My dear Parishioners,
Peace! There are nineteen (19) In Brief articles in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which treat the Lord’s Prayer or “Our Father.” The following reflection considers CCC, 2776.
The Lord’s Prayer is the prayer of the Church par excellence. While many saints throughout the history of the Church have composed lovely prayers, none eclipses the “Our Father” given us by the Lord Himself. The Church is the mystical body of Christ, on Earth, in Purgatory and in Heaven. On Earth we pray the Lord’s Prayer as He has taught us. We pray for the holy souls in Purgatory that they might receive their final reward. In Heaven we will not pray the Lord’s Prayer so much for ‘our daily bread’ as for those who are still on the way. In Heaven we will praise eternally the holiness of the Father’s Name.
The Lord’s Prayer in an intrinsic part of Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer in the Divine Office or Liturgy of the Hours. The Liturgy of the Hours is not only for monks and nuns, Religious Brothers and Sisters, bishops and priests and deacons. All of the Christian faithful are called to be a people of prayer and the Liturgy of the Hours is, after the Holy Mass, the prayer of the Church without compare. While ideally prayed in common, together with others, some people even pray the Liturgy of the Hours at home alone (although in the Communion of Saints we are never really alone). Of the various moments in the Liturgy of the Hours, the two hinges or principle ‘hours’ are Morning and Evening Prayer, both of which include the Lord’s Prayer. The Lord’s Prayer follows the intercessions and precedes the concluding prayer with which Mother Church highlights the liturgical season or saint of the day.
The Lord’s Prayer is an intrinsic part of the Sacraments of Christian Initiation. While we do not repeat Baptism or Confirmation we do receive the third Sacrament of Christian Initiation, Eucharist or Holy Communion, more than once, even daily. Whenever we pray the Lord’s Prayer we are reminded of the divine adoption we have received the saving waters of Baptism. We call God our Father in the Holy Spirit who is poured out upon us abundantly in Confirmation. We receive our supersubstantial food, the bread come down from Heaven as a fulfilment of the Lord’s Prayer.
Prayed in the context of the Eucharistic sacrifice, the eschatological character of the Lord’s Prayer is made clear: we hope in the Lord ‘until He comes’ (1 Corinthians 11:26). We pray the Lord’s Prayer at Holy Mass after the eucharistic consecration, when Christ Himself is sacramentally, really, substantially, physically present upon the Altar. He has come as a babe in Bethlehem. He has come in the Sacrament of the Altar. As we pray the Lord’s Prayer we long for His return in glory, even as He strengthens us by His grace in prayer and sacrament.
God bless you!
Father John Arthur Orr