Petitioning God, Our Father

Spiritual Reflection by Deacon Bill Boyd

(The Lord’s Prayer)

Vincentians, as we serve our neighbors, we offer to pray for and with them as they would like. A prayer that we may use at times is “The “Our Father.” This prayer is commonly known as the prayer with 7 petitions. As we know, the number 7 symbolizes perfection, so the “Our Father” is the prayer with 7 perfect petitions.

St. Luke’s version does not have 7 petitions. We only see 5 petitions. These include:

1. Hallowed be your name.
2. Your kingdom come.
3. Give us each day our daily bread.
4. Forgive us as we forgive others.
5. And lead us not into temptation.

Compared to St. Matthew’s version, two additional petitions are included: “Thy will be done.”  and  “Deliver us from evil.”

St. Pope John Paul II tells us, “Everything that can and must be said to the Father is contained in those 7 requests which we all know by heart. There is such a simplicity in them that even a child can learn them but at the same time such a depth that a whole life can be spent meditating on their meaning.”

Often times we are so used to praying the Lord’s Prayer that we don’t really think of what the petitions are we are really asking our Father. With the 7 petitions, the first 3 are requests for the Father’s glory and the other 4 petitions are requests for ourselves. Let me take a few minutes to remind all of us of the beauty of these petitions: Briefly, these petitions include:

1^st petition – “Hallowed be thy name”
Here we are entering into God’s plan and His plan is the sanctification of His name by us and in us, in every nation and in each person.

2^nd petition – “Thy kingdom come”
Here we are looking first to Christ’s return and we are looking to the final coming of the reign of God. We are also praying for the growth of the kingdom of God in our own lifetime, not just the future growth, but asking this to happen during our own lifetime as well.

3^rd petition – “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven”
Here we are asking the Father that our will be united to that of His Son so that we would fulfill His plan of salvation for the life of the world. This is the essence of holiness-to do the will of the Father.

4^th petition – “Give us this day our daily bread”
Here we are asking not only for our body but also for our soul. Of course, ultimately the super-essential nourishment for our souls is the Eucharist.

5^th petition – “And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”
Here we are begging for God’s mercy. This is the one line that may cause us to stumble with (forgive us our trespasses) but the second part is there too: forgive us our trespasses AS we forgive those who trespass against us. In other words, we are telling the Father, please forgive all my offenses to you and to my neighbor, but do me a favor Father, forgive me only as I forgive others. If I don’t forgive even one person, then don’t forgive even one of my sins.

6^th petition – “And lead us not into temptation”
Here we are asking the Father not to allow us to take the path that leads to sin. This 6^th petition also asks for the Spirit of discernment and strength. We are asking for the grace of vigilance and perseverance.

7^th petition – “But deliver us from evil”
We are asking the Father to show us the victory over evil, over everything that is opposed to God and His plan. We pray that the human family be freed from evil. We also ask for the precious gift of peace and the grace of perseverance as we wait for the coming of Christ.

So there’s a brief tour of the Lord’s prayer. I hope this helps all of us remember the beauty of this prayer that Jesus Himself gave to each of us. As we pray this prayer daily and we may join with our neighbor’s in praying together, we are reminded by Tertullian that The Our Father is the “summary of the whole Gospel.” St. Thomas Aquinas tells us the Our Father, “It is the perfect prayer.”

Let us all remember that the prayer is not my Father but it is our Father. As we pray with our neighbors, may we appreciate this prayer from our Lord in fellowship.

I will now close with the words from Pope Francis from his book on the Our Father: “So I hope that in saying the Our Father, every one of us will feel more loved, forgiven, bathed in the dew of the Holy Spirit, and will thus be able in turn to love and forgive every other brother, every other sister. This will give us an idea of what heaven is like.”