The Lord's Prayer, also called the Our Father, is the prayer that Jesus himself taught his disciples. One day, after watching Christ pray, one of them asked: “Lord, teach us to pray”[1]. Jesus answered with the few lines that billions of Christians have repeated for twenty centuries, in every language on earth.
Two Evangelists record it: Saint Matthew, who places it at the heart of the Sermon on the Mount and gives seven petitions, and Saint Luke, who transmits a shorter form with five petitions[2]. The Church's liturgy retained Matthew's version. The prayer begins with an invocation—“Our Father who art in heaven”—then presents three petitions concerning God (his Name, his Kingdom and his Will) and four concerning us (bread, forgiveness, temptation and evil).
At the beginning of the third century, the African theologian Tertullian gave it an enduring definition: the Lord's Prayer is “the summary of the whole Gospel”[3]. The Christian faith is concentrated in these few words: God is Father, his Kingdom is coming, and the human person is a child who depends on him for bread, forgiveness and salvation. Saint Thomas Aquinas went further still, calling it the most perfect of prayers[4].
This article examines the prayer's Gospel origin, its text and each petition, its interpretation from the Fathers of the Church to the Catechism, the change made to its French translation in 2017, and its enduring place as a school of filial trust and at the heart of Catholic worship.
The prayer Jesus taught
“Lord, teach us to pray”
The Lord's Prayer did not arise from human reflection about prayer: it was given. Saint Luke preserves the precise setting. Jesus was praying “in a certain place”; when he had finished, a disciple approached him: “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples”[5]. The request is revealing. Religious groups in first-century Judaism—Pharisees, Essenes and the disciples of John—had prayers that marked their identity. By asking for “their” prayer, the disciples were asking Jesus to give them an identity.
Christ's reply is strikingly restrained. Where contemporary piety could multiply formulas, Jesus had warned a few verses earlier in Matthew not to imitate pagans who “babble” and imagine they will be heard “because of their many words”[6]. The Father “knows what you need before you ask him”[7]. The Lord's Prayer is therefore the opposite of empty verbosity: a short, ordered prayer in which every word matters.
“This, then, is how you should pray: Our Father in heaven…” — Gospel according to Saint Matthew 6:9[8]
The Catechism stresses that Jesus does not leave us “a formula to repeat mechanically”. Through these words, the Holy Spirit teaches the children of God to pray to their Father[9]. Reciting the Lord's Prayer is not activating a formula; it is entering the prayer of the Son himself.
Two versions: Matthew and Luke
The two surviving texts are not identical, and the Church has never concealed the difference. Matthew, writing for Christians of Jewish origin, gives an ample, liturgical form with seven petitions; Luke, addressing communities of Greek culture, transmits a concentrated form with five. To explain the passages Matthew and Luke share without their appearing in Mark, part of contemporary exegesis proposes the so-called “double tradition” hypothesis: simply put, both Evangelists are thought to have drawn on a now-lost common source, the “Q source” (from German Quelle, “source”). This reconstruction remains a hypothesis: no manuscript of this source has ever been found, and it requires setting aside other explanations — direct contact between the Evangelists, or their shared fidelity to apostolic preaching. This question is examined in the article on the Synoptic Gospels.
| Element | Matthew 6:9-13 | Luke 11:2-4 |
|---|---|---|
| Invocation | “Our Father in heaven” | “Father” |
| The Name | “Hallowed be your name” | “Hallowed be your name” |
| The Kingdom | “Your kingdom come” | “Your kingdom come” |
| The Will | “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” | (absent) |
| Bread | “Give us today our daily bread” | “Give us each day our daily bread” |
| Forgiveness | “Forgive us our debts…” | “Forgive us our sins…” |
| Temptation | “Lead us not into temptation” | “Lead us not into temptation” |
| Evil | “Deliver us from evil” | (absent) |
Far from being a defect, this double transmission is a gift: it shows that the Church received not a frozen magical formula but a living prayer, already adapted to two audiences in the apostolic age. “The liturgical tradition of the Church has retained Saint Matthew's text”[10] because it is more complete; Luke's shorter form reminds us that the essential can be said in very few words.
