General. As we pray in today’s Collect, nothing could be more worthy or holier than God. We pray Him to spread His mercy on us so that our lives may be fully centred on Him that we might enjoy, as from this life, everlasting peace and happiness. Indeed, we pine for justice and holiness, which means going against the grain of worldly life by fully understanding the meaning of our Baptism. This would put us, together with Christ, in the centre of a new universe which we are bound to preach and practise.

Genesis. In God we have a patient father who only punishes when He sees that His paternal warnings and biddings are being given to no avail. Yet still He shows patience with humanity, as can be seen from Abraham’s interpellations with God as to whether it would be feasible to punish the wicked along with the good. The Father’s reply is that He would show mercy, as ever, for the sake of innocent few.

Epistle to the Colossians. St Paul addresses the baptized gentiles by making them aware of their present situation. They were not circumcized as the Jews were, yet the most important thing was that they had their sins forgiven through the blood of Christ shed on the Cross and the baptism they had received. This baptism in water (a sign of death for the Jews yet sanctified by Christ when he entered the Jordan and cast out the Leviathan from it) signified death and resurrection with Christ, the putting on of Christ, and the nailing of our sins to the Cross, where Christ was nailed (a scandal for the Jews and an incomprehensible event for the Greeks).

St Luke. Prayer is the Christian’s interpellation to God to keep united in dialogue with him. The death of Jesus was brought about because he dared intimately call the Father ‘Dad’. This was too much for the Jews who were accustomed to a concept of an aloof God ever ready to punish and only to reward those who were really justified. Yet Jesus turned tables and introduced the concept that intimacy with the Divine could only be achieved through constant prayer. The Lord’s Prayer, as divided into seven interpellations, was mystagogically given to early Christians during their catechisis and finally in Baptism. They were thus given the Holy Spirit of God which they would have asked for.

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