Here is Fr. Marcus’ Wednesday video –

Greeting O Favoured Ones,

I hope all is well, and that you are experiencing some inner peace and calm.

Today we conclude our little wander through the themes of the Lord’s Prayer. We have looked at Worship, intercession and today we briefly unpack Petition. It is no accident that Jesus puts them in that order.

We only have to look at children to realise that asking for things for ourselves comes naturally to human beings. As adults we learn a degree of propriety, but our basic nature does not change.

Just as parents love to provide for their children, so God loves to provide for us. 
There is nothing wrong with asking God for what we need, although there is a discussion to have between needs, desires and wants!

Talking to God about our daily lives, (like talking to our partner if we have one,) is one of the essential  building blocks of our relationship.

The Lord’s Prayer encourages us to ask for three things, 
Give us today our daily bread
Forgive us our sins
Lead us not in to temptation

Our Daily Bread, could be just Help to get what we need to survive, for the preservation of human life. Not asking for more than we need, not being greedy, and not being individualistic. Remember it is Us and We. (ie all who need it)
But Daily is quite difficult to precisely translate (epiousiios. Look at me remembering my New Testament Greek from Uni) It could mean ‘For the current day’ or it could mean ‘the following day’. So some commentators have suggested it means give us tomorrow’s bread today, ie the bread of the heavenly banquet, a foretaste of the kingdom for which we have just prayed. Seen by many as the Eucharist. This indicates that God provides for us both physically and spiritually.

Asking God for what we need does not dent that most of us have to earn our own living, to provide for ourselves and take care of the needs of others. So this prayer is an expression of our dependence upon him, and a reminder that often we are the means by which he answers our own prayers.

Forgive us…as we forgive
Forgiveness is as indispensible to the life and health of the soul as food and drink are to the body. It is the foundation of all relationships.

As we forgive those who sin against us is a difficult phrase. It does not imply that our forgiveness of others earns us the right to be forgiven. Forgiveness is a gracious (unearned and undeserved) gift freely available because of Jesus.
A forgiving spirit is a sign of a truly penitent heart.
For me, the commentators make this complicated when in fact it is simple. They two parts of the sentence are not co dependent. I ask God for forgiveness. He gives it. I seek the gift of being able to forgive others. He gives it.

‘Lead us not in to temptation’. Well God does not lead us into temptation, so some translations read ‘Do not bring us to the time of trial’, an sort of testing where we question the will or presence of God. For me it means ‘Please keep us from situations where we may doubt you’.

‘Deliver us from evil’. A recognition of our human weakness in the face of temptation and evil.

The scriptures talk of a spiritual battle, and whatever our thoughts on that, the Lord’s Prayer gives us the strength to overcome it.

In this simple God given prayer we have a pattern of worship and adoration, that brings us in to an intimate relationship with God, whereby we call him Abba, but we don’t lose sight of his ‘Otherness’, his Holiness, His Majesty and Awe.
We find ourselves taking the needs of the world to God in prayer, looking beyond the narrow confines of church, family and friends, and embracing the whole world, and all that is in it.
We build on our relationships with others and with God through mutual forgiveness and as we share the thoughts about our daily needs, and become aware that we are often the means by which he answers our prayers. 
It is truly beautiful.

Bless you, Bless you, Bless you.

As ever,

Fr Marcus

Here is Fr. Marcus’ sermon from Calpe this morning –

You can watch the glorious service from Fr. Rodney and Fr. Robin by clicking in this link –

Good afternoon my fellow pilgrims of prayer. I hope you have had a sense of Awe and Wonder today that has led you to an attitude of Worship! I am sure you have.

The second of our trio of themes that make up the Lord’s Prayer is Intercession.

Paul mentions this in Romans, and this might be a good place to start.

Romans 8.26
The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

I love this idea that the Holy Spirit helps us in our prayers, and ‘Sighs too deep for words’ is such a beautiful phrase. Sighs of love and joy spring to mind, as well as Sighs of concern or even despair.

Jesus had taught us to pray Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, and that is the heart of Intercession.
Two huge points leap out at me. The first and most powerful is the prayer is about abandoning the ego in favour of the will of God.
Sadly we find that very hard, and still frame our prayers according to what we think is best, but to finish with Thy Will helps it all make sense. It is possible to spot the learning when you hear prayers that are very full, and conclude BUT Thy will be done!
Intercessions are outward prayers, they are for and about others, and they are at the heart of our Christian life.

The second thing is that Jesus came to proclaim the dawning of the Kingdom of God. By his words and actions the reign of God was breaking in on the lives of ordinary men and women. 
In John’s Gospel Jesus says ‘As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you. 
We are to continue his work by bringing in the Kingdom, and one of the ways of doing that is by prayer. Intercession is about seeking and furthering the Kingdom of God, and Jesus invites us to co-operate with him in his work in the world when he teaches us to pray Thy Kingdom come.

So, we are at a place where we leave the ego behind, and guided by, and open to the Holy Spirit we intercede for others, and in so doing we work tirelessly to build the Kingdom.

I want this to happen so that the church may grow sounds like a positive prayer, but sadly it is focused on the ‘I want’ and will rarely bear fruit. 
‘Jesus, teach us how to be so that your church may grow’ is centred on Christ, and more fitting with Thy Kingdom come.

So if we are praying for others, how do we stop just thinking about our own interpretation of events, and giving God some pious pointers to what we want? What do we pray for?

