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Hello. I'm Joanna Collicutt and I'm here in the old chapel of Ripon College Cuddesdon
where I work as a lecturer in psychology and spirituality. I'm here to talk to you about
my book When You Pray which is published by BRF as their Lent book for 2013. This is a
book that is all about the Lord's Prayer, and I wrote it because over the years I've
become increasingly aware that the Lord's Prayer tells us all we need to know about
the Gospel as Christians. The early Church seems to have understood this too -- it treated
The Lord's Prayer as the essence of the Gospel and used it as the basis for baptism
preparation during the season of Lent. So as we study the Lord's Prayer together we
are in good company. The Lord's Prayer is also a gift from Jesus and as such we need
to take it very seriously. And as I've pondered on the Lord's Prayer I've come to understand
that as we pray it we pray not only in obedience to Jesus but we also join in his work of prayer
and take on his character. And all of this begins with an attitude towards the one Jesus
called 'Abba' and understanding that we are now in relationship with God as our 'Abba'.
But over the years the Lord's Prayer has become over familiar to us. The version we
know is based on the one we find in Matthew's Gospel, and so in this book I've tried to
come to the Lord's Prayer afresh by using Luke's shorter version. The readings for
each week are organised around one line of Luke's version of the Lord's Prayer, and
so as we move into the first week we will be looking at the beginning - the grounding
of Jesus relationship with God, and so our relationship with God - the word 'Abba', Father.