| Photo by Harley Pebley via Wikimedia Commons
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.
The historical Jesus Christ handed down the Lord’s Prayer when he lived over two thousand years ago. It is one of the oldest prayers he transmitted to his followers orally in simple and elegant prose. It is fully accessible to people from all walks of life, then and today. For its brevity, it’s yet the most complete prayer. Its simplicity belies its profound, transcendent import. What is striking is how it lends to ecumenical or inter-faith practice. It is recited as a confirmation or an adoration regardless of one’s faith; as long as one believes in a higher being, call Him Yahweh, Allah, Brahma, etc.
Let’s examine the prayer line by line.
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
It affirms God as a transcendent, all-encompassing concept, a Higher Being. For the first time, it addressed God as our Father, establishing humanity’s deep affinity with the Creator. Before this, God was rarely referred to as our father, except in reference to Israel as a nation. In Plotinus’ words, “The One, who is beyond all attributes including being and non-being, is the source of the universe not through any act of creation, willfully or otherwise, since activity cannot be ascribed to the unchangeable, immutable One.”
thy kingdom come; thy will be done;
on earth as it is in heaven.
God’s domain extends beyond the seen and unseen universe, “as above, so below,” and His Will, as expressed in universal law, governs all creations.
Give us this day our daily bread.
An invocation of God’s grace, the source of the energy that sustains both living and non-living things. It is also a petition to provide spiritual and material blessings to nourish the body and the soul.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
It recognizes man’s imperfections, fallibility, and susceptibility to commit intentional and unintentional offenses. And the Law of Charity requires man’s humility and capacity to forgive those who offended him as he asks God’s forgiveness for his own offenses. This line reinforces the spiritual and non-conditional nature of forgiveness and the brotherhood of man. Jesus repeated the invocation in one of his last words on the Cross.
And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil.
This is a corollary of the previous line of thought, whereby we invoke God’s Divine Will to guide our actions so that we may not reap the consequences of bad choices and ward off the influences of negative forces in our life.
Amen
As in Omm, the primordial sound of creation. The declaration of definitive finality or “so be it.”
The Lord’s Prayer affirms man’s place in the universe and his kinship with his creator. The simplicity of the prayer can easily lead one to recite it by rote without putting much thought into the act. To recite it properly, one must imbue praying with mindfulness, conscious will, and thought.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. Fernando B. Perfas is an addiction specialist who has written several books and articles on the subject. He currently provides training and consulting services to various government and non-government drug treatment agencies regarding drug treatment and prevention approaches. He can be reached at fbperfas@gmail.com.
3 comments
Congratulations, Dr. Ferdie, for writing a memorable piece about “The Lord’s Prayer.” Did you know that it is now — at my age of 77-years young and a great-grandfather of three great-granddaughters at that — the only prayer that I say? In spite of studying 12-years in three Catholic schools, as run by secular priests and the SVD Fathers (high-school), Benedictine monks (AB-Journalism) and Jesuits (college of law) and as an altar boy (from Grade IV to 4th year high school)? Why? Because the writer in me says that eventually, my memory will fade — especially when I get to be almost a centenarian. And IMHO, perhaps I can remember only one prayer before I see my sunset come. And I chose “The Lord’s Prayer.” Because it is the only prayer taught by our Redeemer. It is short and the words Jesus chose are simple to remember. Now you have written the equivalent of a layman’s imprimatur to my personal doctrine about prayers. Thank you for validating my choice. God bless you, your family and all of us, PDM columnists and staff. Amen.
Hi, Dr. Ferdie. FYI.
A church (or any place of worship of any faith) must not only be a temple for spiritual matters but also must address the basic needs of its parishioners (or members). For want of a better name, this column dubs it the “Back-to-Basics Church (or Temple or Synagogue or Mosque).”
FYI. The Bacon Parish Church (in Sorsogon, PH) is mentioned in this article as a “Parish of the Future.” (As published on Sept. 12, 2021.)
https://www.philippinedailymirror.com/can-society-not-aim-for-socioeconomic-paradise-on-earth/
You may like to write your opinion of this series on “reinventing churches,” which will soon be published as a book (both hardcopy and e-book format). It is time that we, columnists in the PDM, must join forces to publish books containing our best op-ed pieces.
And as I told you in an earlier comment posted above, I’ll include your obra-maestra of an essay about the “Lord’s Prayer” in a coming book about religion.
As I advanced in age, I notice that many of my peers have turned to religion or have become more “religious” as part of their belief system. I can only guess that the shift in perspective was influenced by an intimation of mortality, the inevitability of death that has become very real with advancing age. At the heart of this trend is the search for an answer to the question of, “What happens after we die or where do we go when the heart stops beating?” This existential question brings many to the doorsteps of faith or religion, sometimes in desperation. Even religion does not give a definitive answer, for apart from the Lord Christ, none of the people we knew that had passed on sent us an afterlife message of how it’s like to die and what lies beyond. The religious conception of death and what happens next is a matter of faith. The Christian conception of afterlife is not comforting at all, with the fires of hell for the unrepentant or being stuck in the limbo of purgatory, a hundred times over worse than getting stuck in the hellish traffic jams of Manila. If only a familiar soul from the beyond would send an electronic message describing in no uncertain terms what’s it like in the afterlife, it would allay much of our anxiety. I have a nagging feeling that the reason we would never find the answer, other than the article of faith that religion offers, is that the afterlife is beyond what we have been taught and beyond the reach of our earthly brain and mind, with all their maladies and imperfections. The best I could describe what happens in afterlife is a return to “pure consciousness,” the spark of divinity, and even this is beyond words.