You Cannot Call God “Our Father” While Rejecting His Children
The Our Father is the ultimate subversive text. It dethrones every rival loyalty by insisting that no nation, party, or strongman stands above the shared dignity of God’s children.
Dear friends —
Letters from Leo is publishing daily Lenten reflections through Easter, available exclusively to paid subscribers.
Each meditation will explore what it means to follow Jesus more faithfully in the midst of American civic and political life — not as partisans first, but as Christians whose consciences are shaped by the Cross.
Lent is a season of repentance, renewal, and resolve.
It is a time to confront our idols, strip away our illusions, and allow the light of God’s redeeming love to search and purify our hearts.
I hope you will walk this forty-day road with me — as your brother and fellow sinner — embracing prayer, sacrifice, and deeper conversion, and allowing the God of liberation to claim every corner of our lives and our public witness in an age of creeping authoritarianism.
“If you forgive men their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.” — (Matthew 6:15)
Today, Jesus gives us the Lord’s Prayer. It is common for us to recite it without letting its radical nature sink in.
It begins with “our” — not “my.” It is a communal prayer that binds us to every other human being on the planet.
When we pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” we are making more than a religious commitment. We, too, are making a political commitment.
