"Our Father who art
in heaven"
The form of Christian prayer given us by Jesus Christ is so composed and
arranged that before coming to requests and petitions certain words must be
used as a sort of preface calculated to increase our confidence in God when we
are about to address Him devoutly in prayer; and this being so it will be the
pastor's duty to explain each of these words separately and with precision, so
that the faithful may have recourse to prayer more readily because of the
knowledge that they are going to commune and converse with a God who is also
their Father. Regarding this preface, if we merely consider the number of words
of which it is composed, it is brief indeed; but if we regard the ideas, it is
of the greatest importance and replete with mysteries. {a}
The first word, which, by the order and institution of God we employ in
this prayer, is Father. Our Saviour could, indeed, have commenced this
divine prayer with some other word, conveying more the idea of majesty, such,
for instance, as Lord or Creator. Yet He omitted all such
expressions because they might rather inspire fear, and instead of them He has
chosen a term inspiring confidence and love in those who pray and ask anything
of God; for what is sweeter than the name Father, conveying, as it does,
the idea of indulgence and tenderness ? The reasons why this name Father
is applicable to God, can be easily explained to the faithful by speaking to
them on the subjects of creation, providence, and redemption. {b}
Thus having created man to His own image a favor He accorded to no
other living creature it is with good reason that, in view of this unique
privilege with which He has honored man, Sacred Scripture calls God the Father
of all men; not only of the faithful, but also of the unbelieving. {c}
From His providence also may be drawn an argument. By a special
superintending care and providence over our interests God displays a paternal
love for us. {d}
But in order to comprehend more clearly the fatherly care of God for
men, it will be well in the explanation of this particular point to say
something regarding the guardian Angels under whose protection men are placed.
By God's providence Angels have been entrusted with the office of
guarding the human race and of accompanying every human being so as to preserve
him from any serious dangers. Just as parents, whose children are about to
travel a dangerous and infested road, appoint guardians and helpers for them,
so also in the journey we are making towards our heavenly country our heavenly
Father has placed over each of us an Angel under whose protection and vigilance
we may be enabled to escape the snares secretly prepared by our enemy, repel
the dreadful attacks he makes on us, and under his guiding hand keep the right
road, and thus be secure against all false steps which the wiles of the evil
one might cause us to make in order to draw us aside from the path that leads
to heaven.
And the immense advantage springing from the special care and
providence of God with regard to men, the execution of which is entrusted to
Angels, who by nature hold an intermediate place between God and man, will be
clear from a multitude of examples with which Sacred Scripture supplies us in
abundance, and which show that in God's goodness it has often happened that
Angels have wrought wondrous works under the very eyes of men. This gives us to
understand that many and equally important services, which do not fall under
our sight, are wrought by our Angels, the guardians of our salvation, in our
interest and for our advantage.
The Angel Raphael, the divinely appointed companion and guide of
Tobias, 1
conducted him and brought him back safe and sound; saved him from being
devoured by an enormous fish; made known to him the extremely useful properties
possessed by the liver, gall and heart of the monster; expelled the demon;
repressed and fettered his power and prevented him from injuring Tobias; taught
the young man the true and legitimate notion and use of matrimony; and finally
restored to the elder Tobias the use of his sight.
In the same way the Angel who liberated the Prince of the Apostles, 2 will supply copious
material for the instruction of the pious flock regarding the striking fruits
of the vigilance and protection of the Angels. The pastor need do no more than
depict the Angel lighting up the darkness of the prison, touching Peter's side
and awakening him from his sleep, loosing his chains, breaking his bonds,
ordering him to rise, to take up his sandals and to follow; and then the pastor
will point out how Peter was led forth out of prison by the same Angel, how he
was enabled to pass without let or hindrance through the midst of the guard,
how the doors were thrown open, and finally how he was placed in safety.
The historical part of Sacred Scripture, as we have already remarked,
is full of such examples, all of which go to show the extent of the benefits
bestowed by God on man through the ministry and intervention of Angels whom He
deputes not only on particular and private occasions, but also appoints to take
care of us from our very births. He furthermore appoints them to watch over the
salvation of each one of the human race.
