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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. Pope Benedict's Reflections on the Our Father in his book “Jesus of Nazareth“. Summary by Father Seán Heaney, P.P. Pope Benedict has recently published a book entitled Jesus of Nazareth, where he relates Jesus Christ to our own times, and outlines how he thinks we should understand his presence in our lives. This is a work on which the Pope has laboured over many years before he became Pope, and he now has published his first volume of what is intended to be a larger work. This volume covers the public ministry of Jesus from the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration. His intention is to deal in later volumes with the Infancy of Jesus, and His Passion Death and Resurrection. In his first Volume he covers many of the miracles of Jesus, many of his sermons and his prayer. Central to his prayer was the Our Father, and it is on this universal prayer that we will focus in the coming weeks, hoping to the best of our ability to reflect the thoughts of the Holy Father. In introducing this treatise on the Lord’s Prayer the Pope Benedict has interesting reflection on the nature of prayer. St. Matthew introduces the Lord’s Prayer with a few warnings against false forms of prayer. Firstly it must not be an occasion for showing off before others. Rather prayer must have a discretion that is essential to the nature of love. We must be aware of God’s personal love for each of us, but also realise that there is a community aspect to prayer. This is the very reason why the Lord’s Prayer uses the plural “we” or “us” throughout. The second false from of prayer is the “chatter, the verbiage, that smothers the spirit.” Our relationship with God should not be momentary asking or thanksgiving, but should “be present as the bedrock of our souls” Prayer really is being in silent inward communion with God. In the mind of the Pope, everything that happens in our lives should be related to the permanent presence of God with us. The Our Father is always a prayer of Jesus, and communion with him is what opens up this prayer for us.. We pray to the Father in heaven whom we know through his Son. And that means that Jesus is always in the background during the petitions, as we will see more clearly as we go through the petitions in the weeks ahead. “Our Father who art in heaven” In his reflection on the Our Father Pope Benedict begins with a quotation which says: “The Our Father begins with a great consolation: we are allowed to say “Father”. This one word contains the whole history of redemption. We are allowed to say “Father” because the Son was our brother and has revealed the Father to us; because, thanks to what Christ has done, we have become once more the children of God. The problem for very many people today is that their experience of fatherhood is in many cases either completely absent or obscured by inadequate examples of fatherhood. We must therefore allow Jesus to teach us what father really means. For Jesus, father is the source of all good, the measure of perfection of all people. “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good” The love that the father has for us and endures to the end. Christ fulfilled that love on the Cross by praying for his enemies. We call God “father” because he is the source of all love, and in the Lord’s Prayer Jesus invites us to become children of this all-loving Father. We should reflect on the parts of the New Testament where Jesus elaborates on the Fathers love and generosity. “If you, then, who are evil, know how to give your children what is good, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” “If you then, who are evil, know how to give your children what is good, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!'” The gift that God gives us is the gift of himself, and this means that prayer is really a recognition of this truth. God’s gift of himself to us is the “one thing necessary”. Prayer is a way of gradually purifying and correcting our wishes and of slowly coming to realise what we really need: God and his Spirit. Read more here: Christmas Charity Concert at Campo Santo, Vatican. Sarah Ego (Eliyo) is singing the “Our Father / Pater noster“ in Aramaic, the mother tongue of Jesus. Thank you for supporting my youtube channel:
