The readings this week supply a battery of motives for being a disciple.
In the Our Father, Jesus teaches us to pray by teaching us what we should pray for. What he presents and reveals are the priorities of his own heart. If we make Jesus’ priorities our own, we will pray well and learn to pray better.
Jesus reveals his first priority in the “second phrase” of the Our Father, “Hallowed be thy Name!” To make the Father known and loved is what he lived and breathed for. This should be the first desire of our life. Every time we pray the Our Father, it reminds us. And motivates us to learn who the Father is so that we might appreciate him more ourselves and make him known to others.
Sunday tells us we do not become disciples until we commit to doing concrete things, on a regular basis, that let us enter into the mind and heart of God. Like reading and reflecting on Scripture. What sustains this commitment is hope that God actually will reveal himself to us.
Monday and Tuesday focus us on the core mystery of Christianity, which is the interaction between the divine and the human. By taking flesh in his Incarnation, Jesus put the divine and the human into physical contact. God’s presence in the Book of his words is more awesome than his presence in the Temple. Through it he touches our minds as truly as Jesus touched and healed the bodies of people he healed. Not to read Scripture is to settle for “second-hand exposure” to the Christian faith.
Wednesday: True response to God is not in external actions, but in what they express. Discipleship enlightens, guides and nourishes interior response to God: conversion of mind, heart and will.
Thursday: Full union with another person is impossible without union of mind, heart and will on the level of shared faith. We seek this by openness to others and by sharing in prayer and worship..
Friday: Right direction in the Church requires the collaboration of authority and lay leadership. But good leadership depends on discipleship. To “speak” as Jesus we need to “listen” to Jesus. Leaders come from those who have made listening their lifestyle.
Saturday: When people leave the Church, it is not just the clergy they abandon, but their Covenant, Sacrifice, history, theological and spiritual inheritance, and communion with the Saints and others in the Church. We are vulnerable to this in the measure we are “secondhand Christians,” gullible to false teaching — from those both in and outside the Church — because we are not disciples of Jesus ourselves.
When we pray, “Hallowed be thy Name!” we are called and committing ourselves to keep learning through “word and sacrament and Spirit” the mind and heart of God. This commitment makes us disciples.
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