The Lord’s Prayer(Mt. 6:5-14)

The Sermon on the Mount by Carl Heinrich Bloch; Wikipedia

“Come to me all you who are weary and are heavy burden and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28).

What is prayer:• The classical definition of prayer is the lifting up of our hearts and minds to God.• It is not just the lifting up of hearts but more deeply put, to relate to its goal, it is an invitation by God to draw a soul into perfect union with him. It is a forum where love meets Love. • It is a sincere self empting before God• It is the action of the Holy Spirit in a soul leading him to the Father.

St. Therese's Definition of Prayer “I do like children who do not know how to read, I say very simply to God what I wish to say, without composing beautiful sentences, and He always understands me. For me, prayer is an aspiration of the heart, it is a simple glance directed to heaven, it is a cry of gratitude and love in the midst of trial as well as joy; finally it is something great, supernatural, which expands my soul and unites me to Jesus.”(From St. Therese’s autobiography -Story of a Soul; from the Solitary Bird Blog)

Christ’s dictates on how to pray• do not pray like the hypocrites, who stand to be noticed • do not pray like the pagans, who use many words•When you pray go into your room and to your Father, who sees in secret, and he will hear you• Be convinced that your Father knows what you need before you asked him•St. Cyprian: Treatise on the Lord’s Prayer“When we pray, our words should be calm, modest and disciplined. Let us reflect that we are standing before God. we should please him both by our bodily posture and the manner of our speech. It is characteristic of the vulgar to shout and make a noise, not those who are modest. On the contrary, they should employ a quiet tone in their prayer.”

• Our Father in heaven,• In this, Christ reveals to us the new relationship between man and God (God is Father).• God is no longer seen as removed from us but intimately united with us. No longer as the Jews would approach him with fear, but he teaches us to approach him with love (filial love)• It manifest our adoption and invitation into communion and living in the Trinitarian life and love. Christ having called God is Father, now calls him, in relation to us, Our Father.• St. Teresa of Avila: Way to Perfection, chapter 27 “O Son of God and my Lord! How is it that Thou canst give us so much with Thy first word? It is so wonderful that Thou shouldst descend to such a degree of humility as to join with us when we pray and make Thyself the Brother of creatures so miserable and lowly! How can it be that, in the name of Thy Father, Thou shouldst give us all that there is to be given, by willing Him to have us as His children -- and Thy word cannot fail?”

The Seven Petition of Our Father: . Hallowed be Your Name,• This is the first petition•This is the praise of God• Jesus teaches us to first recognize God’s holiness and praise him for it before all else.•Not that we are making God’s name to be holy but that we are recognizing it and want to extol it in our life.•“Be holy as your heavenly Father is holy,” said Jesus.

• (St. Augustine's letter to Proba on the Our Father or Lord's Prayer )“Thus, when we say: Hallowed be your name, we are reminding ourselves to desire that his name, which in fact is always holy, should also be considered holy among men. I mean that it should not be held in contempt. But this is a help for men, not for God.”

• Your kingdom come,• This is the second petition• here we ask for God’s kingdom to come.• what is this kingdom?

"The kingdom of God [is] righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (CCC 2819)• What do we mean when we say “your kingdom come?”

- the reign of God in individual soul“ And as for our saying: Your kingdom come, it will surely come whether we

will it or not. But we are stirring up our desires for the kingdom so that it can come to us and we can deserve to reign there.” (St. Augustine's)

- the last reigning of God “In the Lord’s Prayer, ‘thy kingdom come’ refers primarily to the final coming of the reign of God through Christ's return. But, far from distracting the Church from her mission in this present world, this desire commits her to it all the more strongly. Since Pentecost, the coming of that Reign is the work of the Spirit of the Lord who ‘complete[s] his work on earth and brings us the fullness of grace.’” (CCC 2818)

• Your Will Be Done, on Earth as in Heaven.

• This is the third petition• Here we petition that God’s will be done• what does it mean to say: God may your will be done? Is it that he cannot do his will? Or that we want it to be fulfilled in ourselves?•St. Cyprian: Treatise on the Lord’s Prayer“… we pray not that God should do his will, but that we may carry out his will. How could anyone prevent the Lord from doing what he wills? But in our prayer we ask that God’s will be done in us, because the devil throws up obstacles to prevent our mind and our conduct from obeying God in all things.”

• Give Us Today Our Daily Bread;• This is the fourth petition• Here we ask for “food”• How can this be understood: materially (food for the body) or sacramentally (in the most Holy Eucharist)?• Both? •But primarily? = The Eucharist • Pope Benedict Jesus of Nazareth: On the Lord’s Prayer, (p. 154)“The fact that the Fathers of the Church were practically unanimous in understanding the fourth petition of the Our Father as a [E]ucharistic petition; in this sense the Our Father figures in the Mass liturgy as a [E]ucharistic table-prayer (i.e., ‘grace’). This does not remove the straightforward earthly sense of the disciples’ petition ….”

• And Forgive Us Our Debts [sin], as We Forgive Our Debtors;

• This is the fifth petition• Here we ask for God’s forgiveness and mercy.• “as we have forgiven” = implies, not as a conditioning of God’s forgiveness but to open us up to receive forgiveness.• And the measure one gives is the measure one receives

•“Now - and this is daunting - this outpouring of mercy cannot penetrate our hearts as long as we have not forgiven those who have trespassed against us. Love, like the Body of Christ, is indivisible; we cannot love the God we cannot see if we do not love the brother or sister we do see. In refusing to forgive our brothers and sisters, our hearts are closed and their hardness makes them impervious to the Father's merciful love; but in confessing our sins, our hearts are opened to his grace” (CCC 2840)

• And Lead Us not into Temptation • This is the sixth petition• Here we plead that God should not lead us into temptation• God does not test us into sinning, but he allows us to be tested, for us to prove our love and faith in him, says St. Paul.• This petition manifests our lowliness or weakness that left to ourselves, we would fall into sin.• This petition calls for our ascent toward God, which enables us to flee from temptation.• Since we have free will, Augustine says, “God who created us without us will not save us without us.”

•“‘Lead us not into temptation’ implies a decision of the heart: ‘For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. . . . No one can serve two masters.’ ‘If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.’ In this assent to the Holy Spirit the Father gives us strength. ‘No testing has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, so that you may be able to endure it.” (CCC 2848)

• But Deliver Us from the Evil One.• This is the seventh petition• In this last petition, we ask that God may deliver us from the evil one• the devil is the evil one• Through this petition we ask to be delivered from his work, for he is the accuser and deceiver of the people of God.

• “When we ask to be delivered from the Evil One, we pray as well to be freed from all evils, present, past, and future, of which he is the author or instigator. In this final petition, the Church brings before the Father all the distress of the world. Along with deliverance from the evils that overwhelm humanity, she implores the precious gift of peace and the grace of perseverance in expectation of Christ’s return By praying in this way, she anticipates in humility of faith the gathering together of everyone and everything in him who has ‘the keys of Death and Hades,’ who ‘is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty’” (CCC 2854)