I.
"We Dare To Say"
2777
In the Roman liturgy, the Eucharistic assembly is invited to pray to our
heavenly Father with filial boldness; the Eastern liturgies develop and use
similar expressions: "dare in all confidence," "make us worthy
of...." From the burning bush Moses heard a voice saying to him, "Do
not come near; put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are
standing is holy ground."26 ( )
Only Jesus could cross that threshold of the divine holiness, for "when he had made purification for sins," he brought us into the Father's presence: "Here am I, and the children God has given me."27( )
Only Jesus could cross that threshold of the divine holiness, for "when he had made purification for sins," he brought us into the Father's presence: "Here am I, and the children God has given me."27( )
Our
awareness of our status as slaves would make us sink into the ground and our
earthly condition would dissolve into dust, if the authority of our Father
himself and the Spirit of his Son had not impelled us to this cry . . . 'Abba,
Father!' . . . When would a mortal dare call God 'Father,' if man's innermost
being were not animated by power from on high?"28
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This power of the Spirit who introduces us to the Lord's Prayer is expressed in
the liturgies of East and of West by the beautiful, characteristically
Christian expression: parrhesia, straightforward simplicity, filial trust,
joyous assurance, humble boldness, the certainty of being loved.29
II.
Abba - "Father!"
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Before we make our own this first exclamation of the Lord's Prayer, we must
humbly cleanse our hearts of certain false images drawn "from this
world." Humility makes us recognize that "no one knows the Son except
the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the
Son chooses to reveal him," that is, "to little children."30 ( ) The
purification of our hearts has to do with paternal or maternal images, stemming
from our personal and cultural history, and influencing our relationship with
God. God our Father transcends the categories of the created world. To impose
our own ideas in this area "upon him" would be to fabricate idols to
adore or pull down. To pray to the Father is to enter into his mystery as he is
and as the Son has revealed him to us.
The
expression God the Father had never been revealed to anyone. When Moses himself
asked God who he was, he heard another name. the Father's name has been
revealed to us in the Son, for the name "Son" implies the new name
"Father."31
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We can invoke God as "Father" because he is revealed to us by his Son
become man and because his Spirit makes him known to us. the personal relation
of the Son to the Father is something that man cannot conceive of nor the
angelic powers even dimly see: and yet, the Spirit of the Son grants a
participation in that very relation to us who believe that Jesus is the Christ
and that we are born of God.32
2781
When we pray to the Father, we are in communion with him and with his Son,
Jesus Christ.33 ( ) Then we know and recognize him with an ever new sense of
wonder. the first phrase of the Our Father is a blessing of adoration before it
is a supplication. For it is the glory of God that we should recognize him as
"Father," the true God. We give him thanks for having revealed his name
to us, for the gift of believing in it, and for the indwelling of his Presence
in us.
2782
We can adore the Father because he has caused us to be reborn to his life by
adopting us as his children in his only Son: by Baptism, he incorporates us
into the Body of his Christ; through the anointing of his Spirit who flows from
the head to the members, he makes us other "Christs."
God,
indeed, who has predestined us to adoption as his sons, has conformed us to the
glorious Body of Christ. So then you who have become sharers in Christ are
appropriately called "Christs."34
The
new man, reborn and restored to his God by grace, says first of all,
"Father!" because he has now begun to be a son.35
2783
Thus the Lord's Prayer reveals us to ourselves at the same time that it reveals
the Father to us.36
O
man, you did not dare to raise your face to heaven, you lowered your eyes to
the earth, and suddenly you have received the grace of Christ all your sins
have been forgiven. From being a wicked servant you have become a good son....
Then raise your eyes to the Father who has begotten you through Baptism, to the
Father who has redeemed you through his Son, and say: "Our Father....
" But do not claim any privilege. He is the Father in a special way only
of Christ, but he is the common Father of us all, because while he has begotten
only Christ, he has created us. Then also say by his grace, "Our
Father," so that you may merit being his son.37
2784
The free gift of adoption requires on our part continual conversion and new
life. Praying to our Father should develop in us two fundamental dispositions:
First, the desire to become like him: though created in his image, we are restored to his likeness by grace; and we must respond to this grace.
We
must remember . . . and know that when we call God "our Father" we
ought to behave as sons of God.38
We
must contemplate the beauty of the Father without ceasing and adorn our own
souls accordingly.40
2785
Second, a humble and trusting heart that enables us "to turn and become
like children":41( )
for it is to "little children" that the Father is revealed.42( )
for it is to "little children" that the Father is revealed.42( )
[The
prayer is accomplished] by the contemplation of God alone, and by the warmth of
love, through which the soul, molded and directed to love him, speaks very
familiarly to God as to its own Father with special devotion.43
Our
Father: at this name love is aroused in us . . . and the confidence of
obtaining what we are about to ask.... What would he not give to his children
who ask, since he has already granted them the gift of being his children?44
III.
