Day 353: The Lord’s Prayer (2759-2764)
It’s Day 353!!
SECTION TWO: THE LORD’S PRAYER “OUR FATHER!”
Paragraph 2759 says, “Jesus ‘was praying at a certain place, and when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”’ In response to this request the Lord entrusts to his disciples and to his Church the fundamental Christian prayer. St. Luke presents a brief text of five petitions, while St. Matthew gives a more developed version of seven petitions. The liturgical tradition of the Church has retained St. Matthew’s text: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
Then Jesus teaches them the Lord’s Prayer
OUR FATHER!
A lot of times, non-Catholic Christians say that we drop out the ‘for yours are the power and the glory forever’ or ‘for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory’
We are going to find out something interesting about that today
Paragraph 2760 says, “Very early on, liturgical usage concluded the Lord’s Prayer with a doxology. In the Didache, we find, ‘For yours are the power and the glory forever.’ The Apostolic Constitutions add to the beginning: ‘the kingdom,’ and this is the formula retained to our day in ecumenical prayer. The Byzantine tradition adds after ‘the glory’ the words ‘Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.’ The Roman Missal develops the last petition in the explicit perspective of awaiting ‘the blessed hope’ and of the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Then comes the assembly’s acclamation or the repetition of the doxology from the Apostolic Constitution.”
ARTICLE 1: ‘THE SUMMARY OF THE WHOLE GOSPEL”
The Lord’s prayer encompasses all we believe, the way we worship, and how we pray
Even if it doesn’t explicitly mention the Son or the Holy Spirit
The Lord’s prayer encompasses what it is to have a life that is centered on Jesus and follows the Holy Spirit
The Lord’s Prayer even puts first things first
“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…”
It puts God FIRST
It is a revelation when it comes to revealing who it is that we are in Christ
Paragraph 2762 says, “After showing how the psalms are the principal food of Christian prayer and flow together in the petitions of the Our Father, St. Augustine concludes: Run through all the words of the holy prayers [in Scripture], and I do not think that you will find anything in them that is not contained and included in the Lord’s Prayer.”
AT THE CENTER OF THE SCRIPTURES
Let’s pray!!
Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, we give you praise and glory. In the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, we ask you to please reveal your fatherly heart to us. Through the Power of the Holy Spirit, draw us closer to your fatherly heart. Help us to trust in your fatherly heart. Lord God, help us to have the heart of your Son. Help us to love what you love. Help us to hate what you hate. Help us to choose what you will. And help us, in all ways, to love you with everything we are and our neighbor as ourself so that you may be glorified, and your presence, your power, your Spirit, your sanctification may be known and present to all of our brothers and sisters, that this world may be sanctified by your will and by our cooperation with your will. We make this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen”
So there we have it!!
Paragraph 2759 says, “Jesus ‘was praying at a certain place, and when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”’ In response to this request the Lord entrusts to his disciples and to his Church the fundamental Christian prayer. St. Luke presents a brief text of five petitions, while St. Matthew gives a more developed version of seven petitions. The liturgical tradition of the Church has retained St. Matthew’s text: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
The heart of this prayer is The Father
We turn to Our Father
We turn to our Dad
We turn to Abba
It is so important for us to know the one to whom we are speaking
IT IS VITAL!!
If we get the identity of God wrong, we will get everything wrong
If we don’t know that God is our Dad that we can trust, then what are we going to do?
We will end up looking at His blessings with suspicion
When we know that God is our Father, everything changes
EVERYTHING CHANGES!!
Paragraph 2760 says, “Very early on, liturgical usage concluded the Lord’s Prayer with a doxology. In the Didache, we find, ‘For yours are the power and the glory forever.’ The Apostolic Constitutions add to the beginning: ‘the kingdom,’ and this is the formula retained to our day in ecumenical prayer. The Byzantine tradition adds after ‘the glory’ the words ‘Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.’ The Roman Missal develops the last petition in the explicit perspective of awaiting ‘the blessed hope’ and of the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Then comes the assembly’s acclamation or the repetition of the doxology from the Apostolic Constitution.”
Let’s listen to Fr. Mike compare how Catholics and non-Catholics end the Our Father because he is repeating what he said in the beginning of today’s episode and I’ve been typing these notes for 353 days and I’m tired and don’t feel like typing it all over again even though by typing out this sentence, I probably could have typed out what Fr. Mike was saying, but now I’m lost in a stream of consciousness type of thing, just like Fr. Mike is whenever he speaks hahahah 🤣…
These are liturgical developments where the body of the Church, the family of God, wants to give God even further glory
It has not changed the prayer
It hasn’t changed the essence of the prayer
It is meant to giving God glory at the end of the prayer
Paragraph 2761 says, “The Lord’s prayer ‘is truly the summary of the whole gospel.’ ‘Since the Lord…after handing over the practice of prayer, said elsewhere, ‘Ask and you will receive,’ and since everyone has petitions which are peculiar to his circumstances, the regular and appropriate prayer [the Lord’s Prayer] is said first, as the foundation of further desires.’”
Paragraph 2762 says, “After showing how the psalms are the principal food of Christian prayer and flow together in the petitions of the Our Father, St. Augustine concludes: Run through all the words of the holy prayers [in Scripture], and I do not think that you will find anything in them that is not contained and included in the Lord’s Prayer.”
The Lord’s Prayer is a center at the center of the Scriptures
It also centers our hearts in the proper way
God wants to get to our hearts and so change our hearts that He reorders our desires
Praying the Lord’s Prayer is meant to reorder our desires
Paragraph 2763 says, “All the Scriptures-the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms-are fulfilled in Christ. The Gospel is this ‘Good News.’ Its first proclamation is summarized by St. Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount; the prayer to our Father is at the center of this proclamation. It is in this context that each petition bequeathed to us by the Lord is illuminated: 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.”
Remember the word “ETHOS”?
The inner world of a person
What draws our hearts and what repels our hearts?
Praying the Our Father is meant to reorder our lens of how we see the world, God, and ourselves
But also what we desire and what degree what we desire them
Paragraph 2764 says, “The Sermon on the Mount is teaching for life, the Our Father is a prayer; but in both the one and the other the Spirit of the Lord gives new form to our desires, those inner movements that animate our lives. Jesus teaches us this new life by his words; he teaches us to ask for it by our prayer. The rightness of our life in him will depend on the rightness of our prayer.”
We want to get that first word right
OUR FATHER!
ABBA!
DAD!
So that we can know the one to whom we are praying
To know that we can trust Him
To know that He is good
To know that as a good Dad, He will sometimes say NO
As a good Dad, He sometimes allows us to experience what we would not want to experience
Why?
Because He knows that He can do a greater good, and we go through suffering
He knows that He can do a greater good, and we cling to Him in the midst of darkness
He is our Dad and we have to get that beginning word right
If we don’t get that right, we won’t get any of it right
We pray that God reorients our hearts and changes our hearts, that He helps us to love more and more what He loves, and to hate more and more what He hates
So let’s pray together…
“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen”
Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!
Please pray for Fr. Mike and for each other!!
I cannot WAIT…