The Our Father

The Most Perfect Prayer

• The Our Father is the most beautiful prayer made and is given to us by Jesus Himself.
• Each word and each thought are chosen by Jesus’ infinite wisdom and love.
• Each word and each thought are a source of mercy and grace.
• Each part is an act of perfect love, of the highest value, and of greatest merit.
  • This is the key to open His treasures.
  • It contains everything that we want to pray for.
• It shows the best & right way to pray: first glorifying God then asking for our needs.

“Our Father”

• The most consoling words in the human language.
• God of infinite love and affection assures us that He is our Father in the truest, most affectionate, and most intimate sense of the words.
• He commands us to treat Him the same as how the most confiding child treats his loving father.
• He does not merely ask for adoration or veneration; He wants our real, affectionate and confiding love.

“Who art in heaven”

• When we say God is in Heaven, we want to point out the true fact that:
  • God is beyond and above all things.
• It describes:
  • The majesty and holiness of God.
  • God is present in the hearts of the righteous.

“Hallowed be Thy Name”

• These are words of glorification, saying God is the Holy One.
  • This speaks to the request in the sacrament of Baptism, which is for the sanctification of God to enliven our lives.
  • In what ways does our life and prayers glorify God, where others recognize Him and celebrate Him?

“Thy Kingdom comes”

• Pray that the kingship of God grows through the sanctification of man and woman in the Holy Spirit.

“Thy Will be done on earth as it is in heaven”

• The Father’s will is for “all to be saved.”
  • Jesus came down from Heaven to fulfill the Father’s plan of salvation.
  • We pray that His merciful love is fulfilled.

“Give us this day our daily bread”

• We recognize that God is great, beyond all that is good.
• We ask God to give us daily sustenance to live, and if we are blessed with extra that we help those who are in need.
• We pray that we hunger for the word of God and the Holy Eucharist, as well as hunger for the Holy Spirit.

“And forgive us our trespasses”

• Recognize that we are sinners.
• Proclaim the Father’s mercy through His Son and through the sacraments.

“As we forgive those who trespass against us”

• Mercy can only enter our soul if we ourselves forgive our enemies.
• Forgiveness is the participation in God’s mercy and is the pinnacle of Christian prayer.

“And lead us not into temptation”

• Temptation leads to sin and death. We:
  • Pray that we do not become vulnerable to the power of temptation,
  • Pray that we do not follow temptation,
  • Pray that we unite with Jesus, who overcame temptation through prayer,
  • As we face these challenges, we pray for help to grow in goodness, and
  • Pray that we are on guard and persevere to the end.

“But deliver us from evil”

• We pray that the entire human family is free of Satan, and his malice and snares.
• We pray for the gift of grace, where peace and blessings help us to persevere until Christ comes again to liberate us from evil.

“Amen”

• We ask that God works through us.
• We are determined to accept all that God teaches us in this prayer.