17TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME C
LEAD US NOT…
LK 11:1-13
MESSAGE
The Lord’s Prayer is one of our treasured Christian prayers. It reveals to us how Jesus sees God – he is his Father; and he shares with us this deepest treasure of his heart. His Father is now also “our Father.
Praying can be simple but at times, also perplexing. In the Lord’s Prayer, do we not wonder why if God is good, if he is our Father, why would there be a phrase about subjecting us to temptation? The Gospel says “subject us not to the final test,” which means the same when we pray: “Lead us not into temptation.” Will God, our Father, really lead us to temptation? This is the reason why in some countries, the prayer has been revised to say: “Do not abandon us to temptation,” or “Do not expose us to temptation.”
But Jesus actually said “subject us not” or “lead us not.” What if sometimes our Good God and Father indeed allows us to go through temptations? Perhaps in his divine wisdom, temptations have a spiritual value, too. In times of temptation, we will recognize we are weak and cannot rely on our own powers. It will make us see how precarious life is, and so we must choose wisely and carefully our actions, words and thoughts.
A temptation is not sin in itself, unless we yield to its invitation and forget to prioritize God over our selfishness. Temptation becomes truly bad only when we begin to believe that we cannot do anything to overcome it; that we are bound to fail and to fall into its trap. Because grace, the power of God, defeats temptation when we sincerely ask for it. God may sometimes allow temptation, but remember that he always, “delivers us from evil.”
REFLECT
All of us have regular temptations visiting us and knocking at the door of our hearts. What is your usual temptation? When it comes, do you hold more tightly to God the Father’s hands and ask for the grace to triumph over it? And when you fail and fall, do you trust the hand of Jesus to grab you and lift you up in love and mercy?
