Seven wings
Any form of religiosity, congregation, movement, or spiritual community is characterized, among other things, by its way of praying. John the Baptist created a spiritual community in the desert and, of course, he too taught his followers how to pray. Some of his disciples who became part of Jesus' community asked Jesus to teach them to pray. They asked Jesus to teach them to pray, but what they were actually asking was a sign to recognize one another and to be recognized. They asked Jesus how their group and their communities' prayer should distinguish them, in manner and style, from every other spiritual group. They asked Jesus a way of praying that could identify, distinguish, represent, characterize them.
Jesus responded to the disciples by giving them and the whole of humanity the Our Father - but in Luke's version, Jesus did not add Our to the word Father - and, with this gift, He gave humanity much more than a prayer or way of praying. Jesus did not respond by teaching them a new way to pray, but He revealed that when a man wants to get in touch with God, when he wishes to pray, indepedently of prayer's manner and style, in order for it to be true prayer, it must have the power to create an energetic and spiritual contact with God; it must fly with seven wings. In fact, He responds: When you pray, say. Jesus does not answer the question of how to pray, but inspires humanity to always use the seven wings of prayer if it wants the prayer to be real and powerful.
What are the seven wings of prayer revealed in the Father?
First wing. Father. The prayer is a grateful, humble, joyful, intelligent recognition that God is our Father and we are all brothers. The first wing is to know and to recognize that God is Father and all other human bonds cannot exceed in intensity, power, passion, or authority the bond of love with Him. Earthly ties, instead, will not accompany us in the ultimate never ending life. In short, the first wing is summarized in the eternal law: And you shall love the Lord God with all your heart-mind, and with all your soul-body and with the best of yourself.
Second wing. Hallowed be your name. To pray is to know and recognize that all that God has created, everthing that lives, chooses, and decides, does so for love and for the glory of His name. It is in the name of His name that God loves us, listens to us, heals us, saves us, frees us, always forgives us with infinite compassion. Honoring the Holy name of God with one's life is the duty of every man and woman who enter the terrestrial life.
Third wing. Your kingdom come. There can be no prayer unless beyond and before every request/desire expressed in the prayer, there is the desire that the kingdom of God, which is the way, that sure way God has of doing things, be completely and fully accomplished.
Fourth wing. Give us each day our daily bread. In the hierarchy of desires and in passion's power, after and only after having asked that the kingdom be realized, every request for help, for needs and necessities makes sense and has meaning.
Fifth wing. And forgive us our sins. Whatever the type of prayer or the manner in which we pray, the heart of prayer must be the humble, sincere, trusting request for God's forgiveness of sins - the Greek word referring to sin is Hamartia, "error, lack of target, missed aim." Asking God's forgiveness makes us aware of our own errors and frees us from guilt; it makes us more capable of understanding ourselves and more compassionate and merciful towards our brothers.
Sixth wing. For we ourselves forgive everyone in debts to us. The man praying to God who in the very moment he turns to God does not forgive fully and heartedly every evil done to him by his brothers is no longer praying but reciting a series of empty, drained, capricious, disrespectful, hypocritical, useless words. This is the main reason why men and women pray so little, and when they do their prayer has no effect, does not about bring any real change. We pray little because every act of prayer must absolutely coincide with an action of offering forgiveness. Most of the time it is not the desire to pray that is lacking but the desire, choice, decision to forgive. So, if the prayer does not coincide with the desire, choice, decision to forgive, the prayer is useless and leads nowhere.
Seventh wing. And do not subject us to the final test. The seventh wing of prayer is the certainty, the intellectual objective certitude and the faith that God never tempts us, never abandons us into temptation. He never does the work of Satan or his devils. The seventh wing is to pray with a pure heart, that is, with a heart that never thinks ill of God, no matter what happens in our life.
These are the seven wings to pray revealed in the Father, but it is actually simplistic to consider it as just a prayer to be recited. The Father is not just a prayer be recited, it is to be lived, realized, chosen. These are the seven wings of prayer with which the heart of man can rise to God and can fly like a swallow into His arms, but these are also the wings without which humanity cannot fly to the Father's house in the endless life of light and peace.
In few words Jesus has revealed and summarized the seven wings of prayer so mankind could easily write them in its heart, because the Father exceeds all schools, systems, habits, methods of prayer in history, and it is the heart of the Gospel, the soul of His message, the kèrigma of the new church.