In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Gospel today reminds us that the season of Lent is a time of transformation, a time in which our hearts are purified, and our hearts may be renewed in our following of Jesus Christ.
At first, our Lord teaches us a prayer, that our prayer must be pure from our heart and not like the pagans who babble. And so our prayers must be from our heart with faith, with trust. And this in no way, of course, is a reflection on the Holy Rosary, in which we meditate on the life of our Lord Jesus through the eyes of His mother. It's both mental prayer and verbal prayer. But our Lord is saying that our prayer must be with trust, with confidence, and direct, that we don't stammer or stutter in our prayers. And that's what the, I was reading what the original translation was, is stuttering, praying without thought, without reflection, without direct conversation with God. That we pray just babbling words with no sense. That we pray from our hearts with trust, with confidence, in a conversation with God.
Secondly, our Lord teaches us the perfect prayer, the Our Father, and with this He teaches us one of the things we want to reflect upon amongst all the things of the Our Father is “thy will be done.” That we seek, we want to seek not my will, but that I want to do the will of God. That perhaps one of the things we most struggle with in our life is doing God's will, accepting God's will. But this season of Lent is an opportunity for us to really focus on wanting to do God's will, not my will. That I want to do whatever God asks of me in my life. And this is a great time, a time of great grace for achieving that in this Lenten season as we focus our attention, our desire to do God's will in all things in our life, above all obeying His commandments and His teachings.
And finally, our Lord teaches us that this transformation also includes the forgiveness of others. That we forgive others from our heart, that we don't hold on to any resentments or unforgiveness towards anyone, that we truly have our hearts purified and purged of anything that holds on to unforgiveness towards anyone, that we truly forgive from our heart.
May Our Lady help us in this holy season of Lent to truly see God's gift of transformation, wanting us to draw close to Him in prayer, wanting us to seek out His will, and above all, that we may imitate His Son in the forgiveness of sins.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.