The simple answer is Everything and Nothing! We long to share our love and prayers for every person that is in any need, and for everyone who has decisions to make, but we are also very aware that God already knows, so it is lovely, but not necessary to tell him.
Perhaps our intercessory prayers are as much for us, to ensure that we are looking outwards as they are for the recipients. It is good for us to spend considerable time focussing on the needs of our family and friends, our local communities, countries, people in authority and the church. But we never forget that the heart of the prayer is Thy will be done, and perhaps the big thing is to do more hearing than speaking, so that we discern prayerfully what the Will of God may be.

I shall come back to this in the next letter, but perhaps a way of interceding is to try and discern the nature of God and the message of Jesus, and thenopen our hearts to the Holy Spirit as we ask for guidance to make our concerns fit his will (Not his will fit our concerns.)

I like to remember that this is God’s world, not ours and   sometimes the most productive thing we can do is stand in silence before him.

He has blessed us with two ears and only one mouth!

Just one last thing. Please remember that whatever you take to the Lord in prayer, you are investing part of your soul in, so be prepared to be called to become involved. There is no point in praying for the lonely, thinking that someone else can visit. No point in praying for church growth, but not ever talking about your faith. No point in praying for an end to this pandemic, and not practicing social distancing. You get the point. 

But there is every point in praying for all those things, with the words from the chorus to the hymn I, the Lord of sea and sky in your mind.

Here I am Lord.

Is it I Lord?

I have heard you calling in the night.

I will go Lord,

If you lead me

I will hold your people in my heart.

Our shared homework is to pray for the building of the Kingdom in this place to which you and I were called. Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done.

Bless you, Bless you, Bless you.

Fr Marcus

Welcome my friends as we wander the path of prayer which is our pilgrimage along our spiritual journey.

Last time we reminded ourselves how much of a man of prayer was Jesus. Not only did he have an attitude of prayer all of the time, but he taught us about it with beautiful simplicity.

He said to them, “When you pray, say:

“‘Father,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
³ Give us each day our daily bread.
⁴ Forgive us our sins,
    for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
And lead us not into temptation.’”

Luke 11.1-4

You will notice it is slightly different in Matthew 6 

This, then, is how you should pray:

“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
¹⁰ your kingdom come,
your will be done,
    on earth as it is in heaven.
¹¹ Give us today our daily bread.
¹² And forgive us our debts,
    as we also have forgiven our debtors.
¹³ And lead us not into temptation,
    but deliver us from the evil one.

Matthew 6.9-13

You will also notice that the pattern we use in church too is slightly different, with the doxology at the end. The prayer that we use reflects the practice of the church from very early years. The fact that different versions exist encourages us to see what Jesus was giving his disciples was a framework for prayer and not just a prayer to be recited by rote. The shape of the Lord’s Prayer – Worship, Intercession, Petition, gives us a pattern which I shall endeavour to explore.

Worship, contained in those first two lines, Our Father, In Heaven, Hallowed be your name.

For me the joy of understanding that this is something that we are doing together speaks volumes about fellowship, community, interdependence, family, shared responsibility and takes away from the idea of an individual egocentric relationship. 
God is Our Father, which makes us all his children. He is not any more My Father than he is Yours, but together we share the same beautiful and intimate relationship.
We fail in our understanding, and in our worship whenever we are judgmental about others who share that relationship.
Not only is it ‘Our’, but ‘Father.’ 

It sometimes sounds too formal when we know that Jesus uses the word ‘Abba’, a personal word closer to our ‘Daddy’ than ‘Father’. As God’s children by adoption, chosen therefore, he wants us to grow in our intimate relation with him.

Sadly the image of Father is not positive for everyone, however most of us can have a concept of what an ideal parent would be like even if our own experience falls short of this. Coming to know God as our Father, one who is trustworthy and genuinely cares for us can be a very healing experience.
For me, the image of ‘Daddy’ conjures up memories of me playing with my children on the floor, and them climbing all over me, and jumping off the sofa knowing that I would catch them. It is initially a feeling of play and trust, with an unconscious knowledge of dependence. It is all about joy.
As always, the more we think about relationships, the closer we can get, and we know that the way relationships are expressed changes over the years. I no longer roll about on the floor with my kids, but they still call me ‘Dadio’.

Although God invites us into this intimate relationship, he is also the one who is ‘In Heaven’.
There is an ‘Otherness’ about God, one that inspires Awe and Wonder and Reverence. Hallowed be your name.
It is our privilege to get this balance right. Closeness, Joyful, Playful, Dependent,  Intimacy on the one hand, with a sense of Mystery, Majesty, Power on the other. We never lose sight of God as Creator and Redeemer, who is worthy of our adoration and praise. 
I believe a true sense of Awe, keeps us from being too casual. When we get it right, we get lost in Wonder, Love and Praise.
Sometimes it is right to just sit in silence and take it in. Other times we will want to share our feelings and experience with others like we do when we point out something that is wondrous.

Let me conclude by quoting something inspired byWilliam Temple.

Worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by his holiness; the nourishment of mind with his truth; the purifying of imagination by his beauty; the opening of heart to his love; the surrender of will to his purpose – and all this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self centredness which is our ego, and the cause of much stumbling.
( Adapted from Readings in St John’s Gospel)

 Next time – Intercession, until then Bless you, Bless you, Bless You,

Fr Marcus

Here is a link to Fr. Marcus’ sermon, recorded yesterday in Albir –

Here is the link to this morning’s service from Fr. Rodney –