Gospel (Mt 6,7-15) - At that time, Jesus said to his disciples: «When praying, do not waste words like the pagans: they believe they are heard by words. Therefore do not be like them, because your Father knows what things you need even before you ask him. You therefore pray like this: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors, and do not give us over to temptation, but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive others their sins, your Father who is in heaven will forgive you also; but if you do not forgive others, not even your Father will forgive your sins."

The commentary on the Gospel by Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia

Today Jesus gives us his prayer: the Our Father. He warns us first of all that prayer does not consist in multiplying words as if he were counting their number and not the heart with which they are pronounced. Instead, he wants to show us the way of direct prayer, the one that reaches directly, without mediation, the heart of God. No one else, if not him, could have taught it. Only he, who is the perfect Son who knows the Father in depth, could give those words that have marked the life of Christians always and everywhere. Jesus, loving his disciples with a love without limits, teaches us the highest prayer, the one that God cannot fail to hear. And we understand him from the first word: "abba" (dad). With this simple word - it is the one that every small child says to his father - Jesus carries out a real religious revolution compared to the Jewish tradition which led to not even mentioning the holy name of God. Jesus, with this beginning, involves us in his same intimacy with the Father. It is not he who "lowers" God to us; rather, he lifts us up to the very heart of the Father "who is in heaven" so much so that he calls him "father". The Father, while remaining "in the highest heavens", is however the One who has always loved us and who wants our salvation and that of the entire world. It is therefore decisive that Jesus makes us ask for the fulfillment of the Father's will. And God's will is that no one is lost. Nobody. This is why he makes us ask: "Your kingdom come." And may it come soon, because finally the holiness of God will be recognized and all men will live in justice and peace, everywhere, in heaven and on earth. In the second part of the prayer, Jesus makes us ask the Father to look at our everyday life: we ask him for bread, that of the body and that of the heart. And then he makes us venture a request that is actually very demanding: "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." These are arduous and at first glance unrealistic words: how can we admit that human forgiveness is a model of divine forgiveness? In truth, Jesus helps us express extraordinary wisdom in prayer. And we understand this in the following verses: «For if you forgive others their sins, your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, not even your Father will forgive your sins." This language is incomprehensible for a society, as ours often is, in which forgiveness is rare, if not completely banned, and in any case resentment is a weed that we cannot eradicate. But perhaps precisely for this reason we need to learn to pray with the "Our Father" even more. It is the prayer that saves because it makes us discover universal brotherhood when we turn to God and invoke him as the Father of all.