Our Father in heaven

The young Italian priest Luigi Maria Epicoco - known for his work as a writer and columnist for the Italian newspaper L'Osservatore Romano- It is a collection of simple and profound reflections on the Christian prayer par excellence. With an accessible style, the author offers an updated reading of each invocation of the Lord's Prayer, underlining its communitarian dimension and the logic of God's love for his children. 

Although there are nine of Epicoco's works published in Spanish, the author became especially known for his work “Salt, not honey: for a Faith that stings”, where he offered a provocative reflection criticizing the tendency to soften the Christian message in order to make it more digestible.

On this occasion, Epicoco also achieves an illuminating meditation on the foundational prayer of Christianity, demonstrating how each word pronounced by Jesus contains great spiritual jewels: from divine filiation to the demand for forgiveness as a bridge between heaven and earth. A book that transforms the most repeated prayer into a path of human authenticity and fraternal commitment.

To understand the tone of the book, this text may serve as a sample: “Immediately after the word ”Father', Jesus uses the possessive adjective 'our'. He does not use the adjective 'mine' for a very simple reason: the condition for addressing God as Father is to recognize ourselves as brothers among ourselves. The paternity of God and the fraternity among us cannot be separated. Our relationship with God cannot be in contradiction with our relationship with our brothers and sisters: 'If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he sees, cannot love God whom he does not see. And we have received this commandment from Him, that whoever loves God, let him love his brother also`". 

Epicoco's work clarifies misunderstandings about prayer and explains its foundations. It stresses that prayer is an intimate dialogue with God, “the alphabet of lovers”, and a transforming personal encounter where we talk about “with Jesus face to face”. Each phrase of the Lord's Prayer is seen as part of a step-by-step spiritual journey: they are not single phrases, but a journey that goes from discovering God as Father (“Abba!”) to confronting evil (“Don't let us fall...”).