JULY 27-28, 2019
5:00 PM (SAT), 7:30 AM, 9:00 AM, 10:30 AM (SUN) ORDINARY FORM MASSES
Child development stages are theoretical milestones that involve studying patterns of growth and development. While each child develops in a unique way, there are general patterns of development despite wide variations between individual children.
For instance, most children over a couple of months begin to hold their head up, followed by rolling, grasping, sitting, crawling, standing, walking, climbing, and running. These stages represent motor development over the course of about two years.
Or, regarding speech milestones, a child will coo and babble, laugh, make vowel sounds, then syllables, perhaps musically, begin saying words, making up words, and then joining words – working up to sentences, questions, and eventual fluency over the course of 4 or 5 years.
There are also physical milestones in regards to length, weight, and proportion.
What is remarkable about this, is it’s relative consistency among humans. There is no course on walking or talking. No textbooks or classrooms. Rather, the home and the world – daily life and family interaction – for the most part – results in a reasonably normal child after a couple of years.
Today is the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
In the Gospel from St. Luke chapter 11, we hear one of the disciples ask Our Lord,
Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.What we hear in Luke’s Gospel is a bit of a reduced version of what is recorded in St. Matthew’s Gospel – what we know as the Lord’s Prayer, which we we all recite together at the beginning of the Communion Rite today at Mass.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church calls the Lord’s Prayer “truly the summary of the whole Gospel.”
Most analyses of the Our Father prayer consider that there are 7 petitions. And while quite a bit of ink has been spent on how the prayer is being translated into modern Italian, the English translation dates from the middle 17th century with minor early 20th century revisions.
This part of Luke’s Gospel follows immediately on the heels of last week’s reading which ended:
Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.It could, perhaps, be posited that the “one thing” … “the better part” … in last week’s Gospel is an admonition to greater prayer – emphasizing the primacy of prayer in the life of a follower of Christ.
In His response to the disciple, Jesus first gives the “Our Father” as a pattern of prayer. The prayer we all memorized as children, which we can recite – perhaps without too much thought (for better or for worse) – consisting of an introduction and seven petitions.
Jesus then goes on to speak of the need for persistence in prayer, and finishes by indicating the promises to those who pray.
The requirements of prayer are (1) a recitation – a prayer can be spoken audibly or recited internally … in the mind … from the heart. (2) Prayer requires a relationship – we are praying to someone; and that someone is God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit … with whom we have some sort of relationship through Baptism and the life of grace. (3) There are responsibilities we take on in prayer – to live within God’s will, to abide in His kingdom, to forgive others as He has forgiven us. And finally, (4) there are the rewards of prayer – the graces, mercies, and strengths we receive daily from Almighty God.
As we approach this altar to receive the Sacred Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, let us enter into the Lord’s prayer – as a summary of the Gospel, but also as a “school of prayer.” Let us commit to deepen our own life of prayer … every day … as God’s blessed children, members of Christ, and vessels of the Holy Spirit.
