How we should pray

In Thursday’s mass reading from the Gospel of Saint Matthew, our Lord counseled His disciples how to pray. He admonished against devotion for show and the repetitive mouthing of sacred words without inner sanctity. And He taught the world the Our Father, encapsulating in less than a minute the essence of man’s proper relationship with God.

In his homily at the morning mass at Our Lady of Pentecost Parish in Loyola Heights, Fr. Bill Abbott, the Socius or chief assistant to the Jesuit Provincial, or head in the Philippines, offered a few simple but often forgotten thoughts on prayer.