SECTION TWO - THE LORD'S PRAYER
I. "OUR FATHER!"
2759 Jesus "was praying at a certain place, and when he ceased, one of his disciples said
to him, 'Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.'"[1] In response to this
request the Lord entrusts to his disciples and to his Church the fundamental Christian
prayer. St. Luke presents a brief text of five petitions,[2] while St. Matthew gives a more
developed version of seven petitions.[3] The liturgical tradition of the Church has
retained St. Matthew's text:
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be
done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our
trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
2760 Very early on, liturgical usage concluded the Lord's Prayer with a doxology. In the
Didache, we find, "For yours are the power and the glory• for ever."[4] The Apostolic
Constitutions add to the beginning: "the kingdom," and this is the formula retained to
our day in ecumenical prayer.[5]
The Byzantine tradition adds after "the glory" the words "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."
The Roman Missal develops the last petition in the explicit perspective of "awaiting our
blessed hope" and of the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.[6] Then comes the
assembly's acclamation or the repetition of the doxology from the Apostolic
Constitutions.
ARTICLE 1 - "THE SUMMARY OF THE WHOLE
GOSPEL"
2761 The Lord's Prayer "is truly the summary of the whole gospel."[7] "Since the Lord . .
. after handing over the practice of prayer, said elsewhere, 'Ask and you will receive,' and
since everyone has petitions which are peculiar to his circumstances, the regular and
appropriate prayer [the Lord's Prayer] is said first, as the foundation of further
desires."[8]
I. AT THE CENTER OF THE SCRIPTURES
2762 After showing how the psalms are the principal food of Christian prayer and flow
together in the petitions of the Our Father, St. Augustine concludes:
Run through all the words of the holy prayers [in Scripture], and I do not
think that you will find anything in them that is not contained and
included in the Lord's Prayer.[9]
2763 All the Scriptures - the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms - are fulfilled in
Christ.[10] The Gospel is this "Good News." Its first proclamation is summarized by St.
Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount;[11] the prayer to our Father is at the center of
this proclamation. It is in this context that each petition bequeathed to us by the Lord is
illuminated:
The Lord's Prayer is the most perfect of prayers.... In it we ask, not only
for all the things we can rightly desire, but also in the sequence that they
should be desired. This prayer not only teaches us to ask for things, but
also in what order we should desire them.[12]
2764 The Sermon on the Mount is teaching for life, the Our Father is a prayer; but in
both the one and the other the Spirit of the Lord gives new form to our desires, those
inner movements that animate our lives. Jesus teaches us this new life by his words; he
teaches us to ask for it by our prayer. The rightness of our life in him will depend on the
rightness of our prayer.
II. THE LORD'S PRAYER
2765 The traditional expression "the Lord's Prayer" - oratio Dominica - means that the
prayer to our Father is taught and given to us by the Lord Jesus. The prayer that comes
to us from Jesus is truly unique: it is "of the Lord." On the one hand, in the words of
this prayer the only Son gives us the words the Father gave him:[13] he is the master of
our prayer. On the other, as Word incarnate, he knows in his human heart the needs of
his human brothers and sisters and reveals them to us: he is the model of our prayer.
2766 But Jesus does not give us a formula to repeat mechanically.[14] As in every vocal
prayer, it is through the Word of God that the Holy Spirit teaches the children of God
to pray to their Father. Jesus not only gives us the words of our filial prayer; at the same
time he gives us the Spirit by whom these words become in us "spirit and life."[15] Even
more, the proof and possibility of our filial prayer is that the Father "sent the Spirit of
his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!'"[16] Since our prayer sets forth our
desires before God, it is again the Father, "he who searches the hearts of men," who
"knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints
according to the will of God."[17] The prayer to Our Father is inserted into the
mysterious mission of the Son and of the Spirit.
III. THE PRAYER OF THE CHURCH
2767 This indivisible gift of the Lord's words and of the Holy Spirit who gives life to
them in the hearts of believers has been received and lived by the Church from the
beginning. The first communities prayed the Lord's Prayer three times a day,[18] in place
of the "Eighteen Benedictions" customary in Jewish piety.
2768 According to the apostolic tradition, the Lord's Prayer is essentially rooted in
liturgical prayer:
[The Lord] teaches us to make prayer in common for all our brethren.