This teaching, if carefully explained, will have the effect of
interesting and compelling the minds of the faithful to acknowledge and
venerate more and more the paternal care and providence of God towards them. {e}
And here the pastor should especially praise and proclaim the treasures
of God's goodness towards the human race. Though from the time of our first
parents and from the moment of our first sin down to this very day we have
offended Him by countless sins and crimes, yet He still retains His love for us
and never renounces His singular solicitude for our welfare.
To imagine that He has forgotten us would be an act of folly and
nothing short of a most outrageous insult. God was angry with the Israelites
because of the blasphemy they had been guilty of in imagining that they had
been abandoned by providence. Thus do we read in Exodus: They tempted the
Lord, saying: "Is the Lord amongst us or not?" 3 and in Ezechiel the divine
anger is inflamed against the same people for having said: The Lord seeth us
not: the Lord hath forsaken the earth. 4 These examples should suffice to deter the faithful
from entertaining the criminal notion that God can ever possibly forget
mankind. To the same effect we may read in Isaias the complaint uttered by the
Israelite. against God; and, on the other hand, the kindly similitude with
which God refutes their folly: Sion said: "The Lord hath
forsaken me, and the Lord hath forgotten me." To which God answers: Can
a woman forget her infant, so as not to have pity on the son of her womb? And
if she should forget, yet will not I forget thee. Behold, I have engraven thee
in my hands. 5
Although these passages clearly establish the point under discussion,
yet thoroughly to convince the faithful that never for a moment can God forget
man or cease to lavish on him tokens of His paternal tenderness, the pastor
should still further confirm this by the striking example of our first parents.
They had ignored and violated God's command. When you hear them sharply accused
and that dreadful sentence of condemnation pronounced against them: Cursed
is the earth in thy work, with labour and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the
days of thy life; thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou
shalt eat the herbs of the earth; 6 when you see them driven out of Paradise; when you
read that to preclude all hope of their return a cherub was stationed at the
entrance of Paradise, brandishing a flaming sword turning every way; and
finally, when you know that, to avenge the injury done Him, God had afflicted
them with punishments, internal and external, would you not be inclined to
think that man's case was hopeless? Would you not consider that not only was he
bereft of all divine help, but was even abandoned to every misfortune? Yet,
surrounded as he then was by so many evidences of divine wrath and vengeance, a
gleam of the goodness of God towards him is seen to shine forth. For the
Lord God, says Sacred Scripture, made for Adam and his wife garments of
skins and clothed them, which was a very clear proof that at no time would
God abandon man. 7
This truth, that the love of God can be exhausted by no human iniquity,
was indicated by David in these words: Will God in his anger shut up his
mercies? 8. It was set forth by Habacuc when,
addressing God, he said: When thou art angry thou wilt remember mercy; 9 and by Micheas, who thus
expresses it: Who is a God like to thee who takest away iniquity and passest
by the sin of the remnant of thy inheritance? He will send his fury in no more,
because he delighteth in mercy. 10
And thus precisely does it happen. At the very moment when we imagine
ourselves to be utterly lost and altogether bereft of His protection, then it
is that God in His infinite goodness seeks us out in a special way and takes
care of us. Even in His anger He stays the sword of His justice, and ceases not
to pour out the inexhaustible treasures of His mercy. {f}
The creation of the world and God's providence are, then, of great
weight in bringing into relief the singular love of God for the human race and
the special care He takes of man. But far above these two shines the work of
redemption, so much so indeed that our most bountiful God and Father has
crowned His infinite goodness towards us by granting us this third favor.
Accordingly the pastor should instruct his spiritual children and
constantly recall to their minds the surpassing love of God for us, so that
they may be fully alive to the fact that having been redeemed in a wonderful
manner they are thereby made the sons of God. To them, says St. John, He
gave power to be made the sons of God . . . and they are born of God.
This is why Baptism, the first pledge and token of our redemption, is
called the Sacrament of regeneration; for it is by Baptism that we are born
children of God: That which is born of the Spirit, says our Lord, is
spirit; and: You must be born again. 12 In the same way we have the words of St.