A Jewish prayer—and a radically new one
Every petition of the Lord's Prayer is rooted in the Old Testament and the prayer of Israel. Commentators compare the opening — “hallowed be your name, your kingdom come” — with the Kaddish, the Aramaic prayer of the synagogue proclaiming “may his great Name be magnified and sanctified… and may he establish his reign”[11]; the request for bread recalls the manna given in the desert (Ex 16)[12]; forgiveness of “debts” evokes the release of the jubilee year (Lv 25)[13]. These are points of comparison, not quotations: the Lord's Prayer is profoundly rooted in Jewish prayer, and the Catholic Church teaches that Israel's Scriptures are “fulfilled,” not abolished, in it[14].
Yet one word changes everything: “Father.” Jesus does not teach his disciples to use the word merely as a distant metaphor for divine transcendence; he gives them a share in his own relationship with the Father. In his own prayer, he uses the Aramaic Abba — the word with which a child addresses his father in intimate trust, often rendered, for want of a better word, as “papa” — in the garden of Gethsemane, where Saint Mark preserves the Aramaic word itself: “Abba… Father”[15]. Saint Paul witnesses that the Spirit of the Son places the same cry on the lips of the baptized:
“You received the Spirit of adoption, through whom we cry, ‘Abba, Father!’” — Saint Paul, Letter to the Romans 8:15[16]
To dare to call God “our Father” is therefore not a courtesy. The Catechism calls it the “free gift” of adoption, a gift that reveals us to ourselves as children of God[17]. This is the radical newness: Christ teaches humanity to address God with the familiarity of children.
The text and the prayer's name
“The Lord's Prayer”: the prayer that comes from the Lord
The traditional Latin name oratio dominica means the Lord's Prayer: it bears this name “because it comes to us from the Lord Jesus, the master and model of our prayer”[18]. Its authority is unique. It is not merely a prayer about Jesus, but the prayer of Jesus entrusted to his Church.
The Catechism presents it as “the fundamental Christian prayer” and the “prayer of the Church par excellence”[19]. It is handed to catechumens as they prepare for Baptism in the ancient rite called the traditio orationis dominicae, the “handing on” of the Lord's Prayer[20]. Together with the Creed, it belongs to the deposit solemnly entrusted to future Christians: belief and prayer are inseparable.
The seven petitions at a glance
Matthew's structure is clear, and the Fathers noticed it early. After “Our Father who art in heaven” come two groups of petitions. The first three concern God: “your” Name, “your” Kingdom and “your” Will. The last four present human needs: “our” bread, “our” trespasses, temptation and evil[21].
| No. | Petition | Focus | What it asks |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hallowed be thy name | God | That his holiness be acknowledged and glorified |
| 2 | Thy kingdom come | God | The definitive coming of the Kingdom |
| 3 | Thy will be done | God | The fulfilment of his plan of salvation |
| 4 | Give us our daily bread | Us | Bodily necessities and the Bread of Life |
| 5 | Forgive us our trespasses | Us | Mercy, bound to the forgiveness we offer |
| 6 | Lead us not into temptation | Us | Strength and discernment in spiritual combat |
| 7 | Deliver us from evil | Us | Victory over the Evil One and every evil |
The Catechism summarizes the order: the first three petitions concern “the glory of the Father”; the last four present our wants to him[22]. This order matters. Jesus teaches us to seek “first the kingdom of God and his righteousness”[23] before presenting our needs. Christian prayer begins with adoration, not petition.
“The summary of the whole Gospel”
Tertullian, Cyprian and Origen: the first commentaries
No prayer has inspired more commentary. At the beginning of the third century, Tertullian devoted the earliest Christian treatise on prayer, De oratione, to the Our Father. He coined the phrase repeated throughout tradition: breviarium totius Evangelii, “the summary of the whole Gospel”[24]. Every teaching of the Lord, he says, is concentrated in its petitions.
“The Lord's Prayer is truly the summary of the whole Gospel.” — Tertullian, De oratione, ch. 1, c. AD 200[25]
A generation later, Saint Cyprian of Carthage continued this meditation in De dominica oratione (c. 250), emphasizing its communal character: we say “our” Father, never merely “my” Father, because Christian prayer belongs to a whole people[26]. In the East, Origen composed his major treatise On Prayer, which sheds particular light on temptation[27]. These works founded an unbroken tradition: Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, Maximus the Confessor and Thomas Aquinas all commented on the prayer.
