The memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary, the mother of the Lord and his first disciple, falls on a Wednesday of Ordinary Time, among readings that begin with a quarrel and end with a prayer. Our difficulty is an old one: we call God Father, and then we take our places at separate tables, apart from those whose habits trouble us. The Word of God leads us from Antioch to a prayer.
And it happened that, while he was in a certain place praying, when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples." And he said to them: "When you are praying, say: Father, may your name be kept holy. May your kingdom come. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, since we also forgive all who are indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation." (Lk 11:1-4)
The first reading, taken from the letter to the Galatians, opens with a journey. Paul, the apostle and former Pharisee of Tarsus, goes up to Jerusalem after fourteen years, accompanied by Barnabas, the Levite from Cyprus, and by Titus, his Greek companion. He lays before the leaders of the Church the gospel that he preaches among the nations, because he fears that his labour might prove useless. Paul does not doubt his message, but he knows that a message cannot bear fruit when it is cut off from the communion of the Church.
The verses that follow record the outcome of that meeting. James, the brother of the Lord and head of the Church of Jerusalem, Cephas, the Rock of the Twelve, and John, the son of Zebedee, give Paul and Barnabas "the right hand of fellowship" (Gal 2:9). They ask only one thing in return, that the apostles to the nations remember the poor. The handshake is not a formality, but the sign that two missions, one to the circumcised and one to the nations, belong to a single Church. The memory of the poor is the seal that keeps them together.
Then the harmony breaks at a table in Antioch, the city on the Orontes where the disciples were first called Christians. Cephas, the Rock of the Twelve, had been eating with the Gentiles. But when men sent by James arrived, "he drew apart and separated himself" (Gal 2:12), and Barnabas, the companion of Paul, was carried along by this pretence. Paul does not call it a lapse of manners, but a failure of those who were "not walking correctly, by the truth of the Gospel" (Gal 2:14). A table is never neutral, because whoever sits at it, and whoever is left standing, says what he believes about the Father.
The psalm, the shortest of the whole Psalter, answers the quarrel before the quarrel has begun: "All nations, praise the Lord" (Ps 117:1). Two verses suffice to gather the whole earth into one choir, and the reason given is the mercy of God, which holds firm over every people alike. Nothing in that praise depends on a mark of birth or on a custom kept, but it rests on a faithfulness that precedes every border. Where the nations sing together, no seat can be reserved for one of them.
The Gospel of Saint Luke, the physician and companion of Paul, shows Jesus at prayer, and a disciple who has watched him comes forward with a request. John the Baptist, the son of Zechariah and the preacher of the Jordan, had given his followers a prayer that marked them out as a group. The request is therefore a request for a family word. The answer begins with a word that no group can keep to itself: "Father." Every petition that follows is plural, since the bread is ours, the sins are ours and the trial is ours. Not one asks for a private blessing, but each places the one who prays among brothers and sisters, around one loaf.
Long before he spoke a word, the Child of Bethlehem was already saying Abba with his whole body, as a newborn trusts the hands that receive him and keeps nothing back. That trust is the filial spirit of Bethlehem, and it carries a freedom. A child who has a father has no seat to guard and no rank to prove, because everything has been given before it was asked. At a table laid first for shepherds beside a manger, no place has to be defended, since each guest receives his own from the one who invites.
Today the Word of God invites us to say Father without fear and without exception. The prayer leaves no room for the manner of Cephas at Antioch, who sat with the Gentiles and then drew back. Nor does it leave room for the quiet withdrawals that find their way into our homes, our parishes and our friendships. We are asked to let the Father decide who sits beside us.
Let us then receive our daily bread as a gift made for all, and let us keep the table open when the stranger arrives. The heaven we address is not a closed door, but a house where the Father waits and where the chairs are already set. Let us pray together, let us say Father, and let us not sit apart.
Scripture text: Catholic Public Domain Version (CPDV), public domain.
Prayer of the Day
Lord Jesus, you taught your disciples to say Father, and you lay in the manger of Bethlehem in the full trust of a child. Free us from every table we guard and every distance we keep. Give us the courage of Paul and the confidence of children who ask for bread. With Mary, your mother, who kept your words in her heart, taught us to pray as brothers and sisters. Amen.
For Meditation
- At which tables have we taken our seats and quietly left others standing, while still calling God our Father?
- Which of the petitions that Jesus gave us do we most often pray alone, as if the bread and the forgiveness were only ours?
- Where do we need the Father, rather than our own fear of others, to decide who sits beside us?