Peter: Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible, by the
word of God who liveth. 13
By reason of this redemption we have received the Holy Ghost and have
been made worthy of the grace of God. As a consequence of this gift we are the
adopted sons of God, as the Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans when he said: Ye
have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear, but you have received
the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry: "Abba, Father." 14 The force
and efficacy of this adoption are thus set forth by St. John: Behold what
manner of charity the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called,
and should be the sons of God. 15 {g}
These points having been explained, the faithful should be reminded of
all they owe in return to God, their most loving Father, so that they may be
aware of the extent of the love, piety, obedience and respect they are bound to
render to Him who has created them, who watches over them, and who has redeemed
them; and with what hope and trust they should invoke Him.
But to enlighten the ignorant and to correct the false ideas of such as
imagine prosperity and success in life to be the only test that God preserves
and maintains His love towards us, and that the adversities and trials which
come from His hand are a sign that He is not well disposed towards us and that
He entertains hostile dispositions towards us, it will be necessary to point
out that even if the hand of the Lord sometimes presses heavily upon us, it is
by no means because He is hostile to us, but that by striking us He heals us,
and that the wounds coming from God are remedies.
He chastises sinners so as to improve them by this lesson, and inflicts
temporal punishments in order to deliver them from eternal torments. For though
He visits our iniquities with a rod and our sins with stripes, yet his mercy
he will not take away from us. 16
The faithful, therefore, should be recommended to recognize in such
chastisements the fatherly love of God, and ever to have in their hearts and on
their lips the saying of Job, the most patient of men: He woundeth and
cureth; he striketh and his hands shall heal; 17 as well as to repeat
frequently the words written by Jeremias in the name of the people of Israel: Thou
hast chastised me and I was instructed, as a young bullock unaccustomed to the
yoke: convert me and I shall be converted; for thou art the Lord my God; 18 and to keep before their
eyes the example of Tobias who, recognizing in the loss of his sight the
paternal hand of God raised against him, cried out: I bless thee, O Lord God
of Israel, because thou hast chastised me and thou hast saved me. 19
In this connection the faithful should be particularly on their guard
against believing that any calamity or affliction that befalls them can take
place without the knowledge of God; for we have His own words: A hair of
your heads shall not perish. 20 Let them rather find consolation in that divine
oracle read in the Apocalypse: Those whom I love I rebuke and chastise; 21 and let them find comfort in
the exhortation addressed by St. Paul to the Hebrews: My son, neglect not
the discipline of the Lord; neither be thou wearied whilst thou art rebuked by
him: for whom the Lord loveth he chastiseth, and he scourgeth every son
whom he receiveth.... But if you be without chastisement, ... then are you
bastards and not sons.... Moreover if we have had the fathers of our flesh for
instructors, and we reverenced them, shall we not much more obey the Father of
spirits and live? 22
When we invoke the Father and when each one of us calls Him our
Father, we are to understand thereby that from the privilege and gift of divine
adoption it necessarily follows that all the faithful are brethren and should
love each other as such: You are all brethren for one is your Father who is
in heaven. 23
This is why the Apostles in their Epistles address all the faithful as brethren.
Another necessary consequence of this adoption is that not only are the
faithful thereby united in the bonds of brotherhood, but that, the Son of God
being truly man, we are called and really are his brethren also. Thus, in his
Epistle to the Hebrews the Apostle, speaking of the Son of God, wrote as
follows: He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying: "I will
declare thy name to my brethren.” 24 And
long before this, David had foretold this of Christ the Lord; while Christ
Himself thus addresses the women in the Gospel: Go, tell my brethren that
they go into Galilee; there they shall see me. 25 These words, as we know, He
pronounced only after His Resurrection and when He had already put on
immortality, thus showing that no one is at liberty to imagine that the bonds
of brotherhood with us have been severed by His Resurrection and Ascension into
heaven. Not only has the Resurrection of Christ not dissolved this union and
love, but we know that one day, when from His throne of glory and majesty He
shall judge mankind of all ages, He will call even the very least of the faithful
by the name of brethren.