Saint Thomas Aquinas: the most perfect prayer
In the thirteenth century, Saint Thomas Aquinas argued that the Lord's Prayer is “the most perfect” of all prayers. Prayer expresses our desires before God, but we should desire only what it is right to ask. Because the Our Father contains everything rightly desired, and in the proper order, it governs not merely our petitions but our desires themselves[28]. Thomas supports his argument with Saint Augustine's words to the widow Proba:
“Whatever else we may say, we say nothing other than what is contained in this prayer of the Lord, if we pray rightly and fittingly.” — Saint Augustine, Letter 130 to Proba, c. 412[29]
Every authentic Christian prayer is therefore a variation on the Our Father. A person may ask for countless things according to need, but the Lord's Prayer remains the foundation and measure of every other desire[30].
A prayer that shapes the whole Christian life
This centrality is practical as well as theological. The Lord's Prayer became a framework for Catholic catechesis. The Roman Catechism of 1566 and the Catechism of the Catholic Church of 1992 rest on four pillars: what the Church believes (the Creed), celebrates (the sacraments), lives (the commandments) and prays. The work culminates in a petition-by-petition commentary on the Our Father[31].
The Sermon on the Mount and the Lord's Prayer correspond as doctrine and prayer: “The Sermon on the Mount is teaching for life, the Our Father is a prayer; but in both the one and the other the Spirit of the Lord gives new form to our desires”[32]. Whoever wishes to understand what Christianity asks us to believe and live can meditate on these seven petitions.
The first three petitions: for the Father's glory
“Our Father who art in heaven”
Everything begins with a relationship. We can invoke God as Father only “because he is revealed to us by his Son” and made known by the Spirit[33]. The word “our” expresses communion rather than possession. In saying it, Christians leave individualism behind, since they cannot pray to the Father without bringing all their brothers and sisters before him[34]. Despite Christian divisions, this prayer remains the common good of all the baptized and an urgent summons to unity[35].
The words “who art in heaven” describe not a place but a way of being: not a God remote in space, but the God whose majesty surpasses every image and who is present in the hearts of the just[36]. “Heaven” is the mystery of God and the homeland toward which we journey.
“Hallowed be thy name”
How could human beings “hallow” God's Name when God is holiness itself? Here the verb is not primarily causative, as though we made God holy, but expresses recognition: we ask that his Name be acknowledged as holy, treated as holy and glorified[37]. This hallowing depends “inseparably on our life and our prayer”: according to whether Christians live holy lives, God's Name is blessed or blasphemed among the nations[38].
The petition therefore makes a demand upon us. By praying “hallowed be thy name,” believers commit themselves not to dishonour by their lives the God whom they confess. Holiness sought for the Name becomes holiness sought for ourselves.
“Thy kingdom come”
The second petition is a cry of hope. The Kingdom is not first a terrestrial organization but God's reign, inaugurated by Christ and awaited in fullness. The Church sees here “principally the final coming of the reign of God through Christ's return”[39]. It is the cry of the Spirit and the Bride, the early Christian Marana tha: “Come, Lord Jesus!”[40].
Yet the Kingdom also “comes” now whenever a heart lets itself be seized by God. To pray “thy kingdom come” is to ask both for the world's final transformation and for the quiet growth of grace in the present.
“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”
The third petition crowns the first group. “Our Father desires all men to be saved”[41]: asking that his will be done does not mean submitting to blind fate, but uniting ourselves to the plan of salvation God pursues for humanity. Christ is the model. At Gethsemane he places his human will in the Father's hands:
“My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will.” — Gospel according to Saint Matthew 26:39[42]
It is “in Christ, and through his human will,” the Catechism teaches, that the Father's will was perfectly fulfilled[43]. To pray “thy will be done” is to ask that our wills be united with his Son's, so that his plan of salvation may be fulfilled in the life of the world[44].
This petition is the seed of a whole spiritual tradition. The Catechism reads in it the union of our will with that of the Son “to fulfil his plan of salvation in the life of the world”[45]: this is doing God's will — two wills, ours submitted to his, in obedience. The spirituality of the Divine Will, received by Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta in the Book of Heaven, sees a further step here: no longer merely doing God's will, but living in the Divine Will — a single will, his own acting in us as it reigns in heaven[46]. The third petition thus contains the highest programme of Christian holiness.
