Today is a long Gospel reading. Jesus is at the temple, looks around then leaves. He curses the fig tree outside Bethany, then returns the next day to Jerusalem, to the temple where he drives people out and overturns tables. The following morning as Jesus and the twelve return to Bethany the disciples notice the fig tree that Jesus cursed had withered. Jesus uses the withered tree as a teaching lesson in faith for the disciples; teaching that what we ask for in prayer will be given; teaching the importance of forgiveness of sins of others so that our sins may be forgiven by the Father.
There can be much written of, but those last three thoughts:
-have faith
-pray for what you need, believing it is possible
-forgive, that you may forgiven
These are ultimately what Jesus preaches again and again. Do we not hear these same ideas when we pray the Our Father? In it we profess our faith, our belief in God in the Father. We petition him for what we need, our daily spiritual bread. We pray that we may forgive others, and that God will forgive us.
When we say the Lord's Prayer today, let us think more clearly on the meaning of each of the words that we are saying, and not as something that we have simply memorized. Let us reflect on the meaning of each word. Amen.
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