Line by line break down of the Our Father

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bee13

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Can someone help me understand the Our Father

Our Father, who art in Heaven – addressing God in Heaven

Hallowed be thy name – His name is holy

Thy kingdom come – ?

Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven – we should act in Earth as we would in Heaven

Give us the day our daily bread – ? (Probably referring to bread in Church)

And forgive us our trespasses – forgive our sons

As we forgive those who trespass against us – forgive others who sin against us

And let us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil – keep us away from evil
 
You might check out the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the section on prayer found in which uses the Our Father as a model and explains it in depth. See also Romano Guardini’s book on the Our Father.

-Fr ACEGC
 
Thy Kingdom come - let Christ reign in our hearts and let Him work through us and let all be subject to Him (?)
 
Hello Bee13,

Our Father - this alone needs explanation. Christians are the only religion which views God in this relation. By saying ‘Our Father’ we acknowledge a personal relationship between ourselves and God as well as the relationship of creator/creation and the love which subsists between the two.

…who art in Heaven - this rejects pagan religions which believe that God exists within the bounds of the created universe. In saying this, we recognize that God is outside of space and time and that our relationship with him exists in something beyond our physical world and life.

…hallowed be thy name - This is not just saying that God’s physical name is holy but rather that God’s very existence is Hollinness itself. What God is is the same as who God is. His name is “I Am Who Am”. Everything that exists is, in some way, participating in God. Thus, all of creation is, in some way, holy and it should be respected as a tiny insight into the greatness and holiness of God.

…thy kingdom com - by saying this, we welcome God as the ruler of our lives. We accept Him as Lord and King. We recognize that his decrees and commands for us have a higher authority than that of the Earth.

…thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven - we recognize that we must work for those precepts and commands we have accepted in the previous phrase. The precepts of God are not just for those who follow Him but for all of mankind.

… give us this day our daily bread - This is recognizing that it is God who ultimately provides us with everything we need to sustain us (food, water, shelter, etc.). We ask God to provide for us today. We recognize that our future is ultimately in God’s hands and we place our future needs at the feet of God. In saying this, we focus on the present, not what could happen or what has happened in the past.

…and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us - these two phrases must be taken together. Yes, we ask God to forgive our sins, but we also recognize that the measure with which we forgive will the measure with which we are judged. If we refuse to forgive, we pray that that standard will be used against us. We are asking God not just to forgive us but to also hold us accountable for our actions.

…and deliver us not into temptation - sometimes this is misunderstood as “Don’t tempt us, God!” but this is not the case. Instead, we are asking God to lead us away from the temptation to sin and, if we find ourselves in the presence of evil and sin, that God will protect us from falling from grace and protect us from the actions of Satan and demons, should we find ourselves in the rare position to meet them.

Hope this helps!

God Bless,
Ben
 
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bee13 said:
Can someone help me understand the Our Father
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The Saints tell us we could spend the rest of our life studying the Our Father and not even skim the surface. But just to add one thing:
  • “Thy will be done” = I don’t pursue “my will” if it doesn’t sync with God’s will (as Christ did in the Garden of Gethsemane), because God’s plan is better and more beneficial than my own fallible ideas.
 
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Just a comment on the word hallowed, it doesn’t just mean God’s name is holy, it is actually a request that God’s name be “hallowed”, that is held to be holy, held in high esteem. It’s like praying against the blaspheming of His Name, praying that people treat His name with the respect it deserves. It’s a beautiful aspect to the prayer. I often use it as a springboard to pray:

-that my life is lived in such a way that I cause others to hallow His name
  • That my loved ones hallow His name with their lives
    -That all Christians live in such a way that causes His holiness to be seen and hallowed
    -That His name is hallowed throughout the world, and that those who have never heard it may be granted the grace to hear it and be converted
Every word of that prayer is a goldmine, this is just scratching the surface.
 
edward_george1 said:
You might check out the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the section on prayer found in which uses the Our Father as a model and explains it in depth. See also Romano Guardini’s book on the Our Father.

-Fr ACEGC
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Yes.

Other than that - the Our Father is nonetheless readily understandable as it is.
 
Certainly, but it contains within it a wealth of riches for meditation and reflection.
 
While each part can stand on its own, the pieces fit together.

Who art in heaven
On Earth as in Heaven
God in heaven forgive us as we forgive on earth.

Or

As we forgive those who trespass against us
Do not let us be tempted to anger or shame by those who trespassed against us,
And do not allow our attempts to forgive to generate more evil, but allow it to be healing for the forgiver and the forgiven.
 
Really not anything else you could ask God for - does seem being forgiven and forgiving others is tied together. Asking for forgiveness and forgiving at the same time - can’t have one without the other.
 
BT3241 said:
Asking for forgiveness and forgiving at the same time - can’t have one without the other.
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Quite simple and v.Important - and ties in w/teachings re: Mercy’s condition

We must be merciful in order to receive Mercy

Forgive me AS I forgive others.
 
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Our Father Who Art In Heaven
Jesus calls Him: “Father”. Father of the Word. Father of the Incarnate. That’s how He wants us to call Him because we are all one with Him, if we remain in Him. Once man had to prostrate himself with his face on the ground to whisper, trembling with fear: “God!” He who does not believe in Me and in My word is still in such paralyzing fear… Watch the interior of the Temple. Not God, but the very remembrance of God is concealed from the eyes of the faithful by a treble veil. He who prays is separated by remoteness and veils, everything has been devised to say to him: “You are mud. He is Light. You are contemptible. He is Holy. You are a slave. He is King.”

But now!..Stand up! Come near Him! He is the Eternal Priest! He can take you by the hand and say: “Come”. He can grasp the veils and draw them, and thus throw open the inaccessible place closed so far. Closed? Why? Closed by sin, yes. But, even more closed by the dispirited thought of man. Why closed if God is love, if God is Father? He can, He must, He wants to not take us into dust, but into the azure; not far, but near; not as slaves, but as children onto the heart of God.

Say: “Father! Father!”. And, never tire repeating this word. Do you not know that every time you say it, Heaven shines because of God’s joy? If you said with true love no other word but that one, you would be saying a prayer pleasing to the Lord. “Father! Father” the little ones say to their fathers. It’s the first word they say: “Mother, Father”. We are the little children of God. He begot you from the old man you were and whom He destroyed by means of His love to give birth to the new man, the Christian. Call, therefore, the Most Holy Father who is in Heaven, with the first word that little children learn.

Hallowed Be Thy Name
May His name be held holy.

(1 of 3)
 
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Thy Kingdom Come
There would be no kingdom for you in Heaven, if first you did not want the Kingdom of God in yourselves through the real practice of the Law of God and of Jesus’s Word, which is the perfectioning of the Law, having given, in the time of Grace, the Law of the chosen ones, that is, of those who are, beyond of the civil, moral, religious constitutions of the Mosaic time, already in the spiritual Law of the time of Christ.

Desire its coming with all your strength. If it came, it would be the joy of the earth. The Kingdom of God in hearts, in families, among citizens, and nations. Suffer, work, sacrifice yourselves for this Kingdom. Let the earth be a mirror reflecting the life of Heaven in each individual. It will happen. All this will happen one day. Centuries of tears and blood, of errors, persecutions, of darkness relieved by flashes of light radiating from the mystical Light of His Church will precede the moment in which the earth will possess the Kingdom of God. Oh! His Church: although a boat, it will never be sunk, as it is also a cliff unshakable by breakers and will hold high the Light, His Light, the Light of God. And, it will then be like intense blazing of a star which, having reached the perfection of its existence, and love at the feet of its Creator, in a rutilant throb. But, it will most certainly come. And, then there will be the perfect, blessed eternal Kingdom of Heaven.

Thy Will Be Done on Earth As It Is In Heaven
The submission of one’s will to the will of another person can be accomplished only when one reaches perfect love for that creature. The submission of one’s will to God’s can be achieved only when one achieves possession of the theological virtues in a heroic degree. In Heaven, where everything is faultless, God’s will is done. We, children of Heaven, must learn to do what is done in Heaven.

How Jesus has done the Will of His Father can be told even by the clods of earth, by plants, by flowers, by the stones in Palestine, by His wounded body, and by a whole population. Do as He did. To the very end. Even unto death on a cross, if God so wishes. Because, remember, Jesus has done it, and there is no disciple who deserves mercy more than He does. And, yet He has the consumed the greatest sorrow. And, yet He has obeyed with perpetual renunciations. Let this thought be constantly present to you: “Through His obedience to the Father, He saved us”. Do what He has done. There will be some acquainted with the cross, some with tortures of tyrants, some with the torture of love, some with the exile from Heaven, to which they will tend until a very late age before ascending there. Well, in everything let the will of God be done. Consider that the torment of death, or the torment of life, while you would like to die to come to where He is, are the same in the eyes of God, if they are suffered with cheerful obedience. They are His will. So, they are holy.

(2 of 3)
 
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Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread
Day by day, hour by hour. It is faith. It is love. It is obedience. It is humility. It is hope, this asking for the bread one day, and accepting is as it is. Sweet today, bitter tomorrow, much, little, with spices, or with ashes. Always as it is just. God, who is a Father, gives it. So, it is good.

Forgive Us Our Trespasses, As We Forgive Them That Trespass Against Us
Since we are all sinners, be meek with sinners. Remember Jesus’s Words: “Why do you observe the splinter in your brother’s eye, if first you do not take the plank out of your own eye?” That Spirit He infused into you, that Order He gave you, grant you the authority to remit the sins of your neighbor, in the name of God. But, how will you be able to do that, if God does not remit them to you? For the time being, forgive those who offend you, in order to be forgiven, and to be entitled to absolve or to condemn. He who is without sin can do so with full justice. He who does not forgive, while he is in sin, and feigns to be scandalized, is a hypocrite and hell awaits him. Because if there is still mercy for wards, severe will be the verdict, against the guardians of wards, guilty of the same or greater sins, although they had the fullness of the Spirit to assist them.

Lead Us Not Into Temptation, But Deliver Us From Evil
Pray with humility that God may avert temptations from you. Oh! Humility! To know oneself for what one is! Without losing heart, but to know oneself! Say: “I may give in, even if I do not think I could do it, because I am but an imperfect judge of myself. Therefore, Father, if possible, deliver me from temptations by keeping me so close to you as to not allow the Evil One to harm me”. Because, remember, it is not God Who tempts you to evil things, but it is the Evil One who tempts you. Pray the Father that He may support your weakness, so that it may not be led into temptation by the Evil One.

That is humility, the fundamental stone of perfection. Bless those who humiliate you, because they give you what’s necessary for your celestial thrones.

No. Temptation is not a ruin, if man remains humbly near the Father, and asks Him not to allow Satan, the world, and the flesh to triumph over him. The crowns of the blessed souls are adorned with the gems of the temptations they overcame. Do not look for them, but do not be cowards when they come. Humble, and thus strong, shout to your Father: “Deliver us from evil”, and you will defeat evil. And, you will really sanctify the Name of God with your deeds, because every man when seeing you will say: “God exists, because they live as gods, so perfect is their behavior”, and they will come to God, multiplying the citizens of the Kingdom of God.

(3 of 3)
 
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