Matthew 6:6
But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
“Our Father, who art in secret” is an odd way to start a prayer, yet Jesus here tells us that this is one of the paradoxical ways in which he is known. What are we to make of a God who reveals himself to be secret? One thing we cannot do is pretend that the Christian faith is therefore some private, esoteric affair between Me ‘n Jesus. For, of course, the very first word of the Lord’s Prayer—”Our”—gives that the lie. To call the Father “Our” Father and not “My” Father is to say he is the God of the whole Church, not just of Me. Why then the emphasis on secrecy here? Because God meets us as persons in all the intimacy of the soul. We approach him in secret because paradoxically, that which is personal is also that which is most universal. For personal things (falling in love, fear upon the sea, wonder at the stars, joy at the laughter of children) are not esoteric, they are common. But, because we are weak, we often cannot reveal ourselves as persons to God in public due to fear of What People Will Think or the distracting desire to impress them. So God calls us to private prayer in order that we may practice at being Persons, that in our public practice of the Faith, we may share that gift of personhood with others.