💖 HOMILY - OCTOBER 7 💖

First Reading - Galatians 2:1-2,7-14

Gospel - Luke 11:1-4

We often find it easier to speak about faith than to allow faith to shape the way we treat other people. We can pray together, worship together, and call God our Father, but still allow differences, prejudices, or fears to separate us. Today’s readings remind us that the Gospel we proclaim must also become the way we live.

In the first reading, Paul describes an important moment in the early Church. The Gospel is being preached to both Jews and Gentiles. Paul has received a mission to proclaim Christ to the Gentiles, while Peter has a particular mission among the Jews. Yet a problem arises in Antioch. Peter withdraws from eating with Gentile Christians because he is afraid of those who belong to the circumcision group.

Paul confronts him publicly because his behaviour is not consistent with the truth of the Gospel.

This is a powerful lesson. Peter knows the Gospel, but for a moment his actions do not correspond to what he believes. His fear of people becomes stronger than his fidelity to the Gospel.

For Paul, the Gospel creates a new community in Christ. Human distinctions cannot become barriers to Christian communion. If Christ has broken down those barriers, Christians cannot rebuild them through their behaviour.

And this connects beautifully with the Gospel.

The disciples see Jesus praying and ask him, “Lord, teach us to pray.” Jesus gives them the prayer we know as the Our Father.

Notice the first words: “Father.”

Jesus does not teach us to begin by saying, “My Father,” but “Our Father.” Before God, we are not isolated individuals. We belong to one family. If God is our Father, then the person beside us is not simply a stranger, a rival, or someone from a different group. That person is also a child of the same Father.

This gives the Lord’s Prayer a very challenging dimension.

We pray, “Give us each day our daily bread.” Not “give me.” We pray, “Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.” Our relationship with God is connected with our relationship with others.

We cannot sincerely pray “Our Father” while refusing to recognize another person as our brother or sister.

This is exactly what Paul is defending in Antioch. Peter's problem was not simply a matter of eating arrangements. His behaviour was communicating that some believers were less worthy of fellowship than others. Paul reminds him that the Gospel creates a new way of relating to one another.

The Our Father teaches us the same truth in prayer: one Father, one family, one table.

We also pray, “Hallowed be your name; your kingdom come.” This means that our first desire should not be simply that God adjusts everything according to our wishes. We ask that God's Kingdom come into our hearts, our communities, our relationships, and our world.

Then we ask for daily bread. We acknowledge our dependence on God. We are not self-sufficient. We need God every day.

Then we ask for forgiveness-and immediately accept the responsibility to forgive others.

Finally, we ask not to be brought into temptation. We recognize that we need God's strength because we cannot live the Gospel by our own power.

So the Lord's Prayer is not merely a prayer we recite. It is a way of life.

It teaches us to say “our,” not merely “my”; to forgive because we have been forgiven; to depend on God rather than ourselves; and to desire God's Kingdom more than our own interests.

Today, let us ask the Lord for the grace to make our prayer and our life agree with one another. May our “Our Father” become visible in the way we welcome others, overcome divisions, forgive, share, and live in communion.

Because when we truly understand that God is our Father, we begin to see every human person differently: not as someone who threatens us, but as someone who belongs to the same family.