Eating Elephants

Learning the perfection of the Lord’s Prayer

10/06/2021

Lk 11:1-4 Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name, your Kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test.”

How do you eat an elephant? Easy: one bite at a time. In other words, you don’t look at the bigness of the beast but on the smallness of the bite. And I should know because I am from India and we eat lots of elephants. Just kidding. I adopt the same approach to the study of the Scripture, that is, rather than be overwhelmed by the bigness of the bible, I try to see the smallness of each book, and break it down into bite-sized sections. For instance, you can divide the whole bible into the Old Testament (46 books) and the New Testament (27 books).

Each individual book can be further broken down. For example, Isaiah has 3 distinct divisions: First Isaiah (cc. 1-39), Second Isaiah (cc. 40-55), and Third Isaiah (cc. 56-66). The same goes for the Acts of the Apostles, which can be subdivided into two major halves. The first half is about the person and prestige of St. Peter (cc. 1-12), and the second half is more about the missionary meanderings of St. Paul (cc. 13-28). See how eating elephants is easy peasy?

Folks, may I suggest that we also adopt this approach when we peek at the Lord’s Prayer (today’s gospel) but only in the opposite direction? That is, the Lord’s Prayer is already the bite-sized summary of the whole Christian faith. The second-century writer, Tertullian said that the Lord’s Prayer is “truly a summary of the whole gospel.” St. Thomas Aquinas added: “The Lord’s Prayer is the most perfect of prayers.” And a modern theologian commented colorfully: “The Lord’s Prayer is simple like a shallow pool for small children to splash around in but also big like the ocean to drown elephants.” Sorry to be so tough on elephants today: first I’m eating them and now I’m drowning them.

One reason Aquinas argued the Lord’s Prayer was so “perfect” is because it contains seven petitions, and seven is the number of perfection. The first three petitions concern God, and the last four address our own needs. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “The first series of petitions carries us toward God; for his own sake: thy name, thy kingdom, thy will” (no. 2804). It adds a little later: “By the first three petitions, we are strengthened in faith, filled with hope, and set aflame by charity” (no. 2806). In other words, the first part of the Lord’s Prayer is designed to help us grow in faith, hope and love. How perfect is that?

But the second section of four petitions is equally elegant and even Eucharistic. The Catechism continues: “The second series of petitions unfolds with the same movement as certain Eucharistic epicleses…give us…forgive us…leads us not…deliver us” (no. 2805). But by far my favorite of the seven petitions is the fourth one, where we say: “Give us this day our daily bread.” Why?

The Catechism provides the answer again: “The specifically Christian sense of the fourth petition concerns the Bread of Life: the Word of God accepted in faith, the Body of Christ received in the Eucharist” (no. 2835). That is, we are asking our heavenly Father to feed us his beloved children with heavenly Bread, the Body and Blood of his Beloved son, Jesus. The old adage teaches: you are what you eat. So, if we eat the Body of Christ, we will become the Body of Christ.

You know, I must really be hungry this morning because I am talking a lot about eating: first eating elephants and now eating the Eucharist. But I believe we are all hungry for something, or better yet, for Someone, and that Someone is Jesus. We will be hungry for him no matter how many elephants we eat. He is the answer to every prayer and especially to the seven petitions of the Our Father. If the Our Father is the summary of the whole gospel, then Jesus himself is the summary of the Our Father. And that is why it is called the “Lord’s Prayer.”

Praised be Jesus Christ!