God, as our good father, wants for us.
Our Father who art in Heaven,
hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come,
thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,
and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Amen.
