Gospel-Homily for Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (2025)

Read the Homily

Short and Good: The Perfect Prayer.

After the priest reads the Gospel at Mass, he gives a homily. He has four options: short and good, short and bad, long and good, and long and bad.  Take a wild long shot as to which of the four options is the most popular among the faithful in the pews? Of course, the favorite is short and good. The priest rarely uses this option, so what do you think is the second most popular choice of the four? Short and bad. So let me ask you a question. When you turn to God in prayer, do you think He likes long and bad? Do you think he likes it when we just babble on and on? I don’t think so.  So, the Lord gives us a prayer that is short and good–I timed the Our Father. It takes only seventeen seconds.

It is a great prayer because it has everything God wants to hear from our lips. When we pray the Our Father, we tell God that we are his sons and daughters. Our job as kids is to carry on the legacy of our fathers. We tell God that we will live out his excellent qualities and characteristics, his mercy, kindness, and generosity.  God likes to hear that as well.

When we pray the Our Father, we tell God that we depend on him for everything, even the most common and simplest things, like a piece of bread. God likes to hear this.

When we pray the Our Father, we tell God that no matter who we are or what we are doing, we want his will to be done. Once again, God likes to hear this.

When we pray the Our Father, we tell him we appreciate his mercy and forgiveness so much that we are always willing to offer the same kind of mercy to others. God likes to hear this.

When we pray the Our Father, we ask God to take away any evil so that no one will ever be hurt by us.

Jesus prayed all the time when he was on earth, so what do you think was his prayer? You guessed it, the Our Father. When Jesus went into the desert for forty days and nights and was tempted by the devil, what prayer did Jesus say? The Our Father: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” When Jesus was in the wilderness and he wanted to feed the five thousand, rather than send them away, He took the only available food, a few loaves of bread.  He looked up to heaven to pray. What prayer did He use? The Our Father: “Give us this day our daily bread.”  When Jesus was in his agony in the garden before his arrest, it says that Jesus prayed. What exactly was Jesus’ prayer?  Again, the Our Father: “Your will be done.”  When Jesus was hung on the cross before He died, He turned to His Father in prayer. What prayer was on Jesus’ lips?  Again, the Our Father: “as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  The “Our Father” is the perfect prayer for us as well. 

Jesus began His public life with the Our Father in the desert.  Likewise, he ended his suffering on the cross with the Our Father. God saved the world with the Our Father. Imagine what we could do with seventeen seconds.