"Baptism" A Catechesis that makes Sense
“Our Father”
Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples. Jesus said, when you pray, say, “Father, hallowed be 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 not subject us to the final test.” (Lk 11: 1 - 4).
We should have a thorough understanding of each attribute Jesus told to his disciples when telling them how to pray. For instance; Our Father sets a question as to whom “our" pertains to. Is Our Father just our spiritual father or does Jesus include himself? However, since Jesus is God Incarnated he may not include himself. On the other hand, now he also is human and he depends upon the needs of humanity being addressed as a man.
Give us our daily bread; using a footnote for Matthew 6: 11, the word may have an eschatological inference as a future occurrence. Therefore this is used only in Luke 11: 3 and Matthew 6: 11.
Forgiving others should be a mandate as the prayer states, but here there is a problem that continues to intrigue us when forgiving some people becomes almost impossible for a few. The word few can become a nuance when people reciting this prayer overlook the real meaning of the words to forgive.
In some interpretations of the Lord’s prayer the words ”lead us not into temptation” confuses many people when they think that God is somehow doing the tempting. When any culture or ancient languages are translated it is easy to misunderstand or use words in the new language that mean the same from antiquity. Somewhere there may be no proper way to keep the same meaning for words being copied to a new language. We find that in some languages one word may have more than one interpretation and getting it right becomes a problem for those who are the scribes.
The Lord’s Prayer “is truly the summary of the whole gospel.” Since the Lord ... .after handing over the practice of prayer, said elsewhere, “Ask and you will receive,” and since everyone has petitions which are peculiar to his circumstances, the regular and appropriate prayer (the Lord’s Prayer) is said first, as the foundation of further desires. (CCC 2761).
Run through all the words of the holy prayers (in Scripture), and I do not think you will find anything in them that is not contained and included in the Lord’s Prayer. (St. Augustine).
The Lord’s Prayer is the most perfect of prayers…In it we ask, not only for all the things we can rightly desire, but also in the sequence that they should be desired. This prayer not only teaches us to ask for things, but also in what order we should desire them. (St. Thomas Acquinas).
Ralph B. Hathaway