The Our Father
The prayer Jesus taught his disciples, line by line: its address to the Father, its seven petitions and its closing Amen.
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When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, he did not give them a method. He gave them words. The Lord's Prayer, or the Our Father, comes to us in two versions in the Gospels: a longer one with seven petitions in Matthew, in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, and a shorter one with five in Luke (Matthew 6:9–13; Luke 11:2–4; CCC 2759). The Church has always prayed Matthew's form. Tertullian called it a summary of the whole Gospel (CCC 2761).
The prayer
In the traditional English wording:
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.
It has a simple shape: an address, then seven petitions (requests). The first three are about God: his name, his kingdom, his will. The last four are about us: bread, forgiveness, temptation, evil (CCC 2803–2806). We look first to God, and then bring him our needs.
"Our Father, who art in heaven"
Jesus calls God Abba, the intimate word a child uses for a father, and he lets us share in it (CCC 2777–2782). To call God Father is not to say he is male, or like our own fathers, good or bad; it is to say he is the origin of everything and cares for us with a love no earthly parent fully matches (cf. CCC 239, 2779).
"Our", not "my". Even prayed alone, this is the prayer of a family. It reminds us that we come to God together, and it gently refuses to leave anyone out (CCC 2786–2793).
"Who art in heaven" does not mean God is far away. Heaven here means God's own way of being, his majesty, and also his presence in the hearts of those who love him. It is our true home, where we are heading (CCC 2794–2796).
The three petitions for God's glory
"Hallowed be thy name." To hallow is to make holy, or to treat as holy. We cannot make God holier than he is. We are asking that his name be recognised as holy, in us and through the world, and that our lives not bring it into disrepute (CCC 2807–2815).
"Thy kingdom come." We ask for the final coming of Christ's Kingdom at the end of time, and for its growth now, wherever people live by the Holy Spirit (CCC 2816–2821).
"Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." The Father's will is that everyone be saved and come to know the truth. We ask that our wills be joined to Christ's, who prayed in Gethsemane "not my will, but thine, be done" (Luke 22:42; CCC 2822–2827).
The four petitions for our needs
"Give us this day our daily bread." We ask with the trust of children for everything we need to live: food, work, health. The Church also hears in it the bread of the Word of God and the Body of Christ in the Eucharist. The rare Greek word behind "daily" can also be understood as "super-essential", bread for the life that lasts (CCC 2828–2837). And "us" reminds us of those who have no bread at all.
"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." This is the startling petition. It ties God's mercy to ours. Not because God's forgiveness is a reward we earn, but because a heart that refuses to forgive closes itself to being forgiven (CCC 2838–2845; cf. Matthew 6:14–15). Forgiving does not mean feeling no hurt, or pretending the wrong did not happen. It means handing the debt over to God and praying for the one who hurt you.
"And lead us not into temptation." God does not tempt anyone to sin (James 1:13). The original sense is closer to "do not let us enter into temptation" and "do not let us give in to it". We ask for discernment and strength, and the Catechism notes that this petition calls for watchfulness of heart (CCC 2846–2849).
"But deliver us from evil." Evil here is not an abstraction. The Church reads it as the Evil One, Satan, who opposes God. We pray, with the whole Church, to be set free from all evils, past, present and to come, and to wait in hope for Christ's return (CCC 2850–2854).
"Amen"
Amen is a Hebrew word meaning "so be it", or "it is true". By saying it, we put our signature to everything we have asked (CCC 2856). At Mass, the Our Father is followed by a short prayer from the priest and by an ancient acclamation, "For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours now and for ever", a doxology (a short hymn of praise). Ending the prayer this way is very old: a shorter form, without "the kingdom", is already found in an early Christian handbook called the Didache (CCC 2760, 2855).
How to pray it well
Because it is so familiar, the Our Father is easy to say without praying. A few ways to keep it alive:
- Slow down. Pause after each petition. Let one line carry your attention for the day.
- Pray it at set times. On waking, at midday, before sleep. The Didache told Christians to pray it three times a day.
- Pray one petition at length. Spend ten minutes on "forgive us as we forgive", naming the people involved.
- Notice it at Mass. It stands just before Communion, as the family's prayer before the family meal (CCC 2770).
Going deeper
- What prayer is: the forms and expressions of prayer.
- Reconciliation: forgiveness received and given.
- The Our Father: a Eucharistic prayer: why the Our Father belongs to the Eucharist.
- In the Catechism: the whole commentary, CCC 2759–2865, with its short summary at CCC 2857–2865.