Indeed, how can we be other than brethren of Christ, seeing that we are
called His co-heirs? Doubtless He is the first begotten, the
appointed heir of all things; 26 but we are begotten in the second place after Him,
and are His coheirs according to the measure of heavenly gifts we receive and
according to the extent of the charity by which we show ourselves servants and
cooperators of the Holy Ghost. He it is who by His inspirations moves and
inflames us to virtue and good works, in order that we may be strengthened by
His grace valiantly to undertake the combat that must be waged to secure
salvation. And if we wisely and firmly carry on this combat we shall at the
close of our earthly career be rewarded by our heavenly Father with the just
recompense of that crown promised and held out to all those who run the same
course. God, says the Apostle, is not unjust that He should forget
your work and love. 27
How sincere should be the manner in which we ought to utter the word our,
we learn from St. Chrysostom. God, he says, listens willingly to the
Christian who prays not only for himself but for others; because to pray for
ourselves is an inspiration of nature; but to pray for others is an inspiration
of grace; necessity compels us to pray for ourselves, whereas fraternal charity
calls on us to pray for others. And he adds: That prayer which is
inspired by fraternal charity is more agreeable to God than that which is
dictated by necessity. 28
In connection with the important subject of salutary prayer, the pastor
should be careful to remind and exhort all the faithful of every age, condition
and rank, never to forget the bonds of universal brotherhood that bind them,
and consequently ever to treat each other as friends and brothers, and never to
seek arrogantly to raise themselves above their neighbours.
Though there are in the Church of God various gradations of office, yet
this diversity of dignity and position in no way destroys the bond of fraternal
union; just as in the human body the various uses and different functions of
our organs in no way cause this or that part of the body to lose the name or
office of an organ of the body.
Take, for instance, one who wields kingly power. If he is a Christian,
is he not the brother of all those united in the communion of the Christian
faith? Yes, beyond all doubt; and why? Because there is not one God giving
existence to the rich and noble, and another giving existence to the poor and
to subjects. There is but one God, the Father and Lord of all; and consequently
we have all the same nobility of spiritual birth, all the same dignity, all the
same glory of race; for all have been regenerated by the same Spirit through
the same Sacrament of faith, and have been made children of God and coheirs to
the same inheritance. The wealthy and great have not one Christ for their God;
the poor and lowly, another; they are not initiated by different Sacraments;
nor can they expect a different inheritance in the kingdom of heaven. We are
all brethren and, as the Apostle says in his Epistle to the Ephesians: We
are members of Christ's body, of his flesh and of his bones. 29 This is a truth which the
same Apostle thus expresses in his Epistle to the Galatians: You are the
children of God, by faith in Jesus Christ; for as many of you as have been
baptized in Christ, have put on Christ. There is neither Greek nor Jew, neither
bond nor free, neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
30
Now this is a point which calls for accuracy on the part of the pastor
of souls, and one on which he should purposely dwell at considerable length;
for it is a subject that is calculated both to strengthen and animate the poor
and lowly, and to restrain and repress the arrogance of the rich and powerful.
Indeed it was to remedy this latter evil that the Apostle insisted on brotherly
charity and so often impressed it on the ears of his hearers.
Do not, then, forget, oh Christian, that when about to address this
prayer to God, you ought to approach Him as a son to his Father; and hence in
beginning your prayers and in pronouncing the words Our Father you
should consider the rank to which God in His goodness has raised you when He
commands you to fly to Him, not as a timid and fearful servant to his master,
but willingly and confidently, like a child to its father.
