Optional Memorial of Blessed Marie-Rose Durocher, virgin

 Lectionary: 463

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.”

It's been a year or several since Pope Francis rattled the cage of many people by suggesting that the familiar "Our Father" might be changed, altered, or retranslated. The word in question, from Saint Matthew's version of Jesus's prayer, was temptation, as in, "...lead us not into temptation." 

Some explanation may be in order: 

Saint Augustine, among many saints, insists that the only thing God cannot do is deceive. The word of God is true; it is incarnate in the person of Jesus. There is no falsehood in God's word. We might misunderstand God's word but that's something else altogether. 

So God does not tempt anyone to do evil, and some further explanation can help. 

In the context of the early years of the Church, those first post-Pentecost halcyon days: the disciples of Jesus apparently expected his Return in Glory at any time. If they had been disappointed by his failure to establish the Kingdom of God before he was crucified, and then after he was raised up but before he ascended into heaven, he would surely come back soon and very soon to finish the Mighty Work of our salvation. There is a note of mocking this belief in Saint Luke's Acts of the Apostles when the angels appeared and said “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky?"

There had been among the Jews an apocalyptic expectation that the Roman empire must fall before the ascendency of the long awaited Messiah, the Son of David. Jewish apocalyptic, as I understand, was generally pessimistic and violent. The Christian movement inherited that tradition and many of its tropes but without the pessimism. Our Book of Revelation shows all the traces of its Jewish origins but promises deliverance and vindication to those who wait for His Coming. 

The Gospel of Matthew also reflects those expectations with its doomsday words to the "hypocrites," its promises of relief to the poor and outcasts, and especially with its vision of Jesus's coming as the Son of Man seated on the clouds to separate the sheep from the goats. 

The Lord's Prayer, in particular, reflects those happy expectations. It is a heartfelt prayer that God's name be hallowed, God's kingdom come, and God's will be done on earth as it is (now) in heaven. These wonderful works must happen at the end of earthly time. 

Revelation reveals a vision of the Lord God reigning in heaven even as Saint Michael and his army sweep the demonic angels out of the skies and cast them down to earth where they will plague the Church for a certain, limited time. (How long, O Lord?)

In the meanwhile, we pray for our daily bread -- especially the daily Eucharist because the Eucharist is basically not a weekly Sunday event nor an annual Passover event, but a continuation of the Jewish daily custom of "grace before meals." 

We also earnestly pray that God will forgive our sins and we pray that the Spirit of God will so move in us that we forgive those who sin against us. 

And finally, we pray that the Day of Judgement, when it comes, will not be so violent, horrible, or terrifying that it tears us away from our faith. But Saint Matthew warns us that "even the elect will be deceived." The ritual of Baptism without an ardent practice of faith is no guarantee against damnation!

That universal trial is the temptation from which we pray for deliverance: "...and lead us not into temptation." 

Need I point out that polarization is one sign of that Day's approach? Sides will be drawn between the sheep and the goats, the wheat and the chaff, the good and the wicked. And everyone must take their stand; there is no neutral territory on That Day. 

And That Day is indeed at hand. 

However, we've been through this many times. Our Church history is plagued -- or flavored if you prefer an optimistic reading -- with violent ages of persecution and martyrdom. Our martyrs have taken their stand, and the trial was not necessarily about belief in Jesus as Lord per se. It might concern marriage (Saints John the Baptist, Thomas More, and Saint John Bishop) or a lack of enthusiasm for the party in power (Saint Maximillian Kolbe and Dietrich Bonhoeffer under the Nazi regime.) 

In the near future it might concern gay marriage, abortion, nuclear arms, or climate change. People die for the Truth. 

We pray that it doesn't come to that. For many of our dearest people will die while their loved ones do the killing. Dear God, lead us not into that Temptation.