The Fruit of the Baptism of Jesus: Openness to the Holy Spirit

In the first Luminous mystery, our Saviour comes before the Father in a spirit of humility, submitting himself to John’s baptism of repentance on behalf of the sinner, in order “to fulfill all righteousness” (Matt 3:15).  When He comes up out of the water, “the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him; and behold, a voice from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matt 3:16-17).  

Here, we have a revelation of Trinity, the gracious God who invites us to participate in His own divine life. Through our own baptism, we too become sons and daughters of the Father.  We are cleansed from sin and incorporated into Christ as God’s adopted children.  As such, we too are the beloved of the Father and heirs of His Kingdom…but do we know this deep within our hearts?  Do we live our daily lives, like Jesus, in total receptivity to the Holy Spirit and experience Him alighting upon us?

Our Holy Father, Pope Francis, has declared this year to be a special Year of Prayer, with a particular focus on the Our Father.  The Lord’s Prayer “is truly the summary of the whole gospel” (CCC 2761, citing Tertullian).  St. Augustine challenges us, “Run through all the words of the holy prayers [in Scripture], and I do not think that you will find anything in them that is not contained and included in the Lord’s Prayer” (CCC 2762).  If we wish to grow in openness to the Holy Spirit, we needn’t look any further than the Our Father. 

Being so familiar to us, we can easily pray the Our Father mechanically, without realizing the richness it contains.  The Our Father is not only a perfect prayer, it is also a succinct manual of prayer for the Christian – the perfect response to the disciples’ request, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples” (Lk 11:1).  Here are the essential elements of that manual – elements we can incorporate into our daily life of prayer:

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.  The opening of the Our Father gives voice to the Spirit of his Son who has been sent into our hearts, crying “Abba! Father!” (Gal 4:6).  As beloved sons and daughters, we should enter into prayer with an offering of praise and thanksgiving to the One who so loves us.

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Next, we open our hearts to God in surrender and obedience, praying for His dominion and desires to become a reality, both in and around us. 

Give us this day our daily bread.  This line represents our manifold prayers of petition and intercession, in which we entrust our needs to the Father of Mercies.  “Our daily bread” refers not only to our physical needs, but our spiritual needs also: we require the food of the Eucharist for our spiritual flourishing, just as we require food for our bodily sustenance. 

And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.  Coming into relationship with God requires our repentance and forgiveness.  We ask pardon for our sins and failings, asking for the grace to become a new creation in Christ.  Mindful of our own weakness, we freely extend mercy to others, in imitation of the God who extends such mercy to ourselves. 

And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.  Spiritual warfare is the daily experience of the Church Militant – we who struggle to bring about the Kingdom of God on earth and within our hearts.  We implore God for the grace, the mercy, the heavenly power to sustain us in our struggle against sin, that we might be victorious over the snares of the Evil One and arrive safely at our heavenly home.

While we pray the Our Father often – at Mass and in the context of devotions like the Rosary, many people have never had the experience of meditating on the Our Father very slowly, over the course of ten, twenty, or even thirty minutes – a beautiful and fruitful spiritual exercise.  If this is you, I invite you to use the lines of the Our Father, outlined above, as a launching pad for a personal conversation with God.  You can ruminate over lines of the Our Father one by one, contemplating their meaning, and then go on to talk to God as you would talk to a close friend, expressing how the prayer relates to your own life.  As we pray in the way our Saviour taught us, we open the door to the Holy Spirit in our lives.