June 18, 2026
Thursday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
Gospel: Matthew 6:7–15

Today is Thursday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time. The passage from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew continues the Sermon on the Mount. In today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks about prayer.

We know that prayer takes various forms: vocal prayer and mental prayer, personal prayer and communal prayer. Vocal prayer is when we offer our petitions to God with our lips—often by reciting prayers from the Church’s tradition, such as those found in prayer books or devotional pamphlets. At other times, we may simply speak directly from the heart, asking God to hear and grant our needs. Mental prayer, on the other hand, is when we pray silently before God, lifting up our intentions inwardly in His presence. These are forms of personal prayer. Communal prayer, by contrast, is when we join together with the faithful—in parish communities or broader ecclesial gatherings—to pray, whether through the celebration of the Liturgy or the praying of the Liturgy of the Hours. A striking example is the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. In all these forms of prayer, the Our Father holds a central place—the very prayer Jesus taught us Himself.

When we pray the Our Father, we may presume that our heavenly Father will surely grant every request we make. Yet often we do not sense His closeness or His love. The reason we sometimes feel distant from the Father’s tenderness is that we resist living in Christ as He taught, and we do not follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit, who desires what is truly good. Thus, Christ speaks to us in parables of “the Father who sent Him into the world” (cf. Jn 14:24). But when we heed the Savior’s words, receive His teaching, and approach the Father in the manner He prescribed (cf. Mt 6:7–13; Lk 11:1–4), and when we continually yield to the guidance of “the Spirit whom the Father sends in the name of Christ” (cf. Jn 14:26), putting to death the deeds of the flesh by the power of the Holy Spirit, then we become true “children of God” (cf. Rom 8:13–14). Only then can we discern the Father’s will and live it out in every circumstance, faithfully embodying all that Christ has commanded.

O God, strength of those who hope in you, graciously hear our pleas, and, since without you mortal frailty can do nothing, grant us always the help of your grace, that in following your commands we may please you by our resolve and our deeds. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever

©Totus Tuus 2026
Cum Approbatione Ecclesiastica