In this remembrance and in this thought, consider with what fervor and
piety you should pray. Endeavor to act as becomes a child of God; that is to
say, see that your prayers and actions are never unworthy of that divine origin
with which He has been pleased in His infinite bounty to ennoble you. It is to
the discharge of this duty that the Apostle exhorts us when he says: Be ye
therefore imitators of God as most dear children, 31 so that what the Apostle
wrote to the Thessalonians may be truly said of us: You are all the children
of light, and the children of the day. 32
All who have a correct idea of God will grant that He is where and in
all places. This is not to be taken in the sense that He is distributed into
parts and that He occupies and governs one place with one part and another
place with another part. God is a Spirit, and therefore utterly incapable of
division into parts. Who will dare to assign to any particular place or
circumscribe within any limits that God who says of Himself: Do I not fill
heaven and earth? 33 On the contrary, these words must be taken in this sense, that by His
power and virtue He embraces heaven and earth and all things contained therein;
but that He Himself is not contained in any place. God is present to all
things, either creating them, or preserving them after He has created them; but
He is confined to no place, is limited by no bounds, nor in any way hindered
from being everywhere present by His substance and power, as is indicated by
holy David in the words: If I ascend into heaven thou art there. 34
But though God is present in all places and in all things, without
being bound by any limits, as has been already said, yet in Sacred Scripture it
is frequently said that He has His dwelling in heaven. And the reason is
because the heavens which we see above our heads are the noblest part of the
world, remain ever Incorruptible, surpass all other bodies in power, grandeur
and beauty, and are endowed with fixed and regular motion. {h}
God, then, in order to lift up the minds of men to contemplate His
infinite power and majesty, which are so preeminently visible in the work of
the heavens, declares in Sacred Scripture that heaven is His dwelling-place.
Yet at the same time He often affirms, what indeed is most true, that there is
no part of the universe to which He is not present intimately by His nature and
His power.
In connection with this consideration, however, let the faithful keep
before their minds not only the image of the common Father of all, but also of a
God reigning in heaven; and hence when about to pray, let them remember that
they should raise heart and soul to heaven, and that the more the name of
Father inspires them with hope and trust, the more should the sublime nature
and divine majesty of our Father who is in heaven inspire them with sentiments
of Christian humility and respect.
These words, furthermore, determine what we ought to ask of God in
prayer; for every demand regarding the needs and wants of this life, if it have
not some reference to the goods of heaven and if it be not directed to that
end, is vain and unworthy of a Christian.
Let the pastor, therefore, instruct his pious hearers regarding this
particular element of prayer, confirming his own words by the authority of the
Apostle: If you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where
Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Mind the things that are above, not
the things that are upon the earth. 35 {i}
Endnotes
– Opening Words Of The Lords Prayer
1>
Tob.
xii. 3.
2>
Acts
xii. 1-17.
3>
Exod.
xvii. 7.
4>
Ezech.
viii. 12.
5>
Isa.
xlix. 14 ff.
6>
Gen.
iii. 17.
7>
Gen.
iii. 21.
8>
Ps.
lxxvi. 10.
9>
Habac.
iii. 2.
10> Mich. vii. 18.
11> John i. 12. 13.
12> John iii. 6.
13> 1 Peter i. 23.
14> Rom. viii. 15.
15> 1 John iii. 1.
16> Ps. lxxxviii. 43.
17> Job v. 18.
18> Jer. xxxi. 18.
19> Tobias xi. 17.
20> Luke xxi. 18.
21> Apoc. iii. 19.
22> Heb. xii. 5.
23> Matt. xxiii. 8.
24> Heb. ii. 11.
25> Matt. xxviii. 10.
26> Col. i. 18; Heb. i. 2.
27> Heb. vi. 10.
28> Opus Imperf. in Matt., Hom.
xiv.
29> Eph. v. 30.
30> Gal. iii. 26.
31> Eph. v. 1.
32> 1 Thess. v. 5.
33> Jer. xxiii. 24.
34> Ps. cxxxviii. 8.
35> Col. iii. 1.
{a}
On the Lord’s Prayer see Summa Theol. 2a. 2ć. lxxxiii. 9; St Thomas,
Collationes De Pater Noster.
{b}
On the name “father” as applied to God see Summa Theol. 1a. xxxiii.
{c}
On man as the image of God see Summa Theol. 1a. iv. 3; xxxv; xciii.
{d}
On divine Providence see Summa Theol. 1a. xxii.
{e}
On the guardian Angels see Summa Theol. 1a. cxi-cxiii.
{f}
On God’s love and mercy see Summa Theol. 1a. xx, xxi.
{g}
On divine adoption see Summa Theol. 3a. xxiii.
{h}
Although the heavenly bodies are not incorruptible, as the ancient physicists
believed, yet, because of their immensity, beauty, number, etc., they are fitly
described in Scripture as God’s special dwelling place.
{i}
On the omnipresence of God see Summa Theol. 1a. 8.