Fr Ben Garren

Dear Siblings in Christ,

We have come to the seventh day of our Lenten Journey and the Lenten Lectionary lifts up for us the Lord’s Prayer. For me, and many others, this prayer was memorized before I had the ability to comprehend most of its words.

My hope on Tuesdays throughout our Lenten Journey is for us to dig into this prayer, that we may come not so much to comprehend it but to rest in the doors it opens to the incomprehensible. Which begins with “Our Father.”

The first request of the prayer is that we turn away from what we understand of “father” and consider instead a “father in heaven,” a father different than what we expect. Jesus is not so much attempting to reframe heaven in the sense of maleness and fatherhood than making us aware that heaven is accessible in the way our honored elders are accessible. That the Holy Name, the God of the inner sanctum and remotest mountaintop, is present with us wherever we are.

We begin our prayer by turning our heart to God. A God that is as approachable as our beloved elders and mentors in our community. We know that the Holy Name is beyond comprehension and also a meditation we can hold in our hearts. Can we but turn to our hearts and minds to God as we go about any action, carry God with us wherever we go.

Pax,

— Ben