Part 11 of “Learning to Pray to Our Father”

Evil is the absence of God. In that absence, Satan comes to dwell, he who always desires our alienation from God. Those who pray in Christ ask God to be present to them.

The conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer recapitulates what each line of the prayer inclines disciples to seek: the communion of the Son with his Father, whom Christ gives us as our Father. We ask God to drive out the evil within and around us with his own presence. To ask to be delivered is to beg for what we cannot do for ourselves.

Evil blinds and disempowers us: it colonizes us so that we become a source of corruption. Our resistance is only in calling upon the Lord who gives order to chaos and brings light to darkness. That is our power: to ask the Lord to give us his power. We beg not only to be separated from evil, but also to be filled with the goodness of the Lord. There are only two ways: God and not-God. We are made either completely good or completely corrupt. There is no neutral position because human nature abhors a vacuum:

When an unclean spirit goes out of someone, it roams through arid regions searching for rest but, finding none, it says, “I shall return to my home from which I came.” But upon returning, it finds it swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and brings back seven other sprits more wicked than itself who move in and dwell there, and the last condition of that person is worse than the first. (Luke 11:24–26)

And so we ask the Father to make us his children, who share in his life. We ask him to separate us from what harm us and fill us with his love. We ask him to reveal his name to us: his presence and his action. We ask him to draw us into his heavenly household, transferring us from the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of his beloved Son, where God is all in all (see 1 Corinthians 15:28; Colossians 1:13; Revelation 21:22–26).

Practice praying: I invite and challenge you to pray the Lord’s Prayer each day this week. In fact, pray it twice each day. Pray it once, then spend some time imagining your soul as a mansion. Imagine the spaciousness and grandeur of that mansion, with halls upon halls and rooms upon rooms. Beg the Lord to clean this mansion of all that is unclean or unholy, and then to fill it with his light and presence. Then pray the Lord’s prayer again.

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Find more: This series draws on sections of my book Into the Heart of the Father: Learning from and Giving Yourself through Christ in Prayer. I am grateful to my publisher, Word Among Us Press, for allowing me to share these sections with you here. If you are interested, I hope you will check out the book – I think you’ll like it.

Study and pray with others: I have also designed a reading, prayer, and discussion guide for groups that would like to read the book and learn how to pray better together. This is ideal for parishes, schools, and families.