"The Our Father" - Just another Catholic Prayer?

This Sunday is the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time and the Gospel reading is Luke 11:1-13, which is when Jesus teaches his disciples "The Our Father." 

Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples." He said to them, "When you pray, say: Father, hallowed by your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do no subject us to the final test." 

Obviously the prayer that we pray today has slightly different wording and is longer, but the skeleton is still the same. There are seven petitions in the prayer and it is the same seven that we pray today. My point of this post is to help you see that "The Our Father" isn't just another prayer. All prayer is so important, but this prayer takes preeminence. There are many reasons why we hold "The Our Father" in such high esteem and if you would like to read about it and how to pray it please visit the Catechism starting on paragraph 2759.

"The Lord's Prayer 'is truly the summary of the whole gospel'" (CCC 2761). Wow, that is quite the statement and if we actually think about it, it does make sense. St. Augustine says that all the prayers in the rest of Scripture are summed up in the Lord's Prayer. It is Christ who gave us this prayer and in Christ all is fulfilled. Why then do we become so blah when we say it, whether it is at Mass or in other prayers? We stop praying and start reciting. Why?

I can honestly say that I have done this many times. I end up forgetting what I am actually praying and who taught me that prayer. I start reciting it from rope memory and I don't pray it at all. It is truly sad, our Lord taught us this beautiful and perfect prayer and I end up saying just like I would say anything else. I am sure I am not the only one who does this and it is a hard habit to break. I try to pay attention, but my attention can slip away very fast and sometime even faster while I am praying.

First, we need to realize the importance of this prayer in our lives. We may think that this prayer is reserved the Rosary, when we say it, and when we go to Mass on Sundays, but this is not the case my brothers and sisters. "Jesus does not give us a formula to repeat mechanically. As in every vocal prayer, it is through the Word of God that the Holy Spirit teaches the children of God to pray to their Father" (CCC 2766).

We must allow the Holy Spirit to help us pray and to come to a deeper intimacy in our personal relationships with the Father. The Lord's Prayer is meant to be a prayer of petitions for the things that we need in our lives and is the foundation for further petitions to the Father. It is a necessity for us to place ourselves in the presence of our Heavenly Father while we say this prayer. During this time our Advocate stirs up in us these petitions.

The first three: "hallowed by thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done," carry us toward him. These three petitions have nothing to do with us and have everything to do with the glory of God. It can be very hard to actually forget about us. My brothers and sisters in Christ, we are not the center of anything. God owes us nothing and we deserve nothing. God deserves ALL the glory and praise. In these first three we forget about ourselves and should allow ourselves to completely be caught up in Christ's perfect sacrifice. Even though Christ has already fulfilled these three petitions we should hope in their final fulfillment at the end of ages.

The last four petitions: "give us this day, forgive us our trespasses, lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from evil," are an "offering up of our expectations" (CCC 2805). In these last four petitions we want our loving Father to hear us and answer these desires. It is in these petitions that we need to realize that it isn't about what we have on our own, but who we have - Christ. It is by Christ's saving act that we can petition the Lord and hope in his boundless love.

I hope you can now see that the Lord's Prayer is not just another prayer to be said, but is the culmination of all prayers in Scripture. Next time you are going to say the Lord's Prayer, I hope that it is truly prayed in the way that it was first taught by Christ himself. I hope that the prayer can open up a true sense of petition and desire for greater intimacy with the Father.

Pray daily, read Scripture often, love always.