OUR FATHER,
MODEL OF ALL PRAYERS
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You, therefore, pray like this: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your Name ... "(Matthew 6, 9-13)
The Gospel tells us that one day Jesus was in prayer, and "when he finished, one of his disciples said to him: 'Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples'. Jesus told them: 'When you pray, say: This is how Jesus taught us the Lord's Prayer, also called the Lord's Prayer or Sunday Prayer (Domine means Lord), considered by the Church as the model of all prayer, and summary of the Gospel.
There are two versions of the Lord's Prayer. The first is transmitted to us by Saint Matthew, and consists of one invocation and seven petitions, and the second is transmitted to us by Saint Luke and consists of an invocation and five petitions. The tradition of the Church has preserved the text of Saint Matthew.
St. Thomas Aquinas says about the Lord's Prayer: "The Sunday Prayer is the most perfect of the Prayers. In it we not only ask for everything that we can desire with rectitude but also according to the order in which it is convenient to wish it. So this prayer not only teaches us to ask, but also forms all our affection "(St. Thomas Aquinas, cited by the Catechism of the Catholic Church N. 2763).
The Lord's Prayer is the prayer par excellence of the Church, and as such forms an integral part of the Liturgy of the Hours, and of the Sacraments of Initiation: Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist.
OUR FATHER WHO ART IN HEAVEN
Jesus revealed to us that God is Father and that we, all the men and women of the world, of all times and of all places, are his children. "And nobody knows the Son well except the Father, nor does the Father know anyone well, except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him" (Matthew 11:27).
When we call God the Father, we unite ourselves intimately with Jesus, his Son, who became our brother and the Holy Spirit who illuminates our hearts with his light and allows us to know the greatness of the fatherhood of God who loves us more than anyone else.
But God is not only "My Father", "My Father", but also and very particularly, "Our Father", "Father of all", of whites, blacks and yellows, Father of the rich and the poor, Father of men and women, Father of children, of young people, adults and the elderly, Father of the wise and ignorant, Father of the intelligent and foolish, Father of those who know and believe him in Him, and Father also of non-believers.
God is Father and Mother of all, without distinctions of any kind; a loving, tender, affectionate Father, who always wants the good of his children and who spares no effort to give us true happiness; a faithful, compassionate, merciful Father, slow to anger and rich in piety; a Father as there is no other.
God the Father, our Father, "lives in heaven", "beyond all", "above all", a mystery for our mind but a certainty for our heart. He is holy, and his holiness elevates him above the earth, but allows him to live in the heart of a just and righteous man.
Being children of God and calling him "our Father in heaven" is for us a permanent commitment, a commitment of life that requires us to always be in an attitude of conversion, ready to fight against evil with all our strength, and to work all right.
To be children of God and to call him "our Father in heaven" must grow in us the deep and firm desire to resemble Him, and strengthen our humble and trusting hearts, making us as children: "If they do not change and become like children, they will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven "(Matthew 18, 3).
HALLOWED BE THY NAME
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God is Holy, the Holy of Holies, and we recognize his children, who have been called by Him to holiness: "Be holy, because I, Yahweh, your God, I am holy" (Leviticus 19, 2). The holiness of God is his eternal mystery, what of Him is manifested in creation and in history, his Glory, his Majesty: "Holy, Holy, Holy, Yahweh Sebaot; the whole land of your glory is full "(Isaiah 6: 3).
"Hallowed be your Name" ... Through Baptism we have been sanctified in the Name of Jesus and in the Holy Spirit, and we are called to sanctify in us and for us the Name of God, his Person, in the whole world, that is, to make it known, to manifest it, to make it present in the midst of men, by our life, by our works. Saint Peter Chrysologus tells us about this: "We ask God to sanctify his name because he saves and sanctifies all creation through his holiness ... It is the Name that gives salvation to the lost world, but we ask that this Name of God be sanctified in us by our life. Because if we live well, the divine Name is blessed; but if we live badly he is blasphemed, according to the words of the apostle: 'the Name of God for your sake is blasphemed among the nations' (Romans 2:24). Therefore, we pray to merit having in our souls as much holiness as holy is the Name of our God "(St. Peter Chrysologus, quoted by the Catechism of the Catholic Church N. 2814).