For he did not say "my Father" who art in heaven, but "our" Father,
offering petitions for the common body.[19]
In all the liturgical traditions, the Lord's Prayer is an integral part of the major hours of
the Divine Office. In the three sacraments of Christian initiation its ecclesial character is
especially in evidence:
2769 In Baptism and Confirmation, the handing on (traditio) of the Lord's Prayer signifies
new birth into the divine life. Since Christian prayer is our speaking to God with the very
word of God, those who are "born anew". . . through the living and abiding word of
God"[20] learn to invoke their Father by the one Word he always hears. They can
henceforth do so, for the seal of the Holy Spirit's anointing is indelibly placed on their
hearts, ears, lips, indeed their whole filial being. This is why most of the patristic
commentaries on the Our Father are addressed to catechumens and neophytes. When
the Church prays the Lord's Prayer, it is always the people made up of the "new-born"
who pray and obtain mercy.[21]
2770 In the Eucharistic liturgy the Lord's Prayer appears as the prayer of the whole Church
and there reveals its full meaning and efficacy. Placed between the anaphora (the
Eucharistic prayer) and the communion, the Lord's Prayer sums up on the one hand all
the petitions and intercessions expressed in the movement of the epiclesis and, on the
other, knocks at the door of the Banquet of the kingdom which sacramental
communion anticipates.
2771 In the Eucharist, the Lord's Prayer also reveals the eschatological character of its
petitions. It is the proper prayer of "the end-time," the time of salvation that began with
the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and will be fulfilled with the Lord's return. The
petitions addressed to our Father, as distinct from the prayers of the old covenant, rely
on the mystery of salvation already accomplished, once for all, in Christ crucified and
risen.
2772 From this unshakeable faith springs forth the hope that sustains each of the seven
petitions, which express the groanings of the present age, this time of patience and
expectation during which "it does not yet appear what we shall be."[22] The Eucharist
and the Lord's Prayer look eagerly for the Lord's return, "until he comes."[23]
IN BRIEF
2773 In response to his disciples' request "Lord, teach us to pray" (Lk 11:1), Jesus
entrusts them with the fundamental Christian prayer, the Our Father.
2774 "The Lord's Prayer is truly the summary of the whole gospel,"[24] the "most
perfect of prayers."[25] It is at the center of the Scriptures.
2775 It is called "the Lord's Prayer" because it comes to us from the Lord Jesus, the
master and model of our prayer.
2776 The Lord's Prayer is the quintessential prayer of the Church. It is an integral part of
the major hours of the Divine Office and of the sacraments of Christian initiation:
Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist. Integrated into the Eucharist it reveals the
eschatological character of its petitions, hoping for the Lord, "until he comes" (1 Cor
11:26).
ARTICLE 2 - OUR FATHER WHO ART IN
HEAVEN"
I. "WE DARE TO SAY"
2777 In the Roman liturgy, the Eucharistic assembly is invited to pray to our heavenly
Father with filial boldness; the Eastern liturgies develop and use similar expressions:
"dare in all confidence," "make us worthy of...." From the burning bush Moses heard a
voice saying to him, "Do not come near; put off your shoes from your feet, for the place
on which you are standing is holy ground."[26] Only Jesus could cross that threshold of
the divine holiness, for "when he had made purification for sins," he brought us into the
Father's presence: "Here am I, and the children God has given me."[27]
Our awareness of our status as slaves would make us sink into the
ground and our earthly condition would dissolve into dust, if the
authority of our Father himself and the Spirit of his Son had not
impelled us to this cry . . . 'Abba, Father!' . . . When would a mortal dare
call God 'Father,' if man's innermost being were not animated by power
from on high?"[28]
2778 This power of the Spirit who introduces us to the Lord's Prayer is expressed in the
liturgies of East and of West by the beautiful, characteristically Christian expression:
parrhesia, straightforward simplicity, filial trust, joyous assurance, humble boldness, the
certainty of being loved.[29]
II. ABBA - "FATHER!"
2779 Before we make our own this first exclamation of the Lord's Prayer, we must
humbly cleanse our hearts of certain false images drawn "from this world." Humility
makes us recognize that "no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows
the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him," that is,
"to little children."[30] The purification of our hearts has to do with paternal or maternal
images, stemming from our personal and cultural history, and influencing our
relationship with God. God our Father transcends the categories of the created world.
