Our Father

It is an immense privilege to come before God who assures us of His full and constant attention and to address Him as Father. So much so, in the English and Italian versions of the liturgy, the priest says ‘we dare say … Our Father’.

Even if your image of a father has been somewhat damaged by your relationship with your earthly father (none of us had perfect parents), remember that God is a Perfect Father: patient, merciful, good all the time, unselfish, tender, strong and holy. And He never changes. So don’t consult your feelings about God. In faith remind yourself of this truth and move on with your prayer.

We can translate this as ‘May you be praised and honoured’ because in Scripture a name means a lot – it reveals who the person is. We praise God for who He is and we thank Him for what He does. Praise and thanksgiving draw our hearts away from focusing only on ourselves and helps us look towards God.

When we pray this part of the Our Father, we are asking God to establish his loving rule, first and foremost in our own hearts. It is inviting Him again to be Lord of our life because we know how easily we can crowd Him out and get distracted in our spiritual journey.

Christ the King is no ordinary ruler. He is all powerful but the most humble. The Creator of the universe became part of His creation; the One to whom all the world belongs, not only serves us but takes up the cross to take our sin and death and to raise us to eternal life

We keep in mind that one of the reasons we come to pray is for us to listen to God, to do His will and to obey Him. In this part of the prayer, we once again surrender ourselves and renew our commitment to do His will.

It is also good to remind ourselves that we need to be ready to change our way of reasoning to align ourselves to God’s Word ‘Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will’. Rom. 12:2

God is the lover and giver of life, and as St Iranaeus said. ‘The glory of God is man fully alive’. This truth is expressed in this part of the prayer ’Give us this day our Daily Bread.’ We don’t ask for something which we deserve or have a right to. We ask because we need to receive what God gives us as a gift.

What is our basic need? God’s providence goes far beyond the material. What we need is grace, the strength to be and remain rightly related to God, to persevere in our journey and to grow in holiness.

God is never more God than when He forgives our sins. The Lord knows that sin happens! He wants us to seek Him to help us examine our conscience and bring into the light our sins so we may repent and receive forgiveness.

There is always more mercy in Him then there is sin in us. The best illustration of this truth is the embrace of the Father and the prodigal son.

This part of the prayer doesn’t mean that God leads us into temptation. Rather, the prayer can have at least two meanings: help me not be stupid and place myself into situation where I will yield to temptation. And secondly, because moments of temptation will come anyway, the prayer is also a prayer for protection from falling into sin when we are tempted.

In Matthew’s version of the prayer, this last part reads: Deliver us from the evil one. In the conclusion of the Our Father, the Lord seems to be contrasting two very different fathers Our Heavenly Father in Heaven ‘who knows what you need before you ask him’ (Matt 6:8) and the evil one who Jesus calls ‘a liar and the father of lies’ (John 8:44).

The concluding part of the prayer therefore is a prayer for protection that the Lord wants to give us.