"Our" Father
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"Our" Father refers to God. the adjective, as used by us, does not
express possession, but an entirely new relationship with God.
2787
When we say "our" Father, we recognize first that all his promises of
love announced by the prophets are fulfilled in the new and eternal covenant in
his Christ: we have become "his" people and he is henceforth
"our" God. This new relationship is the purely gratuitous gift of
belonging to each other: we are to respond to "grace and truth" given
us in Jesus Christ with love and faithfulness.45
2788
Since the Lord's Prayer is that of his people in the "end times," this
"our" also expresses the certitude of our hope in God's ultimate
promise: in the new Jerusalem he will say to the victor, "I will be his
God and he shall be my son."46
2789
When we pray to "our" Father, we personally address the Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ. By doing so we do not divide the Godhead since the Father
is its "source and origin," but rather confess that the Son is
eternally begotten by him and the Holy Spirit proceeds from him. We are not
confusing the persons, for we confess that our communion is with the Father and
his Son, Jesus Christ, in their one Holy Spirit. the Holy Trinity is
consubstantial and indivisible. When we pray to the Father, we adore and
glorify him together with the Son and the Holy Spirit.
2790
Grammatically, "our" qualifies a reality common to more than one
person. There is only one God, and he is recognized as Father by those who,
through faith in his only Son, are reborn of him by water and the Spirit.47 ( ) The
Church is this new communion of God and men. United with the only Son, who has
become "the firstborn among many brethren," she is in communion with
one and the same Father in one and the same Holy Spirit.48 ( ) In praying
"our" Father, each of the baptized is praying in this communion:
"The company of those who believed were of one heart and soul."49( )
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For this reason, in spite of the divisions among Christians, this prayer to
"our" Father remains our common patrimony and an urgent summons for
all the baptized. In communion by faith in Christ and by Baptism, they ought to
join in Jesus' prayer for the unity of his disciples.50
2792
Finally, if we pray the Our Father sincerely, we leave individualism behind,
because the love that we receive frees us from it. the "our" at the
beginning of the Lord's Prayer, like the "us" of the last four
petitions, excludes no one. If we are to say it truthfully, our divisions and
oppositions have to be overcome.51
2793
The baptized cannot pray to "our" Father without bringing before him
all those for whom he gave his beloved Son. God's love has no bounds, neither
should our prayer.52( ) Praying "our" Father opens to us the dimensions
of his love revealed in Christ: praying with and for all who do not yet know
him, so that Christ may "gather into one the children of God."53( ) God's care for all men and for the whole of creation has inspired all the great
practitioners of prayer; it should extend our prayer to the full breadth of
love whenever we dare to say "our" Father.
IV.
"Who Art in Heaven"
2794
This biblical expression does not mean a place (“space"), but a way of
being; it does not mean that God is distant but majestic. Our Father is not
"elsewhere": he transcends everything we can conceive of his
holiness. It is precisely because he is thrice holy that he is so close to the
humble and contrite heart.
"Our
Father who art in heaven" is rightly understood to mean that God is in the
hearts of the just, as in his holy temple. At the same time, it means that
those who pray should desire the one they invoke to dwell in them.54
"Heaven"
could also be those who bear the image of the heavenly world, and in whom God
dwells and tarries.55
2795
The symbol of the heavens refers us back to the mystery of the covenant we are
living when we pray to our Father. He is in heaven, his dwelling place; the
Father's house is our homeland. Sin has exiled us from the land of the
covenant,56( ) but the conversion of heart enables us to return to the Father, to
heaven.57( ) Jn Christ, then, heaven and earth are reconciled,58 for the Son alone
"descended from heaven" and causes us to ascend there with him, by
his Cross, Resurrection, and Ascension.59
2796
When the Church prays "our Father who art in heaven," she is
professing that we are the People of God, already seated "with him in the
heavenly places in Christ Jesus" and "hidden with Christ in
God;"60( ) yet at the same time, "here indeed we groan, and long to put
on our heavenly dwelling."61
[Christians]
are in the flesh, but do not live according to the flesh. They spend their
lives on earth but are citizens of heaven.62 ( )
GO TO:
SECTION TWO THE LORD'S PRAYER
PART FOUR: CHRISTIAN PRAYER
SECTION ONE: PRAYER IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE
CHAPTER ONE THE REVELATION OF PRAYER
CHAPTER TWO THE TRADITION OF PRAYER
CHAPTER THREE THE LIFE OF PRAYER
SECTION TWO THE LORD'S PRAYER
CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCHCHAPTER ONE THE REVELATION OF PRAYER
CHAPTER TWO THE TRADITION OF PRAYER
CHAPTER THREE THE LIFE OF PRAYER
SECTION TWO THE LORD'S PRAYER
PART ONE: THE PROFESSION OF FAITH
PART TWO: THE CELEBRATION OF THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERY
PART THREE: LIFE IN CHRIST
PART FOUR: CHRISTIAN PRAYER
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