Office Of Readings | Week 29, Wednesday, Ordinary Time | A Reading From The Letter Of Saint Augustine To Proba | You Will Find Everything In The Lord’s Prayer – Word Aloud | Daily Bible Verses

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Office Of Readings | Week 29, Wednesday, Ordinary Time | A Reading From The Letter Of Saint Augustine To Proba | You Will Find Everything In The Lord’s Prayer

‘You will find everything in the Lord’s Prayer.’

Saint Augustine brings his reflection on prayer to its culmination by turning to the Lord’s Prayer — the model and measure of all Christian supplication. For him, this brief prayer given by Christ contains the fullness of all holy desire. Every petition found in Scripture, every movement of the soul toward God, finds its echo and completion within its sevenfold structure.

Each phrase of the Lord’s Prayer, Augustine shows, corresponds to the deepest needs of the human spirit. ‘Hallowed be your name’ is the sanctification of all creation in the glory of God. ‘Your kingdom come’ is the yearning for divine presence and redemption. ‘Your will be done’ is the surrender of our freedom to divine wisdom. ‘Give us our daily bread’ points to both temporal sustenance and the Bread of Life. ‘Forgive us’ binds mercy to repentance; ‘Deliver us from evil’ completes the journey of salvation by the grace of final perseverance.

Augustine insists that while we may vary our words in prayer, we must not alter the content of what Christ has taught. To pray rightly is to align our hearts with the pattern of divine truth. The Lord’s Prayer is therefore both the foundation and the boundary of Christian prayer — its form, its compass, and its goal.

Prayer also reveals the triple virtue that unites the soul to God: faith, hope, and love. Faith gives substance to what we ask; hope sustains perseverance; love purifies intention. The ‘happy life’ Augustine speaks of — true beatitude — is not an abstract state but the communion of the soul with God, the one who is its joy and its end. To belong to the people ‘whose God is the Lord’ is to live this prayer daily, letting its petitions form the rhythm of faith and the breath of the heart.

A Reading From The Letter Of Saint Augustine To Proba | You Will Find Everything In The Lord’s Prayer

We read, for example: May you receive glory among all the nations as you have among us, and May your prophets prove themselves faithful. What does this mean but Hallowed be your name?

We read: Lord of power and might, touch our hearts and show us your face, and we shall be saved. What does this mean but Your kingdom come?

We read: Direct my ways by your word, and let no sin rule over me. What does this mean but Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven?

We read: Do not give me poverty or riches. What does this mean but Give us this day our daily bread?

We read: Lord, remember David and all his patient suffering, and Lord, if I have done this, if there is guilt on my hands, if I have repaid evil for evil. . . . What does this mean but Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us?

We read: Rescue me, God, from my enemies, deliver me from those who rise up against me. What does this mean but Deliver us from evil?

If you study every word of the petitions of Scripture, you will find, I think, nothing that is not contained and included in the Lord’s Prayer. When we pray, then, we may use different words to say the same things, but we may not say different things.

We should not hesitate to make these prayers for ourselves, for our friends, for strangers, and even for enemies, though the emotions in our heart may vary with the strength or weakness of our relationships with individuals.

You now know, I think, the attitudes you should bring to prayer, as well as the petitions you should make, and this not because of what I have taught you but thanks to the teaching of the one who has been pleased to teach us all.

We must search out the life of happiness, we must ask for it from the Lord our God. Many have discussed at great length the meaning of happiness, but surely we do not need to go to them and their long drawn out discussions. Holy Scripture says concisely and with truth: Happy is the people whose God is the Lord. We are meant to belong to that people, and to be able to see God and live with him for ever, and so the object of this command is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience and a sincere faith.

In these three qualities, ‘a good conscience’ stands for ‘hope.’ Faith, hope and love bring safely to God the person who prays, that is, the person who believes, who hopes, who desires, and who ponders what he is asking of the Lord in the Lord’s Prayer.

Christian Prayer With Jesus

Lord Jesus,
you have taught us to pray in words that hold all truth.
Let your Spirit shape our hearts to the meaning of your prayer,
that we may hallow your name, seek your kingdom,
and do your will with steadfast love.
Grant us daily the Bread of Life,
forgive us as we forgive,
and deliver us from every evil,
that we may live in your peace and rejoice in your presence for ever.
Amen.

Glossary Of Christian Terms

Proba – The Roman widow and noblewoman to whom Augustine wrote this extended reflection on prayer (Letter 130).

Lord’s Prayer – The prayer taught by Christ (Matthew 6:9–13; Luke 11:2–4), regarded by Augustine as the complete summary of Christian petition.

Daily Bread – Understood by Augustine as both material sustenance and the Eucharist, the spiritual nourishment of the faithful.

Faith, Hope, and Love – The theological virtues that guide the soul to God: faith believes, hope waits, and love unites.

Happy Life (Beata Vita) – Augustine’s term for the ultimate happiness found only in God, who is the end and fulfillment of all human desire.

