Our Father: Who Art in Heaven

How close is Our Father to us? It is a common experience in prayer, and in the spiritual life generally, to feel a great distance between God and us. This 'hole' in our spiritual life can be perplexing and painful, and sometimes it can lead us towards a despair, a fear that our God is not a God who loves us.

We cannot avoid this despair by denying that there is, in a sense, a distance between God and us. Indeed recognition of this reality is present in the prayer Our Lord taught us. Jesus reminds us that our Father is in Heaven whereas we are here on earth, a place where God's will is often rejected by those upon it.

How then can we make sense of this distance between God and us? Firstly we can continue to pray the Our Father! As we move through the prayer we remember that it is fitting that we should find the distance between God and us perplexing: we are not made for this world - we look forward to the kingdom. However, we can also look to the one who taught us the prayer.

As St. John wrote in his gospel 'God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not die but have everlasting life.' It is God who bridges the gap between Heaven and earth, he is the one who came down from heaven to raise us up.

Thus, when we feel our painful separation from God we can meditate confidently over these words:

Our Father who art in Heaven, who came down to us to bring us back to you.