Do you ever fantasize about someone before your time, someone that perhaps had an impact on who/what you are today? Perhaps a person of significance who made a change in the world? Perhaps someone less known, but to you, made the biggest impact. For me, that person is my Grandma Helen. I was born 2 days before her birthday, and I carry her name as my middle name. She passed when I was 3 years old. She was always in the kitchen {like me} making all sorts of homemade breads and pasta. She liked to haggle with “Jerry the Peddler”, who in those days, brought goods and sundries down the Avenue for a few cents.

How I would have loved to have a memory of her, or a note or a card that she would have written to me, some “words of wisdom” that she’d pass down to her last granddaughter. How I wish I could hear her voice {what did she sound like, I wonder}. I often imagine and place myself in her presence. I have comfort knowing that, while I didn’t have her as I grew and matured, she’s been in/with me all this time.

In today’s Gospel, we are blessed to read, hear, and live the words of Jesus. Thanks to Matthew, he captured the moment and the words of Jesus. Jesus teaches us, plain and simple, how to pray to God. Think of that, picture it, imagine it. This wasn’t just hearsay. He came before his disciples, sat with them, caught up with them on the days events, and then said: “This is how you are to pray”.

Let’s use that imagery and place ourselves in that same room with Jesus and his disciples. Let’s invite them to share in that prayerful moment with us. And Jesus, who is in and with us at all times, will be right there next to us … always.

When you pray, do you slowly carefully meditate on each word/sentence that Jesus taught us?

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of your Son, who gave us the words to use, when praying to you. Amen.