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.
Matthew, chapter 6
1: "Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
2: "Thus, when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
3: But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,
4: so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
5: "And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
6: But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
7: "And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words.
8: Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
9: Pray then like this: Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
10: Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.
11: Give us this day our daily bread;
12: And forgive us our debts, As we also have forgiven our debtors;
13: And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil.
14: For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you;
15: but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
16: "And when you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
17: But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face,
18: that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
19: "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal,
20: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.
21: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
22: "The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light;
23: but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
24: "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
25: "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
26: Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
27: And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life?
28: And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin;
29: yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30: But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O men of little faith?
31: Therefore do not be anxious, saying, `What shall we eat?' or `What shall we drink?' or `What shall we wear?'
32: For the Gentiles seek all these things; and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
33: But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.
34: "Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day.
The Catholic Encyclopedia
Robert Appleton Company
The Lord's Prayer
Although the Latin term oratio dominica is of early date, the phrase "Lord's Prayer" does not seem to have been generally familiar in England before the Reformation. During the Middle Ages the "Our Father" was always said in Latin, even by the uneducated. Hence it was then most commonly known as the Pater noster. The name "Lord's prayer" attaches to it not because Jesus Christ used the prayer Himself (for to ask forgiveness of sin would have implied the acknowledgment of guilt) but because He taught it to His disciples. Many points of interest are suggested by the history and employment of the Our Father. With regard to the English text now in use among Catholics, we may note that this is derived not from the Rheims Testament but from a version imposed upon England in the reign of Henry VIII, and employed in the 1549 and 1552 editions of the "Book of Common Prayer". From this our present Catholic text differs only in two very slight particulars: "Which art" has been modernized into "who art", and "in earth" into "on earth". The version itself, which accords pretty closely with the translation in Tyndale's New Testament, no doubt owed its general acceptance to an ordinance of 1541 according to which "his Grace perceiving now the great diversity of the translations (of the Pater noster etc.) hath willed them all to be taken up, and instead of them hath caused an uniform translation of the said Pater noster, Ave, Creed, etc. to be set forth, willing all his loving subjects to learn and use the same and straitly commanding all parsons, vicars and curates to read and teach the same to their parishioners". As a result the version in question became universally familiar to the nation, and though the Rheims Testament, in 1581, and King James's translators, in 1611, provided somewhat different renderings of Matthew 6:9-13, the older form was retained for their prayers both by Protestants and Catholics alike.
As for the prayer itself the version in St. Luke, xi, 2-4, given by Christ in answer to the request of His disciples, differs in some minor details from the form which St. Matthew (vi, 9-15) introduces in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, but there is clearly no reason why these two occasions should be regarded as identical. It would be almost inevitable that if Christ had taught this prayer to His disciples He should have repeated it more than once. It seems probable, from the form in which the Our Father appears in the "Didache" (q.v.), that the version in St. Matthew was that which the Church adopted from the beginning for liturgical purposes. Again, no great importance can be attached to the resemblances which have been traced between the petitions of the Lord's prayer and those found in prayers of Jewish origin which were current about the time of Christ. There is certainly no reason for treating the Christian formula as a plagiarism, for in the first place the resemblances are but partial and, secondly we have no satisfactory evidence that the Jewish prayers were really anterior in date.
Upon the interpretation of the Lord's Prayer, much has been written, despite the fact that it is so plainly simple, natural, and spontaneous, and as such preeminently adapted for popular use. In the quasi-official "Catechismus ad parochos", drawn up in 1564 in accordance with the decrees of the Council of Trent, an elaborate commentary upon the Lord's Prayer is provided which forms the basis of the analysis of the Our Father found in all Catholic catechisms. Many points worthy of notice are there emphasized, as, for example, the fact that the words "On earth as it is in Heaven" should be understood to qualify not only the petition "Thy will be done", but also the two preceding, "hallowed be Thy name" and "Thy Kingdom come". The meaning of this last petition is also very fully dealt with. The most conspicuous difficulty in the original text of the Our Father concerns the inter pretation of the words artos epiousios which in accordance with the Vulgate in St. Luke we translate "our daily bread", St. Jerome, by a strange inconsistency, changed the pre-existing word quotidianum into supersubstantialem in St. Matthew but left quotidianum in St. Luke. The opinion of modern scholars upon the point is sufficiently indicated by the fact that the Revised Version still prints "daily" in the text, but suggests in the margin "our bread for the coming day", while the American Committee wished to add "our needful bread". Lastly may be noted the generally received opinion that the rendering of the last clause should be "deliver us from the evil one", a change which justifies the use of "but" in stead of "and" and practically converts the two last clauses into one and the same petition. The doxology "for Thine is the Kingdom", etc., which appears in the Greek textus receptus and has been adopted in the later editions of the "Book of Common Prayer", is undoubtedly an interpolation.
In the liturgy of the Church the Our Father holds a very conspicuous place. Some commentators have erroneously supposed, from a passage in the writings of St. Gregory the Great (Ep., ix, 12), that he believed that the bread and wine of the Eucharist were consecrated in Apostolic times by the recitation of the Our Father alone. But while this is probable not the true meaning of the passage, St. Jerome asserted (Adv. Pelag., iii, 15) that "our Lord Himself taught His disciples that daily in the Sacrifice of His Body they should make bold to say 'Our Father' etc." St. Gregory gave the Pater its present place in the Roman Mass immediately after the Canon and before the fraction, and it was of old the custom that all the congregation should make answer in the words "Sed libera nos a malo". In the Greek liturgies a reader recites the Our Father aloud while the priest and the people repeat it silently. Again in the ritual of baptism the recitation of the Our Father has from the earliest times been a conspicuous feature, and in the Divine Office it recurs repeatedly besides being recited both at the beginning and the end.
In many monastic rules, it was enjoined that the lay brothers, who knew no Latin, instead of the Divine office should say the Lord's Prayer a certain number of times (often amounting to more than a hundred) per diem. To count these repetitions they made use of pebbles or beads strung upon a cord, and this apparatus was commonly known as a "pater-noster", a name which it retained even when such a string of beads was used to count, not Our Fathers, but Hail Marys in reciting Our Lady's Psalter, or in other words in saying the rosary.
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