To impose our own ideas in this area "upon him" would be to fabricate idols to adore or
pull down. To pray to the Father is to enter into his mystery as he is and as the Son has
revealed him to us.
The expression God the Father had never been revealed to anyone.
When Moses himself asked God who he was, he heard another name.
The Father's name has been revealed to us in the Son, for the name
"Son" implies the new name "Father."[31]
2780 We can invoke God as "Father" because he is revealed to us by his Son become
man and because his Spirit makes him known to us. The personal relation of the Son to
the Father is something that man cannot conceive of nor the angelic powers even dimly
see: and yet, the Spirit of the Son grants a participation in that very relation to us who
believe that Jesus is the Christ and that we are born of God.[32]
2781 When we pray to the Father, we are in communion with him and with his Son,
Jesus Christ.[33] Then we know and recognize him with an ever new sense of wonder.
The first phrase of the Our Father is a blessing of adoration before it is a supplication.
For it is the glory of God that we should recognize him as "Father," the true God. We
give him thanks for having revealed his name to us, for the gift of believing in it, and for
the indwelling of his Presence in us.
2782 We can adore the Father because he has caused us to be reborn to his life by
adopting us as his children in his only Son: by Baptism, he incorporates us into the Body
of his Christ; through the anointing of his Spirit who flows from the head to the
members, he makes us other "Christs."
" God, indeed, who has predestined us to adoption as his sons, has
conformed us to the glorious Body of Christ. So then you who have
become sharers in Christ are appropriately called "Christs." "[34]
" The new man, reborn and restored to his God by grace, says first of all,
"Father!" because he has now begun to be a son. "[35]
2783 Thus the Lord's Prayer reveals us to ourselves at the same time that it reveals the
Father to us.[36]
O man, you did not dare to raise your face to heaven, you lowered your
eyes to the earth, and suddenly you have received the grace of Christ all
your sins have been forgiven. From being a wicked servant you have
become a good son.... Then raise your eyes to the Father who has
begotten you through Baptism, to the Father who has redeemed you
through his Son, and say: "Our Father.... " But do not claim any
privilege. He is the Father in a special way only of Christ, but he is the
common Father of us all, because while he has begotten only Christ, he
has created us. Then also say by his grace, "Our Father," so that you may
merit being his son.[37]
2784 The free gift of adoption requires on our part continual conversion and new life.
Praying to our Father should develop in us two fundamental dispositions:
First, the desire to become like him: though created in his image, we are restored to his
likeness by grace; and we must respond to this grace.
" We must remember . . . and know that when we call God "our Father"
we ought to behave as sons of God.[38]
" You cannot call the God of all kindness your Father if you preserve a
cruel and inhuman heart; for in this case you no longer have in you the
marks of the heavenly Father's kindness.[39]
" We must contemplate the beauty of the Father without ceasing and
adorn our own souls accordingly.[40]
2785 Second, a humble and trusting heart that enables us "to turn and become like
children":[41] for it is to "little children" that the Father is revealed.[42]
[The prayer is accomplished] by the contemplation of God alone, and by
the warmth of love, through which the soul, molded and directed to love
him, speaks very familiarly to God as to its own Father with special
devotion.[43]
" Our Father: at this name love is aroused in us . . . and the confidence of
obtaining what we are about to ask.... What would he not give to his
children who ask, since he has already granted them the gift of being his
children?[44]
III. "OUR" FATHER
2786 "Our" Father refers to God. The adjective, as used by us, does not express
possession, but an entirely new relationship with God.
2787 When we say "our" Father, we recognize first that all his promises of love
announced by the prophets are fulfilled in the new and eternal covenant in his Christ: we
have become "his" people and he is henceforth "our" God. This new relationship is the
purely gratuitous gift of belonging to each other: we are to respond to "grace and truth"
given us in Jesus Christ with love and faithfulness.[45]
2788 Since the Lord's Prayer is that of his people in the "endtime," this "our" also
expresses the certitude of our hope in God's ultimate promise: in the new Jerusalem he
will say to the victor, "I will be his God and he shall be my son."[46]
2789 When we pray to "our" Father, we personally address the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. By doing so we do not divide the Godhead, since the Father is its "source and
origin," but rather confess that the Son is eternally begotten by him and the Holy Spirit
proceeds from him. We are not confusing the persons, for we confess that our
communion is with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, in their one Holy Spirit. The
Holy Trinity is consubstantial and indivisible. When we pray to the Father, we adore and
glorify him together with the Son and the Holy Spirit.
