Viewpoints
Our Father
By +Oscar V. Cruz JCD
“Our Father Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name;
Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against us;
And leave us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
(Matthew 6:9-13)
The Prayer has the pre-eminent distinction of having the following signal particular that are worth nothing and remembering in order to appreciate it more, to love it much, and to say it often with devotions and delight:
One: The Prayer has the Lord Jesus Himself as its unique Author. In fact, it is the one and only Prayer that has Christ Himself as its direct origin. This being the truth, there is no other prayer in the Church for all centuries past and those yet to come, that is as precious and exalted as the our prayer”.
Two: The Prayer cannot but be perfection in thoughts and contents, in expression and formulation. This makes the Prayer a most precious bequeath of the Lord Jesus to all followers – who are thus all His most fortunate – – some two thousand years ago and counting.
Three: The Prayer provides the blueprint of how people should relate and address God in terms of “Our Father”. This apparently simple title readily means that the relationship between God and people is like Father and children, in additions to the teaching that He is their common father.
Four: The Prayer clearly forwards the following basic teachings in praying to god by the following order, viz., firstly. He must be acknowledge and praised, and only thereafter should he be asked for something that man really needs and/or sincerely longs for, as promoting his good or welfare.
Five: The Prayer is exceptionally kind and truly generous in the sense that anyone at all who says it, automatically prays for everybody else – with the repeated use of terms “our” and “us” – with “I”, “me” and “mine” having no place therein. In other words, someone who is egoistic and selfish should abstain from saying the Prayer.
Thus it is the “Our Father” is the Prayer that is translated into all known languages all over the globe, that is said by all Christian faithful irrespective of color and race, and that is place at the very center of the most sublime liturgical act in the universal Church, i.e., the Holy mass that is celebrated around the clock, around the world!
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