1 February 2027 · Syro-Malankara Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Syro-Malabar Rite · Latin Rite · മലയാളം
“And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Matthew 6:12
Paul tells the Colossians that he never stops praying for them: “we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord.” He prays that they may be “prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father”, and then he names the great change that has already happened: “He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” The Christian life is lived in that new kingdom, and it is learned in prayer.
In the Gospel Jesus teaches the prayer of that kingdom: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Only one petition receives a commentary from the Lord himself, the one about forgiveness: “if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Our Church prays the Lord’s Prayer at every hour of the Shehimo and before Holy Communion in the Qurbono. In a week the Great Fast will open with Shubkono, the service of mutual forgiveness. This week is the time to say the Our Father slowly and to ask: whom have I still not forgiven? St Cyprian of Carthage wrote that we call God “Father” together, not “my Father”, because we pray as one people and for one another (in substance).
Theme: “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”
A week before the Great Fast, the Church puts the Lord's Prayer in our hands.
“Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. Let your good spirit lead me on a level path.” Psalm 143:10
“For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,” Colossians 1:9
Apply: Pray by name today for three people you love.
“Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.” Isaiah 64:8
“Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” Matthew 6:9
Apply: Pray the Our Father slowly, once in the morning and once at night.
“Forgive your neighbor the wrong he has done, and then your sins will be pardoned when you pray.” Sirach 28:2
“For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you;” Matthew 6:14
Apply: Make peace with one person before the Fast begins.
We have been moved from darkness into the kingdom of the Son.
The prayer of that kingdom asks forgiveness and promises it.
Take-home resolution: Before next Monday, forgive one person from the heart.
Dear friends, Paul tells the Colossians: we have not ceased praying for you, that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will (Colossians 1:9). Before he teaches them anything, he prays for them.
Then he reminds them what God has done: he has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Colossians 1:13–14). We belong to a new kingdom.
In the Gospel Jesus gives us the prayer of that kingdom, the Our Father. Of all its lines he explains only one: if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you (Matthew 6:14).
Next Monday the Great Fast opens with Shubkono, when we ask one another for forgiveness. Let us use this week to say the Our Father slowly and to make peace with anyone we have not yet forgiven. Amen.
Children, Jesus gave us his own prayer, the Our Father. When we say it, we ask God to forgive us, and we promise to forgive others too. Is there someone you need to forgive today?
Our Father in heaven, you rescued us from the power of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of your beloved Son. Fill us with the knowledge of your will, teach us to pray as he taught us, and give us hearts that forgive, so that we may enter the Great Fast reconciled with you and with one another. Amen.
The week after Aneede Sunday, the last week before the Great Fast, opens with prayer. In Colossians, Paul tells a young Church what he asks God to give it. In Matthew, Jesus gives his disciples the words to ask with. The two readings share more than a subject: both speak of the kingdom, both speak of forgiveness, and both use the same Greek verb for God's rescue of us.
Setting.
Colossae was a small town in the Lycus valley, in what is now south-western Turkey. Paul did not found the Church there. It learned the gospel from Epaphras (1:7), and it seems that many there had never seen Paul's face (2:1). The letter names Paul and Timothy as its senders (1:1). Many scholars think a disciple wrote it in Paul's name, while others hold it to be his own; the Church receives it as inspired Scripture either way.
These verses follow the thanksgiving of 1:3–8 and run straight into the great hymn to Christ (1:15–20). The closing words about the “beloved Son” are the bridge to that hymn.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God.” (1:10)
Knowing God and doing good feed each other. The verse does not let us choose between a Church that studies and a Church that serves.
“He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son,” (1:13)
Both verbs are in the past tense. Paul does not say that God will one day do this, but that he has done it. The verb for “rescued” (rhyomai) is the one used in the last petition of the Lord's Prayer in today's Gospel.
“in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (1:14)
The kingdom of the Son is not first a territory. It is a place where sins are forgiven, and we are in it “in him”.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism cites these verses when it says that Christ's whole life is a mystery of redemption (CCC 517). It also uses them when it teaches why even children need Baptism: every person born into our fallen state needs to be delivered from the power of darkness and brought into the realm of the children of God (CCC 1250). Each baptism in the parish is this verse happening again.
Setting.
The Lord's Prayer stands near the middle of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7), in a section on almsgiving, prayer and fasting done for the Father “who sees in secret” (6:1–18). Luke gives a shorter form (Luke 11:2–4); the Catechism notes that Luke has five petitions and Matthew seven, and that the Church's liturgy follows Matthew's (CCC 2759).
Jesus prays here as a son of Israel. Its first petitions are close in spirit to Jewish prayers such as the Kaddish, though we know that prayer only from later texts. Very early the Christians made it their daily prayer: the Didache, a Church manual probably from around the end of the first century, tells them to pray it three times a day (Didache 8).
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” (6:9)
“Our”, not “my”. Nobody can say this prayer alone, even in an empty room. To hallow the name is to know it as holy and to treat it so. As a petition, it draws both God and us into the work (CCC 2807).
“And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (6:12)
This is the only petition with a condition attached, and the only one that Jesus comments on afterwards (vv. 14–15). The Catechism is realistic about it: we cannot make ourselves stop feeling a hurt or forget it, but a heart given to the Holy Spirit can turn the injury into compassion (CCC 2843).
“And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.” (6:13)
A note on the text. The oldest Greek manuscripts end here. The closing “for the kingdom and the power and the glory” is found in later manuscripts, and a form of it is already in the Didache. It grew from the Church's praying of this prayer, and the Eastern liturgies use it.
How the Church reads it.
Tertullian called this prayer “truly the summary of the whole gospel”, and St Augustine said that every prayer of Scripture is found in it (in substance; CCC 2761–2762). The Catechism closes its whole teaching on prayer with a commentary on it (CCC 2759–2865). In the Holy Qurbono we say it just before Communion: we ask for daily bread and forgiveness at the moment we are about to receive the Bread of Life with our neighbour beside us.
Does God lead us into temptation?
No. “God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one” (James 1:13). The Catechism explains that the Greek idea behind the petition includes both “do not let us enter into temptation” and “do not let us give way to it” (CCC 2846). We are asking the Father to hold on to us in the hour of testing.