“Our Father in heaven”

Jesus establishes our relationship with our God from the very beginning of the prayer he taught us.  He is our Father; we are his children.  As an ever deeper indication that Christ desires to share the depths of his intimacy with the Trinity we have his words “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (John 20.17).  Not only does Christ, in time, take on our human nature forever, thus binding us to himself in profound communion, he even takes us by the hand and says to us, “let us go to our Father and our God” as a brother would say, for that, too, is what he desired to be for us.  Unspeakable mystery!  Furthermore, he redeemed us, forgives us, destroys our sins, and gives us his own flesh and blood for food, his Word to enlighten our minds and bring us joy and the ability to praise.  “All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in him.”

“hallowed be your name”

May you receive the worship that is your due, from us, from our communities and all creation.

“Your kingdom come”

Not ours.

“Your will be done”

Spoken as if it is not automatically always done, for indeed, it is not done in regard to us who have our own will, unless we ask for it.  How much these words speak!  Christ does not command us to fulfill ourselves according to our own desires and will, which is precisely what the world tells, us.  He tells us to pray that the Father’s will be accomplished in us.

“on earth as it is in heaven”

The Father’s will is accomplished perfectly in heaven, with the angels and all the elect living and carrying it out constantly.  To pray that the Father’s will be accomplished on earth in this same manner seems extraordinarily optimistic and wishful.  Yet we know that it is possible and an aim for which to pray or else we wouldn’t have been taught to.  This, then, is vocation.  This is high hope and extraordinary dignity; to consider that it is possible for the Father’s will to be accomplished in us, in our daily lives, struggles, failures and joys just as that will is accomplished in the heavenly realms.  What, then, is man’s dignity having learned all this.

“Give us this day our daily bread”

Following directly on the heels of the prior prayer, we now know how this mystery of the Father’s will being accomplished in conjunction with our own is possible: by our daily bread.  And what is that daily bread?  “I have food to eat which you do not know.  Doing the will of my Father is my food.”  So that which enables us to accomplish his will is to do it, in small matters building up to larger.  “If you cannot be trusted in small matters, who will trust you with larger?”  “To the one who has, more will be given.”

Let us be like the angels, adoring before the eternal Word.  When the Word, or she who is Queen of the Angels and always acts perfectly on her Son’s behalf, turn to an angel with a request, with ardent longing and joy their attention and will leap forward to hear it, and then they fly with the swiftest haste and joy to accomplish it.  And it will be accomplished!  Yet some angels remain before the throne in adoration.  Does one messenger angel envy another adoration angel?  Unthinkable!  Is an adoration angel jealous of the commands given to a messenger angel?  Unimaginable!  “Follow me, Peter.”  “Lord, what about John?”  “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?  Follow me!” (John 21.22)  So it is clear that it is the Father’s will that we, like the angels, have different stations and that in no way are we to look at another and question God’s will for them, or to feel envy or jealousy or indignation.  The Father’s will for each of us is our bread and sole desire.

This daily bread is also God himself, both in the Eucharist as Christ’s own body and blood, and the Holy Spirit, for “the Holy Spirit is given to those who ask.”

We come, then, upon the mystery of our relationship with the Trinity which Christ invites us to: our bread is our God – the Father, through the accomplishing of his will, the Holy Spirit, given to those who ask, the Son, whose body and blood sustain us, and whose Word is given by the Father, become incarnate in the Son, received by us with the light and understanding of the Holy Spirit.

All of these mysteries and infinitely more we are commanded to pray for daily in Christ’s succinct prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread.”  In “this day” it is clear that we are commanded to pray daily.  In “daily bread” it is clear that there is a special and unique portion of the above-mentioned bread for each of us each day.  But because of our free wills, which are now errant and astray since the fall, we must continually ask for it.  When our wills are completely united with His, like the angels, we will no longer need this prayer.  Our bread will not be forced upon us, for our freedom will still be intact, but we will be so united to Him that our will shall be purely the accomplishment of His.  The mere contemplation of this happy day fills the soul with yearning, which in itself is an indicator of what was meant to be the true and original state of things, and makes us cry out “your kingdom come.”

“I set myself to carry out your will in fullness, forever.” (Psalm 119.112)