Pater Noster, Our Father

"In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him. This is how you are to pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and do not subject us to the final test, but deliver us from the evil one. If you forgive other their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions." Matthew 6:7-15

I thought I would share this today:

"The words of the Lord's Prayer from Saint Matthew's Gospel are surely quoted or recited more than any other passage in the whole Bible. After the address to God our Father, we make seven petitions: first, three concerning God, and then, four for ourselves. 

The first three petitions represent our total surrender to God and to his ways: all reverence belongs to God's name; God, we pray, will establish his reign in our hearts, and his grace will conform all our hopes and desires to God's will. 

The central petition of the prayer, the petition for bread, has intrigued many Christian writers. Is it the bread that sustains our lives, or is it 'bread for the morrow?' Is it Christ, the true bread from heaven, or is it the Eucharist? Or is it all of these? 

Finally, the last three petitions are, as it were, the mirror image of the first three. Just as we want God's ways to be our ways, so we ask to be delivered, free, saved from all that keeps us from God: sin, tempation, evil. 

By an ancient Christian custom, the Lord's Prayer was recieted three times a day, and the Church still does so in its liturgy: at Morning Prayer, at Mass, and at Evening Prayer. Each of us can do the same."

-Father Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J. The Magnificat Lenten Companion p.19

Pax Tecum!