The Lord's Prayer, an introductory post

The Our Father or the Lord's Prayer -- for most of us, this was probably the first prayer we ever learned. Many of us probably pray it at least once every day, perhaps even several times a day. It’s become so familiar to us that we run the risk of rattling it off without thinking about what we’re really saying. I want to spend some time over the next week or so looking more closely at this prayer, in the hope that reflecting on what we’re praying will help us to pray more from the heart.

I want to start by pointing out that our familiarity with this prayer makes us forget how shocking and surprising, even revolutionary, this prayer was to those disciples when they first heard Jesus teach it to them. We’ll discuss that in more detail when we start looking at the phrases of the prayer itself. But my hope is that we can regain an appreciation for the way this prayer is supposed to startle us and to shake us out of our complacency every time we pray it.

Tertullian called The Our Father "the summary of the whole Gospel."

Saint Augustine said: "Run through all the words of the holy prayers [in Scripture], and I do not think you will find anything in them that is not contained and included in the Lord’s Prayer."

Saint Thomas Aquinas said: "The Lord’s Prayer is the most perfect of prayers...In it we ask, not only for all the things we can rightly desire, but also in the sequence that they should be desired. This prayer not only teaches us to ask for things, but also in what order we should desire them."

The Lord’s Prayer is called so, of course, because it was taught to us by the Lord Jesus himself, who is both the teacher and the model of our prayer. The Lord's Prayer appears in two of the Gospels. Matthew and Luke both give an account of Jesus teaching his disciples how to pray. Luke gives us a brief text of 5 petitions, and Matthew gives us a more developed version of 7 petitions. The liturgical tradition of the Church has retained Matthew’s version, but here are both of them:

Matthew 6:5-14

When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you. In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

This is how you are to pray:
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread;
and forgive us our debts,
as we forgive our debtors;
and do not subject us to the final test,
but deliver us from the evil one.

If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.

Luke 11:1-4

He was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples." He said to them, "When you pray, say:

Father, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread
and forgive us our sins
for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us,
and do not subject us to the final test."

The Our Father is the prayer of the Church, and has been since the beginning. First Century Christians gathered together to pray the Lord’s Prayer 3 times a day, in the place of the 18 Benedictions that were a part of Jewish practice. The Lord’s Prayer is an integral part of the Divine Office. It the Roman tradition, it is prayed at Lauds (morning prayer) and Vespers (evening prayer). In both instances, it is prayed immediately following the intercessions because it serves to gather all our prayers and petitions together and lift them up to the Father.

Likewise, at Mass (in the Roman rite) we pray the Lord’s Prayer directly following the Eucharistic prayer, and it opens the Communion Rite. It serves as a way of gathering up all our prayers and needs, which we’ve expressed both in the general intercessions and in the Eucharistic prayer itself, and lifting them up to the Father in preparation to receive the Body and Blood of Christ.

I want to say a few words about the English translation that we all know, since you probably noticed that the passage above from Matthew's Gospel contains slightly different wording than the version we all recite from memory. Of course for much of the history of the Church, the Our Father had been recited in Latin and was known accordingly as the Pater Noster. But the English translation that we all know and recite more often today has an interesting origin. It comes to us from the 16th century -- specifically in the Royal Primer of 1545 and a few years later in the 1549 and 1552 editions of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. The Book of Common Prayer was imposed on all of England by dictate of the King. Let's take a brief look at some important dates from this period of English history so you can situate these dates in the context of what was happening at the time.

1517 Luther posts his 95 theses on the door of the palace church in Wittenburg; usually dated as the beginning of "the Reformation."
1528 Henry VIII begins to make his case for divorce from Catherine of Aragon.
1531 Henry VIII names himself Supreme Head of the Church in England; recognized by much of Parliament and the English clergy.
1533 Henry VIII secretly marries Anne Boleyn.
1533 Henry VIII is excommunicated by the Pope
1534 Henry VIII issues Act of Supremacy rejecting papal authority
1536 Act of Parliament declares papal authority void in England
1547 Henry VIII dies; Edward VI ascends throne in England
1553 Edward VI dies; Mary I becomes Queen of England; Catholic restoration in England
1558 Mary I dies; succeeded by Elizabeth I; Protestant control resumes in England.

Here's the point we need to understand: by the time the Douay-Rheims translation of the Bible (a Catholic English translation) came out in 1581 or even the King James translation (a Protestant one) in 1611 -- both of which would have provided English translations of the Pater Noster -- King Henry’s imposed translation of the Our Father had been in use for a generation already. Everyone was already used to it and had it memorized. That particular English translation stuck. We’re still using it today, in fact. Now, that’s important to realize because there are some nuances in the language of that particular English translation that are lost on us today. We’ve moved beyond "thees" and "thous" in everyday speech, which means we miss the very important things that those words tell us in the context of the prayer. We’ll come back to that point soon enough, so keep that in the back of your head. In the coming days, we’re going to look at each phrase of the prayer and reflect more deeply on what it says. So check back tomorrow as we begin to do just that.