The Lord’s Prayer
St John Vianney said, “My little children, your hearts are small, but prayer stretches them and makes them capable of loving God. Prayer never leaves us without sweetness. It is honey that flows into the soul and makes all things sweet. When we pray properly, sorrows disappear like snow before the sun.”
The Lord's Prayer is fundamentally communal. It is the prayer of Jesus's brothers and sisters, people of common origin who dare to address God as "Abba." It's our prayer. Jesus is teaching the disciples and us that God is not a distant God who doesn’t care. He is present, and He cares. We are children of one family of God.
The "Our Father" is commonly known as the prayer with seven petitions. The number 7 always symbolizes perfection, so the "Our Father" is the prayer with seven perfect petitions. In other words, any petitions we pray in our own words can be found in any of these seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer.
Saint John Paul II said: "Everything that can and must be said to the Father is contained in those 7 requests which we all know by heart. There is such a simplicity in them that even a child can learn them but at the same time such a depth that a whole life can be spent meditating on their meaning".
The first 3 petitions are requests for the Father's glory, and the other 4 are requests for ourselves.
1st Petition: Our Father who art in Heaven hallowed be Thy Name
Here, we are entering into God's plan, and His plan is the sanctification of His name by us, in us, in every nation, and in each man (cf. CCC 2858).
2nd Petition: Thy Kingdom come
Here, we are looking first to Christ's return and the final coming of the Reign of God. We are also praying for the growth of the Kingdom of God in our lifetime, not just the future growth but asking for it to happen during our lifetime as well (cf. CCC 2859).
3rd Petition: Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven
We often like to think that life is about us. At least I do… But this is a reminder that I am charged with building God’s kingdom, not my kingdom. For all who follow Jesus, our lives should be about fulfilling God’s will, not our own. It’s not about me. Jesus is teaching us to look outside ourselves.
4th Petition: Give us this day our daily bread
From early times, Christians connected this petition of the Lord's Prayer not only to ordinary sustenance but to the Eucharistic feast. We express our utter dependence on God in our prayer for daily bread.
5th Petition: And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
God’s forgiveness of us depends on how we forgive others. Jesus is teaching us to seek and offer forgiveness.
Forgiveness is not a feeling but an act of the will. The bitter memory may not be forgotten completely; the painful feeling of past hurts may still exist. As long as our will is to forgive, then it truly is an act of forgiveness on our part.
6th Petition: And lead us not into temptation
We ask for the spirit of discernment and strength, the grace of vigilance, and final perseverance (cf. CCC 2863).
7th Petition: But deliver us from evil
We pray that the human family be freed from Satan and his works. We also ask for the precious gift of peace and the grace of perseverance as we wait for the coming of Christ, who will free us definitely from the Evil One (cf. CCC 2864).
Finally, The Lord's Prayer is a summary of the Gospel in the form of prayer. It is a useful prayer as it expresses adoration, confession, and supplication. Let’s pray it at least three times each day. When we learn to pray like Jesus, we become like Jesus.
Fr. Clement Piruwa