LET YOUR KINGDOM COME
When Jesus began to preach, he said: "The time has been fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is near; convert and believe in the Good News "(Mark 1, 15). The Kingdom of God is the presence and action of God in the world, his" sovereignty ", the full manifestation of his glory, his power of God, his definitive victory against evil and sin: "The Kingdom of God is justice and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Romans 14, 17).
With Jesus the Kingdom of God came into the world, promised and announced by the Prophets, and with its Death and Resurrection the first great stage of the History of Salvation was consummated; the Kingdom of God is among us, lives among us, but has not yet reached its fullness. The Kingdom of God will reach its fullness and culmination, at the end of time, when Jesus returns and delivers to his Father the entire Universe, free from evil and sin.
When we pray the Our Father we ask God the Father, Owner and Lord of the world and history, that Jesus return soon: "Marana Tha; Come Lord Jesus! "And we announce the glorious coming of the Kingdom of God.
YOUR WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN
Jesus sought always and in everything, to do the Will of God, so he said to the apostles: "My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to carry out his work" (John 4:34); "I always do what pleases Him" (John 8:29), and in Gethsemane, very close to his passion, in the midst of suffering, he prayed in agony: "Father, if you want, take away from me this cup, but; but not my will be done but yours "(Luke 22, 42).
But what is the Will of God? The Apostle Paul tells us in his First Letter to Timothy: God's Will is "that all men should be saved and come to the full knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2: 3-4). Everything in God, everything that God does, converges in this: the salvation of men, of all men, of all humanity, and no matter the cost, is willing to do everything to get it, so spare no effort some, and sends the world to his Son Jesus, as Savior.
With his life and with his word, Jesus makes present in the world, the Will of God and works tirelessly so that this Will may come true, so that Salvation reaches all corners of the earth; that is why he communicates to us his greatest desire, a desire that, put to work, fills the world of God; This desire of Jesus is for all men to live the New Commandment of Love: "I give you a new commandment: to love one another. That, as I have loved you, so you also love one another "(John 13:34).
Searching in all the Will of God for us and for the world, and living the Commandment of Love, united to Jesus and with the strength that the Holy Spirit communicates to us, in the diverse situations and circumstances of our life, is our commitment to Christians, children of God, our task, our mission. In this way, God the Father is honored, blessed and praised and his Plan of Salvation becomes a present and active reality in the world.
GIVE US TODAY OUR DAILY BREAD
To say to God Father "Give us" is to recognize his kindness and his love for us, his children, and to be in solidarity with men and women all over the world, their needs and their sufferings. It is to recognize the Providence of God, who "makes the sun rise on the bad and the good and rain on the just and unjust" (Matthew 5:45).
"Our daily bread", that is, the food necessary for life and the appropriate material and spiritual goods. God provident Father, knows how to give us what we need at the moment we need it: "Do not walk, then, worried saying: What are we going to eat ?, What are we going to drink, what are we going to wear? That for all these things Gentiles are striving; Well, your heavenly father already knows that they need all this. Seek first your kingdom and your righteousness, and all these things will be given to you in addition. So do not worry about tomorrow: tomorrow will worry about itself. Every day he has enough with his own zeal "(Matthew 6, 31-34).
Asking God for our daily bread requires us to be in solidarity with the millions of human beings who suffer all kinds of needs, for the injustice of those who appropriate the world's goods. It is to feel as one's own the lack of food, clothing, housing, education, health, work, of millions of people in the world, silent victims of the unjust distribution of wealth.
But in addition to the "physical bread", we also ask God, the "spiritual bread", the "bread" of his Word and the "bread" of his Body and Blood in the Eucharist. If this "bread" we can not live, grow and develop as Christians, because "Man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that comes from the mouth of God" (Deuteronomy 8, 3, Matthew 4, 4).
Our task as children of God includes as something fundamental, the announcement of the Good News of Salvation, from all corners of the earth, that suffers hunger not only from bread and water, but also and especially, hunger and thirst for the Word of God and the Eucharist: "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will not be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never thirst "(John 6:35).
FORGIVE US OUR OFFENSES AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO OFFEND US
The Gospel of Saint Matthew adds two important clarifying verses to the Lord's Prayer: "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if they do not forgive men, neither will their Father forgive their trespasses "(Matthew 6, 14-15).
