Almighty ever-living God,
whom, taught by the Holy Spirit,
we dare to call our Father,
bring, we pray, to perfection in our hearts
the spirit of adoption as your sons and daughters . . .
Today’s Collect follows the letters of Saint Paul (Rom 8,23, Gal 4,5, Eph 1,5) in using the concept of adoption to illustrate what happens when we are baptized. It is because God has adopted us that we are able to call him ‘Father’. This change is so awe-inspiring that we speak of ‘daring’ to address God as our Father, both in today’s Collect and during Mass as we prepare for the distribution of Holy Communion.
The Rite of Christian Baptism requires us to teach the Lord’s Prayer, the ‘Our Father’, only in the very last phase of candidates’ instruction, so that it is not until they are baptized and are about to receive the Eucharist that they address God as ‘Father’.
Unfortunately, this ancient discipline is widely ignored. I have found myself in classrooms where a high proportion of the pupils profess non-Christian religions.but everybody joins in the ‘Our Father’!
