In today’s Gospel, the disciples ask Jesus a simple but profound question: “Lord, teach us to pray.”
They do not ask Jesus, “Teach us how to become successful.” Or “Teach us how to get ahead.” They ask to learn how to pray—and Jesus responds by giving them the Our Father.
What is striking about this prayer is that Jesus teaches us to say “our” Father, not “my” Father.
That one word changes everything.
When we pray, “Our Father,” we are reminded that we do not live only for ourselves. We belong to one another. The person sitting beside us, the person who looks different from us, the person who is struggling, the person who is poor or forgotten, even the person with whom we disagree—all are part of the human family God has created and loves.
What does it mean to ask for God’s kingdom to come?
It means we are asking God to make our world more like the world God desires: a world where people are treated with dignity, where the hungry are fed, where the vulnerable are protected, where forgiveness is stronger than resentment, and where justice replaces exploitation and exclusion.
But this prayer is not simply asking God to fix the world while we stand on the sidelines.
When we pray, “Your kingdom come,” we are also saying, “Lord, make your kingdom visible through me.”
Let me be an instrument of your love…let me stand with someone who is lonely… speak up when someone is treated unjustly. Let me share what I have with someone who has less and refuse to participate in gossip, prejudice, or hatred. Let me forgive and work for peace.
That is where prayer becomes a way of life.
The Our Father therefore leads us naturally toward the common good.
The common good means recognizing that society flourishes when everyone has the opportunity to live with dignity and participate in the life of the community. It means asking not only, “What is good for me?” but also, “What is good for us? And that is THE profoundly Christian question.
So perhaps the challenge of today’s Gospel is this: Don’t just pray the Our Father. Become the Our Father. Will you?
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