God is infinitely merciful and is always willing to forgive our faults and sins, if we are repented of them, in fact, and our sins have been forgiven by the saving Savior of Jesus on the cross, but also requires forgiveness for those of us offend; God is merciful and wants us to be so, to forgive, to forget the faults they commit against us, just as He forgives and forgets the faults we commit against Him: "Be merciful, as your Father is merciful" (Luke 6) , 36); "I want mercy and not sacrifices" (Hosea 6, 6); "For there will be a judgment without mercy for one who has not practiced mercy: mercy triumphs over judgment" (James 2:13).
Being true Christians, followers of Jesus, implies not only having received Baptism, but also and very particularly, making the Commandment of Love a reality in our lives, which includes the Love of God above all things, Love of others as we love ourselves, and love our enemies, sharing "the same feelings of Jesus" (Philippians 2, 5); As the Apostle Paul says in his Letter to the Ephesians: "All bitterness, wrath, wrath, shouting, slander and any kind of evil will disappear from among you. Be rather good among yourselves, dearly beloved, forgiving one another as God forgave you in Christ "(Ephesians 5: 31-32).
Forgiveness has no limit or measure, we must always forgive and we must forgive everything, as God forgives us. There is no valid excuse for not forgiving.
DO NOT LET US FALL INTO TEMPTATION
In this petition we ask God the Father, his permanent protection and help, not to fall into the sin that damages our relationships with him. As Christians, followers of Jesus, we are engaged in the struggle between "the flesh and the Spirit", and We want to win as Jesus came out winner of the tomb.
We can be tempted, and we are tempted, but we must not "consent," because sin is not in temptation but in consent to temptation. The apostle James tells us about it: "Each one is tested by his own lust that drags and seduces him. Then concupiscence, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin; and sin, once consummated, begets death "(James 1, 14-15).
Helped by the Holy Spirit, we can overcome the temptation that lurks in multiple ways and under a thousand disguises. As St. Paul says: "If they live according to the Spirit, they will not give satisfaction to the works of the flesh ... The works of the flesh are known: fornication, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, discord, jealousy, anger, quarrels, divisions, dissensions, jealousies, drunkenness, orgies, and the like, on which I warn you, as I have already warned you ... Instead, the fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, affability, kindness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control. ... "(Galatians 5, 16.19-23).
Prayer plays a fundamental role in this struggle of "the flesh and the Spirit", so that the Spirit may be victorious; we have the example in Jesus, winner of the Tempter from the beginning of his Public Life, and also in the final battle of his agony in Gethsemane (see Matthew 4: 1, 11: Matthew 26, 36-44); He himself said it to his apostles: "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation, because the spirit is soon, but the flesh is weak" (Mark 14, 38). This vigilance of ours must continue throughout our lives, until the end of our battle on earth, of which we do not know "neither the day nor the hour" (see Matthew 25:13).
AND DELIVER US FROM EVIL
This last request of the Our Father is contained in the Priestly Prayer of Jesus, which is transmitted to us by the Gospel of Saint John: "I do not ask you to withdraw them from the world, but to keep them from the evil one" (John 17, 15). The Evil One is Satan, the Devil "Homicidal from the beginning, a liar and father of lies" (John 8:44), who "crosses himself" in the path of those who seek God.
We ask God to deliver us from the Evil One, to us, to each and everyone, to the whole Church, in the "communion of the saints"; we also ask him to free us from all the evils caused by him in the world: injustice, violence, hatred, grudges, murders, envy, pride, kidnappings, abuse, divisions, faults against the dignity and honor of the people, etc., etc. And we implore from God, the precious gift of peace and the grace of the persevering expectation of the Second Coming of Jesus, at the end of time, as the prayer says that concludes the Our Father in the celebration of the Eucharist: "Deliver us from all evils, Lord, and grant us peace in our days, so that, helped by your mercy, we may always live free from sin and protected from all disturbances, while we await the glorious coming of our Savior Jesus Christ "(Roman Missal, Ordinary of the Mass).
The "AMEN" that we add at the end, and that means "That's right", endorses everything said in the Our Father, and is our "fiat" to the seven requests made.