The Lord’s Prayer “Our Father!”

Section 2 of The Catechism on Prayer

Preliminary Remarks

• The references to the Fathers of the Church in this final section of the Catechism are frequent and from many sources. Reflection on the Lord’s Prayer is a rich part of our tradition.

• Also good are Pope Benedict’s commentary in Jesus of Nazareth ch. 5, and St. Teresa of Jesus’ Way of Perfection chs. 27-42

The Summary of the Whole Gospel

• According to Tertullian, the Lord’s prayer is said first as the foundation of our further desires

• According to St. Augustine, the Psalms flow together with the Our Father which contains in summary the prayer of Scripture

• According to St. Thomas Aquinas, the Our Father gives us what we need to as for and the correct order of asking.

Life and Prayer• The Sermon on the Mount is teaching on how

to live, and the Our Father on how to pray, both giving new form to our desires

• The Sermon on the Mount can be summarized by the insight that man can only be understood in light of God.

• “If being human is essentially about relation to God, it is clear that speaking with, and listening to, God is an essential part of it.” –Pope Benedict, Jesus of Nazareth

The Lord’s Prayer

• This name is used because this is the prayer that our Lord taught us, who as our brother knows in his heart what we need and is our model.

• Jesus gives us the words the Father gave him.• Jesus also sends us the Spirit to help us to

pray, making the Our Father Trinitarian and an aspect of the mysterious missions of the Son and Holy Spirit

The Prayer of the Church• We do not say “my” but “our”.• According to the Didache the Our Father was

prayed three times a day and it traditionally has a liturgical context

• It is said at Baptism and Confirmation as a sign of the passing over to a new life. Patristic commentaries are addressed to catechumens and neophytes often

• In the Mass it is has a privileged spot and has an eschatological character.

From Jesus of Nazareth• “Prayer must not be an occasion for showing

off before others; it requires a discretion that is essential to relation of love.”

• “…it is only by becoming part of the ‘we’ of God’s children that we can reach up to him beyond the limits of this world in the first place.”

• “The ‘we’ of the praying community and the utterly personal intimacy that can be shared only with God are closely interconnected.”

Father• We “dare” to call god Father: parrhesia, the

frankness of saying all.• We need humility when we pray to God as

Father, because “no one knows the Father except the Son.”

• God transcends the categories of the created world, but it is revealed to us that we should call him that because we participate in the life of his Son.

What “Father” Means

• With an ever new sense of wonder, we bless God for being Father, revealing himself, and dwelling in us before we ask for anything

• We are God’s adopted children, by baptism incorporated into the mystical body of Christ

• The Lord’s prayer reveals us to ourselves as children of God who should have two fundamental dispositions

What Being Son or Daughter Means

• First, the desire to be like God. We are made in his image and we should seek to be ever more like him in grace

• We ought to behave as God’s children• Second, we ought to have a humble and

trusting heart. If God has made us his Children, what will he not do for us?

Our• He is our God and we are his people in the

eternal covenant• “When we pray to “our” Father, we personally

address the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. By doing we do not divide the Godhead, since the Father is its “source and origin,” but rather confess that the Son is eternally begotten of him and the Holy Spirit proceeds form him” 2789

• The Holy Trinity is consubstantial and indivisible, with no confusion of Persons

Universality of “Our”

• We pray as a Church and family• The is an ecumenical dimension to the Our

Father, a common patrimony and a plea for further communion

• The last four petitions exclude no one.

Who Art in Heaven

• This does not mean “space” but a way of being, majesty, the transcendence that allows him to be close to the humble

• We are in a process return form exile to our homeland.

• “In sum, wherever God is, there heaven is…St. Augustine says that he sought him many places but he ultimately found him within himself.”- St. Teresa of Jesus

The Seven Petitions

• The petitions, like the 10 commandment, are focused first on God, then our relation to him

• Thy name, thy kingdom, thy will. Love thinks first of the beloved. They correspond to faith hope and love. They are already answered through Christ’s paschal mystery, but we ask for final fulfillment.

• Give us, forgive us, lead us not, deliver us, we pray for life and victory

Hallowed be Thy Name• We do not make God holy, but recognize him

as such• The work of God is accomplished if his name is

hallowed by us and in us• Holiness: the inaccessible center of God’s

eternal mystery, revealed in creation and history as “glory”

• From the covenant of Sinai, God’s people are holy people. Hallowing God means receiving his holiness

Thy Kingdom Come• The term for kingdom, basileia, can be

concrete, abstract, or denote action• This petition refers primarily to the second

coming of Jesus, but not in such a way as to distract us form what we are doing

• We distinguish but do not separate the Kingdom and the social and cultural conditions present. The vocation to eternal life is also a call to serve justice and peace now

Thy Will be Done on Earth as it is in Heaven

• The will of God is to “gather up all things in him”. His plan is a plan of love that we pray comes to fruition as it already has in Heaven

• Doing the will of the Father is how one enters the Kingdom of Heaven

• Jesus is the best example of conformity with the will of God.

Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

• It shows the child’s trust in a good Father• It is not an invitation to idleness, but to a

cooperation in divine providence free from nagging worry and preoccupation

• It as a call to solidarity with those who do not have food

• Man does not live by bread alone…but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God

• Daily, epiousios, means super-essential, and refers to the Eucharist

And Forgive us Our Trespasses, as We Forgive Those Who Trespass against Us

• Our petitions are not heard if we are not forgiving. This is impossible without the inside help of grace.

• The hard heart of the unforgiving makes them impervious to the Father’s grace, but confessing our sins makes us open.

• This extends to even forgiveness of enemies• There is no limit to the forgiveness of God

And Lead Us Not into Temptation

• This may be translated “do not allow us to enter into temptation,” or, “do not let us yield to temptation”

• “God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one” Jas 1:13

• Trials are necessary for the growth of the inner man, and temptation leads to sin and death

• We pray for final perseverance

But Deliver Us From Evil

• “In this petition, evil is not an abstraction, but refers to a person, Satan, the Evil One, the angel who opposes God.” 2851 Diabolos: “throws himself across” God’s plan

• Our interdependence in the drama of sin and death is turned in to the communion of the saints.

• We also pray to be free form all evils

For the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory are Yours, now and Forever

• It is the final doxology• This takes up the first three petitions• “I have an idea of the kingdom as sovereignty

de jure; God as good would have claim on my obedience even if He had no power. The power is sovereignty de facto—He is omnipotent. And the glory is—well, the glory; the “beauty so old and new,” the “light form behind the sun.” C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer