The Lord's Prayer: Update?

[nerfherder]

For 2000 years, the Our Father has been perhaps the single common theme running through the ritual of Christendom.

Its most beautiful translation for us today is perhaps that of the first King James Version of the Bible.

I have found what purports to be an Aramaic version. I cannnot vouch for its veracity, but translated into English it reads:

O Breathing Life, your Name shines everywhere!
Release a space to plant your Presence here.
Envision your ‘I Can’ now.
Embody your desire in every light and form.
Grow through us this moment’s bread and wisdom.
Untie the knots of failure binding us,
as we release the strands we hold of others’ faults.
Help us not forget our Source,
Yet free us from not being in the Present.
From you arises every Vision, Power and Song
from gathering to gathering.
Amen -
May our future actions grow from here!

the lord’s prayer - from the original aramaic

I began to wonder how we in 2007 would understand the meaning of the Lord’s prayer, and interpret it in our time. I started to think, and here are several examples, not very good, I admit:

Our Father who art in Heaven
Our loving Father, Abba, God Creator, powerful and mighty

Hallowed be thy Name
We worship and adore You. We praise Your sacred presence among us.

Thy kingdom come.
We ask that You sustain our feeble efforts to make real Your commandments to us, to put an end to the suffering of Your earthly children, and to spread the great message of Your eternal love.

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
We need to know and understand Your will, Your intentions for Your people throughout our world. We are committed to bringing Your will to fruition according to Your commandments, as we only humbly understand them.

Forgive us when we fail to be guided by Your love, and so shine before others in Your name and for Your sake.

Please understand that this is not meant to set off a theological discussion of the original Lord’s Prayer, but to understand in modern terms how we would pray the Prayer, given our current understandings of the nature of God and His relationship to the eternal universe(s) and His people.

 

[Tonks40]

In my opinion, the Our Father doesn’t need additional wording to spell out God’s presence in our lives. I think the Our Father does that quite adequately and with such simplicity.

Through this prayer:
We acknowledge God’s reign over the Universe:

*Our Father, who art in Heaven
Hallowed be thy name
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
On Earth as it is in Heaven.
*
We acknowledge the importance of God in our lives:

Give us this day our daily bread

We acknowledge our own sinfulness:

And forgive us our tresspasses
We remind ourselves on how we should treat others (love one another):

*As we forgive those who tresspass against us
*

We acknowledge, through our cooperation in God’s graces, our promise of salvation:

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Very simple, really!

 

[nerfherder]

In my opinion, the Our Father doesn’t need additional wording to spell out God’s presence in our lives. I think the Our Father does that quite adequately and with such simplicity.

Through this prayer:
We acknowledge God’s reign over the Universe:

*Our Father, who art in Heaven
Hallowed be thy name
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
On Earth as it is in Heaven.
*
We acknowledge the importance of God in our lives:

Give us this day our daily bread

We acknowledge our own sinfulness:

And forgive us our tresspasses
We remind ourselves on how we should treat others (love one another):

*As we forgive those who tresspass against us
*

We acknowledge, through our cooperation in God’s graces, our promise of salvation:

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Very simple, really!

Perhaps not really so simple. I do not question that the content and words of our Lord’s Prayer provide a template for all prayer.

Many Christians do however, in 2007, have a different concept of ‘heaven and hell’, of the universe/multiverse and God the Creator in it. In the Lord’s Prayer, we ask God to provide for our necessities - His kingdom on earth, His will being done, our food etc being supplied - without mentioning our responsibility for responding to His will and making these things happen, as we must.

We do not explicate our ‘trespasses’ recognising that we have thousands of different understandings of ‘tresspasses’ - among those who live within, and those who live in the world, those who are concerned about well-being of God’s children, and those who are more concerned about their eternal salvation.

What do we mean when we say ‘lead us not into temptation’?

Why do we ask God to ‘deliver us from evil’, when it is surely our individual responsibility to avoid evil, and beyond that, to repress it not only in ourselves, but in others, with his guidance? Our failure to truly care for those who suffer for example is, for me, an evil - one of ‘what we have failed to do’. And we see the consequences. This is not God’s job: it is ours, according to His will and His commandments.

I think there are two issues for me:

(1) the Prayer seems to imply that we assume God will do it all for ME;

(2) we assume the Prayer is about ME, and not our common responsibility to/for God’s world by following his commandments, particularly to love, to heal and to sustain.

Too much asking for God’s grace, and not enough about using God’s grace to work in and save this failing Earth, His creation?

 

[_bbq]

I was listening to Father Corapi from EWTN speak on the Our Father. He mentioned that the spanish translation of the prayer translates “Lead us not into temptation” as “Do not let us fall into temptation”.

The spanish version conveighs a request for God’s grace, while our current translated can be misinterpretted as if God could actually lead us to sin. Pope Benedict XVI covers the same topic in his book Jesus of Nazareth. Here’s a quick commentary on the Pope’s comments:

catholicanalysis.blogspot.com/2007/06/pope-series-and-lead-us-not-into.html

 

[DanteAlighieri]

O Breathing Life, your Name shines everywhere!
Release a space to plant your Presence here.
Envision your ‘I Can’ now.
Embody your desire in every light and form.
Grow through us this moment’s bread and wisdom.
Untie the knots of failure binding us,
as we release the strands we hold of others’ faults.
Help us not forget our Source,
Yet free us from not being in the Present.
From you arises every Vision, Power and Song
from gathering to gathering.
Amen -
May our future actions grow from here!

the lord’s prayer - from the original aramaic

I’m no Biblical scholar, and I certainly no nothing about Aramaic, but the above translation is so far removed from the text that we all know that it seems completely other than the Lord’s Prayer. It doesn’t even say remotely the same thing.

In fact, it sort of reads like some new-age prayer – that or a mantra from some corporate team-building retreat.

Peace,
Dante

 

[puzzleannie]

I don’t know if OP’s version corresponds to the original Aramaic, I have seen several versions. I tend to think the KJV expressed it accurately in the English of Shakespeare’s day, and where we have problems with the wording it is problems with Shakespeare’s English, not problems with the translation. The prayer is not only about the words we are told to use, but the order or hierarchy of our praises and requests, the aspects of life and worship of God the prayer covers, and the attitude we must have in our relationship with God.

 

[dessert]

For 2000 years, the Our Father has been perhaps the single common theme running through the ritual of Christendom.

Its most beautiful translation for us today is perhaps that of the first King James Version of the Bible.

I have found what purports to be an Aramaic version. I cannnot vouch for its veracity, but translated into English it reads:

O Breathing Life, your Name shines everywhere!
Release a space to plant your Presence here.
Envision your ‘I Can’ now.
Embody your desire in every light and form.
Grow through us this moment’s bread and wisdom.
Untie the knots of failure binding us,
as we release the strands we hold of others’ faults.
Help us not forget our Source,
Yet free us from not being in the Present.
From you arises every Vision, Power and Song
from gathering to gathering.
Amen -
May our future actions grow from here!

the lord’s prayer - from the original aramaic

I began to wonder how we in 2007 would understand the meaning of the Lord’s prayer, and interpret it in our time. I started to think, and here are several examples, not very good, I admit:

Our Father who art in Heaven
Our loving Father, Abba, God Creator, powerful and mighty

Hallowed be thy Name
We worship and adore You. We praise Your sacred presence among us.

Thy kingdom come.
We ask that You sustain our feeble efforts to make real Your commandments to us, to put an end to the suffering of Your earthly children, and to spread the great message of Your eternal love.

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
We need to know and understand Your will, Your intentions for Your people throughout our world. We are committed to bringing Your will to fruition according to Your commandments, as we only humbly understand them.

Forgive us when we fail to be guided by Your love, and so shine before others in Your name and for Your sake.

Please understand that this is not meant to set off a theological discussion of the original Lord’s Prayer, but to understand in modern terms how we would pray the Prayer, given our current understandings of the nature of God and His relationship to the eternal universe(s) and His people.

I rather like this! It speaks of a garden and growth and since Jesus prayed in a garden and the tree of life was in a garden it fits with the process and envisionment of His thinking. Dessert

 

[Smber2c]

Perhaps not really so simple. I do not question that the content and words of our Lord’s Prayer provide a template for all prayer.

What do we mean when we say ‘lead us not into temptation’?
Why do we ask God to ‘deliver us from evil’, when it is surely our individual responsibility to avoid evil, and beyond that, to repress it not only in ourselves, but in others, with his guidance? Our failure to truly care for those who suffer for example is, for me, an evil - one of ‘what we have failed to do’. And we see the consequences. This is not God’s job: it is ours, according to His will and His commandments.

I think there are two issues for me:

(1) the Prayer seems to imply that we assume God will do it all for ME;

(2) we assume the Prayer is about ME, and not our common responsibility to/for God’s world by following his commandments, particularly to love, to heal and to sustain.

Too much asking for God’s grace, and not enough about using God’s grace to work in and save this failing Earth, His creation?

For your top half. I’d say that it’s better to (name removed by moderator)rove Catholic Catechesis than to try rewording the “Our Father” in 30 different ways to fit the understanding of each word in each region of each country around the earth. If we tell kids, “temptation means…” then they will know it and be able to say the prayer in mass when they fly to England and visit grandma.

To your second half. Perhaps some of this has to do with your having trouble seeing the words of the Our Father correctly, but Jesus surely put the right emphasis where the emphasis was due. So, if He emphasised God’s gracing us over our using God’s grace…then that’s probably what He wanted - He is God afterall.

 

[nerfherder]

For your top half. I’d say that it’s better to (name removed by moderator)rove Catholic Catechesis than to try rewording the “Our Father” in 30 different ways to fit the understanding of each word in each region of each country around the earth. If we tell kids, “temptation means…” then they will know it and be able to say the prayer in mass when they fly to England and visit grandma.

To your second half. Perhaps some of this has to do with your having trouble seeing the words of the Our Father correctly, but Jesus surely put the right emphasis where the emphasis was due. So, if He emphasised God’s gracing us over our using God’s grace…then that’s probably what He wanted - He is God afterall.

This beautiful prayer, given to us, will be with us as long as Christendom is alive and well.

I am not looking to correct it at all. I am looking for thinking, not conformity. We may sometimes tend to pray the Our Father in a fit of absence of mind, it is so well known to us.

Be brave. You are not committing a heresy by looking for profound meanings for Christian Catholics in 2007. What do these lines mean for you? Think out of the box.

 

[Smber2c]

This beautiful prayer, given to us, will be with us as long as Christendom is alive and well.

I am not looking to correct it at all. I am looking for thinking, not conformity. We may sometimes tend to pray the Our Father in a fit of absence of mind, it is so well known to us.

Be brave. You are not committing a heresy by looking for profound meanings for Christian Catholics in 2007. What do these lines mean for you? Think out of the box.

Okay, I guess in reading your first post your intended purpsose for the thread didn’t quite come across to me.

Well, I agree that we know the Our Father very well and don’t think about very closely all that often. My mind follows visuals, pictures in my mind that represent my feelings on parts of this prayer. I don’t think I could explain it very well, but just like with music where I seldom even notice the lyrics unless I decide I want to hear them, I go through a range of pictures, emotions, and devotions I associate with the Our Father.

 

[dessert]

This beautiful prayer, given to us, will be with us as long as Christendom is alive and well.

I am not looking to correct it at all. I am looking for thinking, not conformity. We may sometimes tend to pray the Our Father in a fit of absence of mind, it is so well known to us.

Be brave. You are not committing a heresy by looking for profound meanings for Christian Catholics in 2007. What do these lines mean for you? Think out of the box.

There is another very nice prayer called the universal prayer. Have you ever heard of it? It is paraphrssed of the prayer for salvation by Pope Clement XI.
www.catholic . org/universalprayer
if this doesn’t work just put in universal prayer.com

We must be carefull about thinking out of the box too much.
Dessert

 

[nerfherder]

There is another very nice prayer called the universal prayer. Have you ever heard of it? It is paraphrssed of the prayer for salvation by Pope Clement XI.
www.catholic . org/universalprayer
if this doesn’t work just put in universal prayer.com

We must be carefull about thinking out of the box too much.
Dessert

Thank you for advice.

Why must we be careful about thinking outside the box too much? How does this refer to the original question?

 

[Grace_Angel]

For 2000 years, the Our Father has been perhaps the single common theme running through the ritual of Christendom.

Its most beautiful translation for us today is perhaps that of the first King James Version of the Bible.

I have found what purports to be an Aramaic version. I cannnot vouch for its veracity, but translated into English it reads:

O Breathing Life, your Name shines everywhere!
Release a space to plant your Presence here.
Envision your ‘I Can’ now.
Embody your desire in every light and form.
Grow through us this moment’s bread and wisdom.
Untie the knots of failure binding us,
as we release the strands we hold of others’ faults.
Help us not forget our Source,
Yet free us from not being in the Present.
From you arises every Vision, Power and Song
from gathering to gathering.
Amen -
May our future actions grow from here!

the lord’s prayer - from the original aramaic

I began to wonder how we in 2007 would understand the meaning of the Lord’s prayer, and interpret it in our time. I started to think, and here are several examples, not very good, I admit:

Our Father who art in Heaven
Our loving Father, Abba, God Creator, powerful and mighty

Hallowed be thy Name
We worship and adore You. We praise Your sacred presence among us.

Thy kingdom come.
We ask that You sustain our feeble efforts to make real Your commandments to us, to put an end to the suffering of Your earthly children, and to spread the great message of Your eternal love.

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
We need to know and understand Your will, Your intentions for Your people throughout our world. We are committed to bringing Your will to fruition according to Your commandments, as we only humbly understand them.

Forgive us when we fail to be guided by Your love, and so shine before others in Your name and for Your sake.

Please understand that this is not meant to set off a theological discussion of the original Lord’s Prayer, but to understand in modern terms how we would pray the Prayer, given our current understandings of the nature of God and His relationship to the eternal universe(s) and His people.

Beautiful, I love this.
Grace Angel.

 

[thistle]

I’m no Biblical scholar, and I certainly no nothing about Aramaic, but the above translation is so far removed from the text that we all know that it seems completely other than the Lord’s Prayer. It doesn’t even say remotely the same thing.

In fact, it sort of reads like some new-age prayer – that or a mantra from some corporate team-building retreat.

Peace,
Dante

I agree with you.

 

[_bbq]

I think it’s very important to be extremely cautious about modernizing any portion Sacred Scripture. Passages in the bible that are difficult for us to understand, or seem out of touch, are most likely the best places for us to learn about the difference between how we should be and how we are. I think modernization of the text (eg. The Message) can lead us to force the bible to say things that reinforce “how we are” versus the original text that uplift us to be “how we should be”.

 

[littleone]

I don’t know if OP’s version corresponds to the original Aramaic, I have seen several versions. I tend to think the KJV expressed it accurately in the English of Shakespeare’s day, and where we have problems with the wording it is problems with Shakespeare’s English, not problems with the translation. The prayer is not only about the words we are told to use, but the order or hierarchy of our praises and requests, the aspects of life and worship of God the prayer covers, and the attitude we must have in our relationship with God.

I don’t understand why we relate to the kj v when in our own home Catholic we have the first version that ever was written in the Bible!!!
And it is beautiful, is it not???

God bless
littleone

 

[anthony022071]

This beautiful prayer, given to us, will be with us as long as Christendom is alive and well.

I am not looking to correct it at all. I am looking for thinking, not conformity. We may sometimes tend to pray the Our Father in a fit of absence of mind, it is so well known to us.

Be brave. You are not committing a heresy by looking for profound meanings for Christian Catholics in 2007. What do these lines mean for you? Think out of the box.

Instead of just thinking outside of the box,we should think within
the faith itself,with the scriptures,the other sayings and works of Jesus,the letters of the apostles,and early church fathers always in mind. There are very specific implications and demands upon us behind the seemingly simple,crude,and vague words of the Our Father. The prayer makes us recognize God as a person we can address and enter into a relationship with,and who makes demands upon us,and that evil and sin are real. Instead of just interpreting for ourselves what these words mean,we need to recognize what they mean for God,in light of the other sayings and works of Jesus.

 

[dessert]

Thank you for advice.

Why must we be careful about thinking outside the box too much? How does this refer to the original question?

If you diverse from written prayer you are changing tradition.

If you add to it or take away you are changing tradition now if you do this on your own private praayer life maybe not so.

Sometimes I write my own prayers and read them over.

Maybe we are not in agreement on what is the box?

The Lord’s Prayer ( the Our Father) doesn’t really need an uupdate just as the national anthem etc.
But their are always new renditions as I have read so much into the history of music and the original song Silent Night is so different the one now that has been around and older people have told me how things were changed even when they young.

But our traditions have been the same in the RCC within in limits so it must remain so on certain prayers.

Dessert

 

[dessert]

For 2000 years, the Our Father has been perhaps the single common theme running through the ritual of Christendom.

Its most beautiful translation for us today is perhaps that of the first King James Version of the Bible.

I have found what purports to be an Aramaic version. I cannnot vouch for its veracity, but translated into English it reads:

O Breathing Life, your Name shines everywhere!
Release a space to plant your Presence here.
Envision your ‘I Can’ now.
Embody your desire in every light and form.
Grow through us this moment’s bread and wisdom.
Untie the knots of failure binding us,
as we release the strands we hold of others’ faults.
Help us not forget our Source,
Yet free us from not being in the Present.
From you arises every Vision, Power and Song
from gathering to gathering.
Amen -
May our future actions grow from here!

the lord’s prayer - from the original aramaic

I began to wonder how we in 2007 would understand the meaning of the Lord’s prayer, and interpret it in our time. I started to think, and here are several examples, not very good, I admit:

Our Father who art in Heaven
Our loving Father, Abba, God Creator, powerful and mighty

Hallowed be thy Name
We worship and adore You. We praise Your sacred presence among us.

Thy kingdom come.
We ask that You sustain our feeble efforts to make real Your commandments to us, to put an end to the suffering of Your earthly children, and to spread the great message of Your eternal love.

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
We need to know and understand Your will, Your intentions for Your people throughout our world. We are committed to bringing Your will to fruition according to Your commandments, as we only humbly understand them.

Forgive us when we fail to be guided by Your love, and so shine before others in Your name and for Your sake.

Please understand that this is not meant to set off a theological discussion of the original Lord’s Prayer, but to understand in modern terms how we would pray the Prayer, given our current understandings of the nature of God and His relationship to the eternal universe(s) and His people.

Did you write this?

Like I said before it is very poetic and nice and I you aware that the I believe creed we say as a profession of faith was changed but not really changed but lengthened to the Longgggggg We bellieve creed so please don’t send your prayer into the vatican because yours is long too. The mass is long enough as it is these days.
dessert

 

[nerfherder]

Instead of just thinking outside of the box,we should think within
the faith itself,with the scriptures,the other sayings and works of Jesus,the letters of the apostles,and early church fathers always in mind. There are very specific implications and demands upon us behind the seemingly simple,crude,and vague words of the Our Father. The prayer makes us recognize God as a person we can address and enter into a relationship with,and who makes demands upon us,and that evil and sin are real. Instead of just interpreting for ourselves what these words mean,we need to recognize what they mean for God,in light of the other sayings and works of Jesus.

Thank you. I think this is what I am looking for here - what they mean for God, in the light of other sayings and works of Christ. Especially the latter.

This is not a reworking of the Prayer, but just a look behind the words we use every time we go to Church.