2790 Grammatically, "our" qualifies a reality common to more than one person. There is
only one God, and he is recognized as Father by those who, through faith in his only
Son, are reborn of him by water and the Spirit.[47] The Church is this new communion
of God and men. United with the only Son, who has become "the firstborn among
many brethren," she is in communion with one and the same Father in one and the same
Holy Spirit.[48] In praying "our" Father, each of the baptized is praying in this
communion: "The company of those who believed were of one heart and soul."[49]
2791 For this reason, in spite of the divisions among Christians, this prayer to "our"
Father remains our common patrimony and an urgent summons for all the baptized. In
communion by faith in Christ and by Baptism, they ought to join in Jesus' prayer for the
unity of his disciples.[50]
2792 Finally, if we pray the Our Father sincerely, we leave individualism behind, because
the love that we receive frees us from it. The "our" at the beginning of the Lord's Prayer,
like the "us" of the last four petitions, excludes no one. If we are to say it truthfully, our
divisions and oppositions have to be overcome.[51]
2793 The baptized cannot pray to "our" Father without bringing before him all those for
whom he gave his beloved Son. God's love has no bounds, neither should our
prayer.[52] Praying "our" Father opens to us the dimensions of his love revealed in
Christ: praying with and for all who do not yet know him, so that Christ may "gather
into one the children of God."[53] God's care for all men and for the whole of creation
has inspired all the great practitioners of prayer; it should extend our prayer to the full
breadth of love whenever we dare to say "our" Father.
IV. "WHO ART IN HEAVEN"
2794 This biblical expression does not mean a place ("space"), but a way of being; it
does not mean that God is distant, but majestic. Our Father is not "elsewhere": he
transcends everything we can conceive of his holiness. It is precisely because he is thrice
holy that he is so close to the humble and contrite heart.
"Our Father who art in heaven" is rightly understood to mean that God
is in the hearts of the just, as in his holy temple. At the same time, it
means that those who pray should desire the one they invoke to dwell in
them.[54]
"Heaven" could also be those who bear the image of the heavenly world,
and in whom God dwells and tarries.[55]
2795 The symbol of the heavens refers us back to the mystery of the covenant we are
living when we pray to our Father. He is in heaven, his dwelling place; the Father's house
is our homeland. Sin has exiled us from the land of the covenant,[56] but conversion of
heart enables us to return to the Father, to heaven.[57] Jn Christ, then, heaven and earth
are reconciled,[58] for the Son alone "descended from heaven" and causes us to ascend
there with him, by his Cross, Resurrection, and Ascension.[59]
2796 When the Church prays "our Father who art in heaven," she is professing that we
are the People of God, already seated "with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus"
and "hidden with Christ in God;"[60] yet at the same time, "here indeed we groan, and
long to put on our heavenly dwelling."[61]
[Christians] are in the flesh, but do not live according to the flesh. They
spend their lives on earth, but are citizens of heaven.[62]
IN BRIEF
2797 Simple and faithful trust, humble and joyous assurance are the proper dispositions
for one who prays the Our Father.
2798 We can invoke God as "Father" because the Son of God made man has revealed
him to us. Jn this Son, through Baptism, we are incorporated and adopted as sons of
God.
2799 The Lord's Prayer brings us into communion with the Father and with his Son,
Jesus Christ. At the same time it reveals us to ourselves (cf. GS 22 # 1).
2800 Praying to our Father should develop in us the will to become like him and foster
in us a humble and trusting heart.
2801 When we say "Our" Father, we are invoking the new covenant in Jesus Christ,
communion with the Holy Trinity, and the divine love which spreads through the
Church to encompass the world.
2802 "Who art in heaven" does not refer to a place but to God's majesty and his
presence in the hearts of the just. Heaven, the Father's house, is the true homeland
toward which we are heading and to which, already, we belong.
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