Double Dog Dare!

“No one fears to approach You now. You are the God of mercy. You have compassion on misery. You are our God, and we are Your people. You are our Father, and we are Your children by grace. Praise be to Your mercy, that You have deigned to descend among us.” Divine Mercy in My Soul # 1745

Have you ever noticed at Mass that right before we all recite the Our Father prayer together, the priest says, “At the Savior’s command and formed by divine teaching, we dare to say”? And then we all join in, “Our Father, who art in Heaven…”
Isn’t the expression, “We dare to say,” kind of odd? Why use the word “dare”?

In the dictionary, the word dare is defined as: “To have the necessary courage or boldness to do something.”

Speaking from personal experience here – Do we really need courage or boldness to mindlessly mumble a bunch of words we learned as kids, while our brains are thinking about what we’re going to do when we get home from church? Is it really a courageous risk to say the Lord’s Prayer along with everyone else at Mass? Obviously, we do not need courage or boldness to engage in that particular weekly routine.

This is exactly what Jesus taught: The all-powerful God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob actually is our “Abba, Father,” an expression that means something like, “Daddy, Papa.”

Jesus taught his disciples that they (and us, too) could informally turn to prayer and communicate with the Divine Creator. Prayer was no longer the exclusive domain of special community rituals and ceremonies. In any informal setting, such as our bedrooms or while taking a walk, we could look up and speak directly to our heavenly Father, just as a trusting child says, “Hey Daddy, I need some help.”

It doesn’t seem like much of a dare to us nowadays to recite a prayer we learned as kids. But when Jesus first taught his disciples to say this prayer, it did require courage and boldness. The idea of having a personal conversation with the Creator of the Universe surely made the first disciples tremble a little. And to be honest, engaging in a personal conversation with the Almighty Creator should make us tremble a little, too.

Jesus’ mission on earth was to bridge the huge gulf between the Holy God and sinful mankind. Because He came to seek and save what was lost, we now can approach God as our tender Father.

St. Theresa of Avila said she could meditate on just these words for the rest of her life. Delve deeper into the depth and meaning of ‘Our Father’, then, I dare you. Say this prayer with true courage.

So, go ahead. I double-dog dare you: say the Our Father prayer with courage, boldness, and most of all, joy.