Part XI: The Our Father

The Our Father is the model of all Christian prayer, and contains within itself the essence of every true prayer. The abandonment to divine providence that we see in Christ hanging helplessly upon the cross is present here, as is His assurance that we will receive "whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in my name." Indeed, the whole of the Christian life is found within the few simple words that our Lord gave us to call upon His Father.

Our Father--The two words stand almost as a prayer in themselves. Before Christ, no one dared to address God as Father in this way. But God is truly Christ's Father, and He came to us that we might also be sons and daughters of God--adopted in Christ through faith. To call God "Father" means to depend on Him like a little child relies on his father. God's goodness and His love for us ought to be assumed, enveloping us like the air, so totally that it need not be questioned or even expressed. Surely when God created us in such a way that each of us is born a child dependent upon a father and a mother, He desired to reveal to us something of Himself--to prepare us to be received as His own children.

If human fatherhood was created as a model of divine fatherhood, in this fallen world it is only a shadow of the greatness of its exemplar. As every teenager is well aware, human fatherhood is marred by the stain of sin that taints every human action. Not so the fatherhood of God! Our divine Father is in Heaven, not tarnished by the corruption of this world. His very name is hallowed, holy, truly worth of adoration. Wherever His holy name is spoken, we are reminded that He is present in a real way with us. He is in heaven, but not distant; free from sin, but full of mercy for sinners.

Thy Kingdom Come--If our God is Father, He is also King. Although He has left this world for the moment under the dominion of men and of the devil, that we might choose or reject Him by our own free will, the day is coming when His will shall again guide all of creation, and our choice will have been made. Let our choice be to serve Him! Then our freedom will have fulfilled its purpose, and His perfect will shall be done on both earth and heaven. Even here, even now, we are not separated from that divine will that made the universe, nor is this world only the dominion of sin. God's hand still lightly rests upon the creation He formed, not abolishing the consequences of the sin that we and our fathers have chosen, but making sure that, despite sin, all things may work out for our salvation. The true though faded beauty we see around us, in forest, in stream, and even in men and in the works of our hands, bears witness that God's perfect will still grounds the world, and that it is still shot through with His goodness.

While the goodness of the creation has not yet left us, the heralds of Christ's second coming have already begun their work. As we wait for the fullness of God's kingdom at Christ's glorious coming, we can taste that reign begun in His Church. And as we share in the seed of God's kingdom, we can share also in His will. If we abandon our plans to Him, desiring to follow His will, and not ours, then His will can be done in us here and now. Abandoning our own hopes and desires brings us under the rule of His guidance, and we come to taste a touch of the peace and wholeness that will be ours when we are totally abandoned to God in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread--The Christian faith does not speak to us only of heaven. Our lives in this world are intimately part of God's concern. Thus we ask him to give us the bread we need food to nourish our bodies, and the bread of life to sustain our souls. Our weak moral fibre requires His aliment, as well, and so we ask Him to forgive us our sins. But here we add, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Our spiritual health is not divorced from our lives in this world, and so we could not seek God's salvation in prayer unless we also seek it in deed. Thus our acts here acquire lasting meaning, because everything that we do upon this earth has spiritual significance--our charity brings us into the participation of God's love, and our forgiveness opens to us the gates of God's mercy.

Lead us not into temptation. Why do we ask this of our loving Father? We know that we are to flee all temptation that might lead to sin--why would He lead us into it? In part, surely we are asking Him to strengthen our own resolve, that with steadfast hearts we might turn away from whatever temptation threatens to ensnare us. In part, though, we know that our Lord does allow us to be tempted, as He was tempted when He shared our flesh on earth. He permits it, not that we might be caught up amongst the thorns of hell, but that we might overcome temptation through his grace, and merit for ourselves a brighter crown in heaven. We can escape it only with the aid of His grace, only by asking Him to spare us from it, and so in this very petition, temptation completes its function we acknowledge to God our weakness, and His help makes us strong, for it is only He who can deliver us from evil. Amen.

©Theodore Book, 2007, reprinted with permission