Office Of Readings | Eastertide Week 5, Sunday | A Reading From The Commentary Of Saint Cyril Of Alexandria On The Second Letter To The Corinthians | God Has Reconciled Us Through Jesus

Saint Cyril begins with the assertion that Christians, having been filled with the Spirit and promised resurrection, can live as though the future glory has already broken into the present. His exposition of 2 Corinthians 5:17 (‘If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation’) emphasizes a radical transformation of the human person. This is not mere moral improvement but a mystical renewal in which believers are no longer defined by the limitations of the flesh or the corruptibility of sin [ … ]
Listen To The Bible! | Psalm 110 | King James Audio Bible KJV | Assurance Of Victory For God’s Priest-King | Prayer With Jesus And King David | True Faith In God | Pray The Psalms

Psalm 110, a profound and deeply influential text, has been the subject of extensive theological interpretation and analysis, particularly within the Christian tradition where it holds significant Christological implications [ … ]
Office Of Readings | Week 17, Wednesday, Ordinary Time | A Reading From The Instructions Of Saint Cyril Of Jerusalem To The Catechumens | The Church Is The Assembly Of God’s People

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, writing in the fourth century, speaks with a clarity and breadth that remains strikingly relevant for the Church today. In this catechetical excerpt, drawn most likely from his Catecheses delivered to those preparing for baptism, Cyril undertakes a profound reflection on what it means for the Church to be both Catholic and the assembly of God’s people. His insight provides not only a robust theological definition, but a spiritually rich vision of what it means to belong to the Church of Christ [ … ]

Daily Prayer And Bible Verses

The Virginity Of Mary And The Birth Of Christ | Hail Mary, Full Of Grace | Annunciation

Hail Mary, Full Of Grace | Extracted From The Gospel According To Tomàs | The Virginity Of Mary And The Birth Of Christ

Sometimes, when I read my Bible, I pause in the reading and say to myself: ‘This bit’s real.’ It would be fair to say, I have issues with Mary, because, contrary to what we are taught to say, Mary isn’t my mother. Rather: Mum is. One bit of the Bible-text says this: And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for people were saying, “He is beside himself.” … And his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting about him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking around on those who sat about him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.” (Mark 3: 21; 31-35.) Here she comes. She is in considerable distress. I can imagine that. I can relate to that. To save her boy from whatever he’s got himself into this time. And you’re not telling me there isn’t something inside that. Her boy is beside himself. Radical. Radicalized. Radicalizing. A misunderstood word. /ˈradɪk(ə)l/ adjective & noun. 1 Forming the root, basis, or foundation; original, primary. 2a Inherent in the nature of a thing or person; fundamental. b Of action, change, an idea: going to the root or origin; far-reaching, thorough. c Advocating thorough or far-reaching change. d Characterized by departure from tradition; progressive; unorthodox. ‘He has a demon! And he is mad!’ – thus ‘the Jews’. (e.g. John 10: 20.) Come home! It’s all she wants. His family want him back now. But it is an exclusive cult: there is an inside and there is an outside; and on the outside, they are not meant to understand, lest they be converted. He has defined himself as different from anything she was. Only at the end does Jesus say to his Mum – and with savage, bitter irony: ‘Woman, behold your son.’ And then he dies. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. We ask that we might find Mary in our hearts as a Yes! place for Jesus. It is also recommended that we pray to Jesus that we may be further in oneness with Mary. It is self-emptying, such that we only exist insofar as we are responsive to God’s Word. * Last term, and put-out to pasture, the old Archbishop Emeritus came over to stay for a few days and did the odd class with us. He spoke of Yes! as the meaning of Mary’s virginity. And we were not very nice about him. One or two took umbrage. One or two got the hump. In a sense, his Grace, the Arch, basically wanted to move anyone he’d ever known from a high-place – a mountain – received theological ‘truth’ – to an imminent, human plane. Earthing the spiritual. Recalibrating metrics of life’s believability toward a spiritual sense of things. He might have asked the impermissible question: what happened? His Grace described it. God’s love as a cloud. This descended upon Mary – and subsumed her. Within the cloud, Mary capitulated utterly. She became only and purely a response to God’s love. As he spoke, the Arch cradled her. He carried her in his lap – in his hands. His Grace was a consecrated bishop. He was faith. He sat squat, a rounded man, hands cupped and ankles crossed, fingers interlocked, with parted thighs. Rumpled, washed, speckled. A lifetime’s skin… There could be no doubt His Grace spoke through long-term personal relationship with Mary. It was Julian went for him: ‘So are you saying Mary was a Virgin? Or are you not saying Mary was a Virgin?’ Nasty. No, it wasn’t pretty. Julian twisting his silver ring. For a moment, what Julian had said to the Arch simply failed to communicate. No, for a moment, that dumped on the air meant nothing. Then His Grace said: ‘There is a range of possible meanings we may understand in the question of Mary’s virginity. For example, there are understandings of the word virginity entailed in the action of giving birth.’ Julian said: ‘Duh! So had she had sex or hadn’t she?’ Trigger words. No, it wasn’t pretty. On that went for a little while. At length, Julian’s point seemed reluctantly conceded. Then the Arch told us a new story, an additionally human event, the more to baffle us. Controversially, he told us that Mary could not have been Joseph’s first wife, for this would not have been the way of things in the society of that time. His belief was that Joseph must have taken Mary into his household through pity. That would be normal, he said, for Joseph to bring a young, vulnerable girl, who is about to have a baby, within his protection, not meaning to enjoy with her marital relations, but through kindness. ‘And this story of the inn and stable,’ the Archbishop said, ‘it can’t have been like that really. Joseph has travelled with Mary to stay with his family, at home in Bethlehem, and they don’t want Mary in their house, for reasons which I am sure we can understand. It must have been there was considerable resistance to Mary. But Mary gives birth, and who can resist a baby? That’s what happened. It must have been. ‘I’m convinced that must have been how it happened really.’ Later that term, toward the beginning of Advent, we met boys who had been here before, in Valladolid, and now were in regular seminary. They had heard and recited verbatim all the Archbishop had said to them. Their spot-on impressions of each of the fathers were scathing. […]

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Office Of Readings | Week 29, Wednesday, Ordinary Time | A Reading From The Letter Of Saint Augustine To Proba | You Will Find Everything In The Lord’s Prayer

Oliver Peers - October 21, 2025October 21, 2025

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