The Our Father prayer taught by Christ himself to his disciples is the basis of the relationship between Christians and God the Father. In a few sentences, it brings together the seven essential requests that we can make of him. To recite it with all our hearts, it is important to understand each sentence. Here are explanations to make the prayer of the children of God yours.
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The Our Father prayer commented
Our Father who art in heaven
We begin by addressing God as “Our father”. By doing so, we recognize ourselves as an assembly, a community, a Church. We are committed to our loved ones, to all our Christian brothers. The word “Father” underlines our affiliate link with God: we recognize ourselves as Children of God. It is a simple and direct word, but it is also full of affection and love. The expression “Who art in heaven” invites us to recognize that God is not an earthly father, radically different from us, allows us to praise his greatness. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, this expression gives us a reason for confidence at the moment of prayer: we rest in the power of God, his intimate presence in our hearts.
Hallowed be thy name
With this prayer, we ask God to make himself known for who he really is: a holy God. “Holy” means three things: that which is consistent, unwavering; it is not earthly; and that which is washed from sin by the blood of Christ.
Saint Thomas Aquinas associates each petition of the Our Father with a gift of the Holy Spirit and one beatitude. This first request is associated with the gift of fear of God and of bliss: “Blessed are the poor at heart, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Let your kingdom come
This second request is particularly strong. The kingdom of God has already come to earth once and manifested itself in Jesus: the only man in whom God reigned completely. When we pronounce the phrase “Thy kingdom come”, we ask God to extend your kingdom to all the earth and free our hearts from sin.
Saint Thomas Aquinas, in his book Summa Theologica, explains the interaction that is created between us and God during the recitation of the first two petitions of the Our Father: “Our end is God, towards whom the movement of our heart occurs in two ways. We want the glory of him and we want to enjoy that glory. It is first of all the predilection we have for God himself, and then that for which we love ourselves in God. Hence our first request that his name be hallowed; expresses our desire for the glory of God. And the second, your kingdom come, by which we ask to attain the glory of God and of his kingdom.”
This second request is associated with the gift of mercy and the bliss: “Blessed are the meek, for they will receive the earth.”
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven
The third and final request of the Our Father prayer is a act of abandonment to the Lord. He only knows what is best for us, because he is the only one who can guide us. When praying the Our Father, we agree to trust him and put our lives in his hands. This phrase was pronounced by Jesus himself, at the moment of the agony before his imminent death: “Father, if you want, take this cup away from me! However, let not my will be done, but yours.” (Luke 22-42).
We are called to fully accept and observe God’s will, his plan for our salvation. We ask for his divine help to achieve what is good for us.
This third request is associated with the gift of science and to bliss: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”
Give us today our daily bread
At the heart of these divine demands is a much simpler and more human demand: that of food. To ask for bread is to recognize our humble humanity after having praised a mighty and heavenly God. We ask the Lord for necessary bread for our life: it is not only food for the belly, but also food for the soul, for the spirit. The Christian also lives from the bread of the Word, the bread of the Eucharist: Jesus is the “living bread that came down from heaven” (John 6,51). Bread has a very symbolic value throughout the Gospel: from the Old Testament to the Last Supper, bread represents the God’s gift to man.
This fourth request is associated with the gift of strength and bliss: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.”
Forgive our offenses, as we also forgive those who offend us.
If the previous requests were related to useful goods to lead us to attain eternal life, from this passage of the prayer, they all consist of obstacles that must be avoided to reach this goal. This phrase from the Our Father invites us to a double pardon: ask God for forgiveness for our sins and recognize them, but also manage to forgive others. God and Jesus are love: without forgiveness there is no love. Forgiveness is a necessary condition for us to continue on our path to holiness. Human forgiveness is rooted in divine forgiveness: when we struggle to forgive, we ask God for help!
This fifth request is associated with the gift of advice and bliss: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”
Lead us not into temptation.
Temptation is the second obstacle that keeps us from holiness. This sentence of the Our Father is the only one formulated negatively.
What is temptation? To tempt is to test or put to the test. When man is tempted, it is his virtue that he is put to the test, to see if he hastens to do good. He too can be incited to evil: to resist it is to show great virtue. Temptation is not sin: sin is consenting and succumbing.
Jesus himself was tempted many times, his most widely cited temptation being the one he experienced during his 40 days in the desert. Temptation is part of the path of those who follow Christ: we must fight to maintain our virtue. “Watch and pray so that you do not fall into temptation; that the spirit is ready, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26,41). Jesus gives us the most effective way of not succumbing to temptation: prayer. It is through prayer that we draw closer to Christ, and it is through prayer that we can find the strength to distance ourselves from evil. Thus, temptation pushes us to fight and, paradoxically, brings us closer to God by making prayer essential for us and by making us experience the same trials as those of Jesus. Prayer is not to provide us with some kind of “remedy” against temptation, but to give us the courage to overcome this test.as we open ourselves to God and trust Him.
This sixth request is associated with the gift of understanding and bliss: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
And deliver us from evil
The last request of the Our Father is not trivial and constitutes the culmination of this beautiful prayer: “Deliver us from evil” is asking liberation from everything that distances us from Godis to summarize All the difficulty and the essence of spiritual warfare in a sentence. God is the only one who has the power to free us from evil, with the help of Jesus, who prayed for all men: “Father, I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the Evil One” (John 17:15).
This seventh request is associated with the gift of wisdom and bliss: “Blessed are those who seek peace, for they will be called children of God.”
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To better understand the relationship between you and God, follow the example of the saints: