Shane Hyland, Leader of School Evangelisation at St Joseph’s Regional College reads today from the Gospel of Matthew (6: 7-15) in which Jesus teaches his followers how to pray with the words of the Our Father.

Shane says we are blessed to have instructions from our Lord on how to pray.

Jesus instructs us not to babble like the pagans do but to pray like this: to pray to our Father in heaven, the most holy name, to keep his name holy; to pray for the kingdom to come and to do this by doing the will of God; and to make the kingdom come here on earth as it is in heaven, to bring heaven to earth; to be given our daily bread, to lean in on God and to trust that he will provide for us; to forgive all of our debts, and, as we’ve heard in the last few days, not to take revenge, to forgive those who are in debt to us; and to not put us to the test, we are all tested at some point but we pray that we are saved; It teaches us to forgive other people their failings so that we can be forgiven ourselves.

We are privileged to have this teaching and today, Shane says, we pray that we can live out these things that the Lord teaches us, every day of our lives.