Just like us, the people in Jesus' time desired to know how to pray. They diligently and faithfully offered sacrifices, stopped throiughout the day and prayed, visited the Temple - they did a lot of stuff trying to find favor with God.
We are no different. We too desire to be found favorable with God so we 'say our prayers', go to mass, do acts of charity and whatever else we find time to do. There is nothing wrong with any ofthese, for we need to do these things - but, Christ teaches us something in the Our Father that we cannot forget.
When the disciples ask Him how they are to pray, Jesus gives them, not a technique or formula, He gives them a short 55 word prayer. Within these mere 55 words though is the essence of what prayer is and needs to be.
We come to realize in the Our Father that we are totally dependent on the Father. Without the Father, we do not have our daily bread. Without the Father, we are prone to temptations and evils that pull us away from a life of faith. Without the Father, we do not have forgiveness of our sins nor do we have the ability to forgive others. We are totally dependent of God the Father adn without Him, we are nothing.
The Our Father teaches us that prayer has to be us becoming little. We are not capable of anything without God. We are little children who needs our Father to give us life, to give us safety and to forgive us of all our sins.
In praying, we need to 'say our prayers' as the saying goes, we need to maintain a sacramental life and do acts of charity and self sacrifice. It all needs to happen though with the undercurrent of our total dependence on the Father and that without this life of prayer, we are nothing.
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