The Lord’s Prayer by James Tissot. Photo: Brooklyn Museum. The Sunday Gospel
If you want to know what to believe, study the creed. If you want to know how to behave, study the Sermon on the Mount. And if you want to know how to pray, contemplate the Our Father, today’s Gospel (Luke 11:1-13).
The disciples were deeply impressed by the prayerfulness of Jesus. They were already familiar with the Psalms and many beautiful blessing prayers. But there was something special about the face of Jesus in prayer and they wanted to share in it. The lesson of Jesus is a golden moment when we get a peep into his mind and heart at prayer.
Notice how the first person singular, me or mine, never features in this prayer. It’s always “our” and “us”. This is rightly called the Lord’s Prayer, and it is our privilege to share in it. The Liturgy reminds us that “we dare to say” this prayer.
Jesus addressed God as Father, something entirely new. In the Old Testament there are fourteen times when God is called Father, only in the sense of creator or protector of the nation, but never in the sense of a personal relationship. In the gospels Jesus speaks of “Father” more than one hundred and seventy times and each one of his twenty-one prayers addresses God as “Father”. We dare to recite his prayer because under the new covenant, “he gave power to become children of God, to those who believed in his name” (John 1:12). St Paul told the Christians in Rome, “You received the Spirit of adoption, enabling us to cry out ‘Abba, Father!’ (Rom 8:14)”.
There are two contrasting ways in our approach to God. God is mysterious, beyond our human understanding, transcendent and holy (apophatic prayer). But God is also very near, intimate, known and loved (kataphatic prayer). The Lord’s Prayer achieves the perfect balance between the two. God is as distant as heaven, yet as near as the personal relationship of Father to children.
Sometimes our prayer starts from the thought of God’s movements towards us: at other times we reach from our situation towards God. The first three petitions begin with God: God’s name, God’s kingdom, God’s will. “By the first three petitions we are strengthened in faith, filled with hope and set aflame in charity” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2806).
Hallowed be thy name
We cannot add anything to the infinite glory of God. This is a petition that our faith will grow through the experience of God’s glory and God’s nearness. There is a phrase in Latin, “nomen est omen”, meaning that a name calls up the presence and the power of the person. Every knee should bend at the name of Jesus.
Nothing shows up the shallowness of faith today as the careless use of the sacred names. Sadly, the Irish are top of this league. May our faith be enriched in a deep appreciation of God’s sacred name.
Thy Kingdom come
This is a petition for hope, that great virtue that keeps us going when times are tough. As long as we can say “Come”, there is someone we trust in. This is a beautiful prayer for the growth of the kingdom which Jesus founded: a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace.
That’s a picture of the ideal world. But sadly, there is war in the Ukraine and other countries, famine in places, rank inequalities and injustice, and politics based on lies. We are sustained by hope as long as we continue to invite the coming of God’s reign on earth.
Thy will be done
After rising up in praise of God’s name, and then longing for the coming down of God’s reign, now we focus inwards to our hearts, the centre of love. On the circumference of life we are engaged in many activities, in family, work, social contacts and so on.
Now we pray that the will of God will be at the centre of everything. May the Spirit of God enkindle within us the fire of God’s love as the energy and direction of all we do.
Give us this day our daily bread
After the three God-petitions we have four us-petitions: for today, give us; for the past, forgive us; and for the future, lead us and deliver us. God already knows what we need ever before we pray. Then why bother petitioning?
God does not need our words but it’s we who need them to make us humbly aware of our dependence on God. Since God already understands our needs, there is no need to be searching for the right words or numbered repetitions.
Bread has been called the staff of life. Our daily bread includes all our needs today. Actually, “daily” is not an exact translation of the original Greek word epiousion, super-essential. So, this petition includes not only our natural needs but also our supernatural needs, nourished by the Blessed Eucharist. Jesus called himself the living bread come down from heaven.
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Having prayed for today’s needs, we now turn to our past. We trust in God’s mercy for our past sins. If we are grateful for God’s forgiveness, we must be willing to forgive those who have hurt us in any way. As this is not easy, we ask for the grace to heal our wounded memories.
The Catechism recommends handing it over to the Holy Spirit who “turns injury into compassion and purifies the memory in transforming the hurt into intercession.” Instead of hating the other person, the Holy Spirit will enable us to pray for that person.
Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from the Evil One
Thinking of our future we ask the Father to lead from the pitfalls of temptation, just as the Good Shepherd leads us along the right path. Temptation is the work of the diabolos, whose very name means the one who leads astray. According to the gospel the devil is the father of lies and a murderer from the beginning: anti-truth and anti-life as we can see rampant today.
One final thought. It is not necessary to repeat the entire prayer all the time. Just concentrate on one petition. St Catherine of Sienna rarely managed the complete prayer. When somebody asked St Teresa of Avila how to become a contemplative, her advice was to spend an hour with the Lord’s Prayer. “Lord, teach us to pray”.
Fr Silvester O’Flynn’s book, Gospel Reflections and Prayers is available to purchase at Columba Books.