Discussions of reforming our criminal justice system demand us to ask philosophical and moral questions. What should be the ultimate goal of sentencing and incarceration? Is it punishment? Rehabilitation? Forgiveness? For Catholics, these questions tie directly to the heart of our faith.
Solutions are already beginning to take shape, which include unraveling the War on Drugs, reconsidering mandatory minimum sentencing, and embracing a growing private prison abolition movement that urges us to reconsider the levels at which the United States pursues mass incarceration. No matter where these proposals take us, we should pursue such conversations with an openness to change and an aim to rehabilitate our brothers and sisters wherever possible and wherever necessary. By nature, a society that forgives and rehabilitates its people is a society that forgives and transforms itself. That takes a radical kind of love, a secret of which is given in the Lord's Prayer: Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And let us not forget the guiding principle of "the least among us" found in Matthew: that we are compelled to care for the hungry, thirsty, homeless, naked, sick, and, yes — the imprisoned.
our "father", who art in genshin,
hallowed be thy. fucking. gigantic wings of death.
thy kingdom of children come; thy will be done
on teyvat as it is in the house.
give us this day our daily bread,
and train us to kill, so that we may destroy our enemies.
and abandon us not to the primordial sea,
but fight like hell to overturn the prophecy.
for thine is the kingdom, and the cunning, and the hearth flame,
for as long as we have breath. amen.
Notre père, qui est aux cieux
Que ton nom soit sanctifié
Que ton règne vienne ,
Que ta volonté soit faite ,
Sur la terre comme au ciel.
Donne nous aujourd'hui ,
Notre pain de ce jour .
Et pardonne-nous nos offenses,
Comme nous pardonnons ceux qui
nous ont offensés .
Ne nous soumets pas à la tentation,
Mais délivre nous du mal.
Pour des siècles et des siècles , Amen.
I got this from @runicmagitek, thank you for that.
Last song. "I Need Nothing Else" by Sophie B Hawkins. I used to listen to her Whaler album back in the 2000s, then forgot about it for years. She has a fun, headlong, early 90s style that's extremely catchy.
Favorite color. I really like deep jewel tones, teals and wine-reds, also burnt orange. There's this really great magenta-touched purple that I use in some of my art that never scans correctly. We'll go with burnt orange today.
Currently watching. The Nanny, just started season 3. I've never seen it before, but I was lured in by the clothes.
Sweet/savory/spicy. Yes to sweet and savory, no to any but the most mild spices. I have wimpy taste buds, but I'm trying to build them up some. When I crave something, it's usually sweet, though often with savory undertones -- like a banana bread or Tollhouse pie with lots of walnuts in it.
Relationship status.
Current obsession. I'm focusing hard on the Next Book right now. I'm between edits, which has me antsy because I feel like I'm being "lazy". But the truth is, I have to take these breaks or I lose perspective on what I'm doing. But this month I'm going to be working on things like the cover and blurb and just going over how I want to talk about the book and present it to people. The process has its stressful moments, but I also really love the book, so it has its own kind of pleasure, thinking about it, preparing for it.
Last thing you googled. "greek epiousion". I just saw a post talking about how the Greek word epiousion only appears in the Lord's Prayer and its definition is a bit mysterious. It's the word we translate as "daily", as in "daily bread", but it's not the word the Greeks typically used for "daily", and the definition may actually be closer to "superessential". I think it's fascinating, and a little eerie, that things can feel so omnipresent and taken for granted, even when we have these gaps in our knowledge. What prayer, at least Christian prayer, is more omnipresent than the Lord's Prayer? And yet here it is, this strange, only semi-known thing right in the middle of it.
Also, all these centuries, we could have been bandying around a word like superessential like it's nothing, why can't we have that?
No tagging, but please do this if you're so inclined!
“Pray like this: Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.” —Matthew 6:9-13 (NLT)
While Matthew introduces the Our Father with a short catechesis on prayer in general, we find it in a different context in Luke — namely, Jesus' journey to Jerusalem. Luke prefaces the Lord's Prayer with the following remark: Jesus "was praying in a certain place, and when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, 'Lord, teach us to pray . . .'" (Lk 11:1).
The context, then, is that the disciples see Jesus praying and it awakens in them the wish to learn from him how to pray. This is typical for Luke, who assigns a very special place in his Gospel to Jesus' prayer. Jesus' entire ministry arises from his prayer, and is sustained by it. Essential events in the course of his journey, in which his mystery is gradually unveiled, appear in this light as prayer events. Peter's confession that Jesus is the Holy One of God is connected with encountering Jesus at prayer (cf. Lk 9:18ff.); the Transfiguration of Jesus is a prayer event (cf. Lk 9:28f.).
The fact that Luke places the Our Father in the context of Jesus' own praying is therefore significant. Jesus thereby involves us in his own prayer; he leads us into the interior dialogue of triune love; he draws our human hardships into God's heart, as it were. This also means, however, that the words of the Our Father are signposts to interior prayer, they provide a basic direction for our being, and they aim to configure us to the image of the Son. The meaning of the Our Father goes much further from the mere provision of a prayer text. It aims to form our being, to train us in the inner attitude of Jesus (cf. Phil 2:5).
This has two different implications for our interpretation of the Our Father. First of all, it is important to listen as accurately as possible to Jesus' words as transmitted in Scripture. We must strive to recognize the thoughts Jesus wished to pass on to us in these words. But we must also keep in mind that the Our Father originates from his own praying, from the Son's dialogue with the Father. This means that it reaches down into depths far beyond words. It embraces the whole compass of man's being in all ages and can therefore never be fully fathomed by purely historical exegesis, however important it may be.
Pope Benedict XVI (Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, pages 132-133), trans. Adrian Walker
Six of the seven petitions of the Lord's prayer are for spiritual blessings, and only one deals with our physical needs. This shows the importance of the spiritual over the physical. 🙏
1 “Beware of doing your good deeds conspicuously to catch men’s eyes or you will miss the reward of your Heavenly Father.
2-4 “So, when you do good to other people, don’t hire a trumpeter to go in front of you—like those play-actors in the synagogues and streets who make sure that men admire them. Believe me, they have had all the reward they are going to get! No, when you give to charity, don’t even let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be secret. Your Father who knows all secrets will reward you.
5-13 “And then, when you pray, don’t be like the play-actors. They love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at street-corners so that people may see them at it. Believe me, they have had all the reward they are going to get. But when you pray, go into your own room, shut your door and pray to your Father privately. Your Father who sees all private things will reward you. And when you pray don’t rattle off long prayers like the pagans who think they will be heard because they use so many words. Don’t be like them. After all, God, who is your Father, knows your needs before you ask him. Pray then like this—‘Our Heavenly Father, may your name be honoured; May your kingdom come, and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day the bread we need, Forgive us what we owe to you, as we have also forgiven those who owe anything to us. Keep us clear of temptation, and save us from evil’.”
Forgiveness of fellow-man is essential
14-15 “For if you forgive other people their failures, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you will not forgive other people, neither will your Heavenly Father forgive you your failures.”