When Jesus said, “May your Kingdom come”, he was not indulging in wishful thinking. Biblical teachers explain that what Jesus is saying here is, “May you bring about your kingdom”. What we have in these words is an example of the “divine passive”. Instead of using the holy word for God, Hebrew culture, out of respect, uses the passive voice when God is the one performing the deed.
It is the same for the next phrase, “May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. What Jesus is praying for is that God will bring about the doing of God’s will. What is God’s will? God’s will is that the Kingdom will come. That the Kingdom will come is God’s mission. This is Jesus’ mission. This is the mission of the Church and all of us missionaries. When we pray the “Our Father”, our prayer is aligned with God’s desires for us. We are being missionaries.
It helps to remind ourselves what Jesus meant by the Kingdom of God. Clearly, it is a world where God is King, where God rules. In such a world, we have fullness in life according to John’s gospel. It is a world of peace, love and freedom, according to the other gospels. This is a world where our deepest desires are fulfilled. We do not have to look far to see that the world we currently live in needs to have God as its King. It is a long way from the Kingdom proclaimed by Jesus.
In our prayers, we often pray for others. We ask God to bless, heal, free, and love other people. In this time of wars and violence, we are moved by compassion and want to do something. In our powerlessness, we reach out to God. Are we hopeful that something good will happen? Do we believe our prayers are doing any good for the people suffering?
These are questions that I ask myself, and my answer goes something like this. When I feel compassion for those being slaughtered by war, I also believe that God has a deeper compassion for these same people than I do. God is moved by compassion and, out of great love, will be with those suffering and will bless them with the Holy Spirit.
A question we often hear is, “Does God hear my prayers?” My answer is, yes, God hears our prayers, but what he decides to do by way of response may not be what we would like. God’s response will be for a better world, even if suffering and pain are involved. This is mysterious. God is mystery, and the ways of God are mysterious. It was after the pain and suffering of the cross that Jesus was raised from the dead. From the dead. The power of the Resurrection continues to transform our world.
Missionary prayer is to pray for the whole world, the whole universe. Prayer leads to contemplation. I heard a talk from a Divine Word missionary recently who emphasised that being a missionary today is to be a contemplative.
What are we to contemplate? God is always at work in our world, building the Kingdom of God. Are we aware of God at work in our society? Do we see the Spirit of God at work in the everyday service of so many people to others in need? Do we see the suffering Christ in those on the edges of our cities and in our remote areas?
We believe God is there - after all, God is everywhere. It is by being contemplative that we become aware of our missionary God present in our world.
All of us pray, and by praying we are collaborating with God in the transformation of the world. This is God’s mission and ours. Let us continue to pray as Jesus told us.
Columban Fr Trevor Trotter works and lives in Australia.
Listen to "Why do missionaries pray"
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