Communion Rite: The Lord’s Prayer

The Lord’s Prayer was taught by Jesus himself as recorded in the gospels of both Matthew and Luke. It has been used in the Mass throughout the centuries. Before we say the Lord’s Prayer, the priest notes what a privilege it is for us to be able to talk to God in this way. He says, “At the Savior’s command and formed by divine teaching, we dare to say...”

The “Our Father” has traditionally been divided into seven petitions. The first three focus on God and the last four focus on our needs.

· Petition # 1: “Hallowed be thy name.” We pray that God’s name be hallowed; that God and his name may be recognized and treated as holy.

· Petition #2: “Thy kingdom come.” We pray that God’s reign will be adopted throughout the world in all peoples’ hearts, beginning with our own.

· Petition #3: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” We pray that all on Earth may worship God and obey his will in the same way.

· Petition #4: “Give us this day our daily bread.” Daily bread in this petition refers to our daily needs. This petition also has Eucharistic overtones as the prayer for daily bread points to the Bread of Life we are about to receive in Holy Communion.

· Petition #5: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We ask God to forgive our sins and to purify us that we may be holy tabernacles for Jesus who will soon dwell within us. We are also challenged to forgive those who have sinned against us and to be reconciled with them.

· Petition #6: “Lead us not into temptation.” This petition is a request that God not allow us to enter into temptation in the sense of giving in to it. Saint Paul said, “God ... will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but ... (He) will provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it.”

· Petition #7: “Deliver us from evil.” We are asking the Father to deliver us from Satan, from all his lies, works, and entrapments.

After we complete the Our Father, the priest elaborates on the last petition by asking the Lord to free us from sin and distress. He asks God to deliver us from all anxieties that keep us from experiencing the peace God wants to give us, and ends with a quote from Paul’s letter to Titus, “As we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.”

We then respond to the priest’s prayer by praising God, “For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever.” This prayer is sometimes known as the Protestant ending of the Lord’s Prayer. It is not a part of the prayer Jesus taught us, so fittingly it is not included in the Our Father we recite during the Mass. However, the prayer does have biblical roots and finds an appropriate home at this moment in our Mass. These

words are derived from King David’s praise of God at the end of his reign as he humbly recognizes that all the good that came through his kingship came from God.

In summary, the Lord’s Prayer might be a routine prayer that we learned from childhood and simply repeat each time we attend Mass. Yet it should not be taken for granted. After all, Jesus gave us this prayer from his lips and his heart directly to ours as a way to live our lives. So, today when we recite the Our Father, let us thank God for this wonderful prayer and consecrate our lives to living up to its ideals.