The last four petitions: for our needs
“Give us this day our daily bread”
With the fourth petition, the prayer turns to human needs. “Give us” expresses “the beautiful trust of children who look to their Father for everything”[47]. The request is concrete. It first concerns the food necessary for everyone's subsistence[48], and it creates responsibility: the presence of those who hunger reveals another depth of the petition[49]. We cannot sincerely pray for “our” bread while ignoring a neighbour's hunger.
One Greek word has intrigued every commentator: epiousios, rendered “daily.” The term occurs nowhere else in the New Testament and was perhaps coined to translate Jesus' expression[50]. Tradition has therefore preserved several complementary meanings.
| Reading of epiousios | Meaning | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| Temporal | “for today” | Unreserved trust, day by day |
| Qualitative | “necessary for life” | Everything sufficient for subsistence |
| Literal | “super-substantial” | The Bread of Life, the Eucharist, Christ's Body |
| Heavenly | “bread of the coming Day” | A foretaste of the Kingdom's banquet |
Saint Jerome perceived this density so clearly that he translated the same word differently in each Gospel: “daily” (quotidianum) in Luke, but “supersubstantial” (supersubstantialem) in Matthew[51]. The Fathers recognized a direct reference to the Eucharist, the “medicine of immortality” in Saint Ignatius of Antioch's phrase[52]. The Catechism summarizes this reading, following Saint Augustine:
“The Eucharist is our daily bread. The power belonging to this divine food is a force of unity: it unites us to the Body of the Saviour and makes us his members so that we may become what we receive.” — Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2837, after Saint Augustine, Sermon 57[53]
“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive…”
The fifth petition is, in the Catechism's word, “astonishing.” It contains a formidable condition: the flood of divine mercy cannot penetrate our heart while we have not forgiven those who trespass against us[54]. The word “as” inseparably binds forgiveness received to forgiveness offered. This is the only petition on which Jesus comments immediately afterward: “If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you”[55].
This surpasses unaided human strength—impossible for man, but possible for God[56]. Forgiveness is not forced forgetting. It is the Spirit's work, turning injury into compassion and purifying memory by transforming offence into intercession[57]. Saint Cyprian likewise teaches that God does not accept the sacrifice of those who sow division but sends them from the altar to be reconciled first[58].
“Lead us not into temptation”
The sixth petition reaches the root of sin, because faults arise from consent to temptation. The Catechism distinguishes between a trial, which can strengthen the inner person, and temptation, which leads to sin and death[59]. “God… tempts no one”[60]: he never incites sin. The petition therefore implores the Spirit of discernment and strength, asking that we not take the path that leads to a fall[61].
“God does not want to impose what is good; he wants free beings. […] Temptation has a certain usefulness. Everyone except God is unaware of what our soul has received from God—even we ourselves. But temptation reveals it, so that we may learn to know ourselves, and thereby discover our misery, and be compelled to give thanks for the goods that temptation has revealed to us.” — Origen, On Prayer, ch. 29, quoted by the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2847[62]
The petition becomes clearer in light of the temptations of Jesus in the desert and his agony: Jesus conquers the Tempter through prayer[63]. In the garden, he warns his disciples: “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation”[64]. The Our Father joins us to Christ's own combat.
“But deliver us from evil”
The seventh petition crowns the prayer. In the Greek, “evil” is not merely an abstraction; it also designates a person, ho ponēros, the Evil One, Satan, the angel who opposes God[65]. The petition echoes Jesus' own prayer for his disciples: “I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one”[66]. The victory has already been won—the ruler of this world is cast out[67]—but it must unfold fully until the end of time.
In asking to be delivered from the Evil One, we also pray to be freed from every evil, past, present and future, of which he is the author or instigator[68]. At Mass the priest extends the petition in the embolism: “Deliver us, Lord, we pray, from every evil, graciously grant peace in our days…” as the Church awaits the coming of Jesus Christ.
“Lead us not into temptation”: the 2017 French translation
What changed and why
For half a century, French-speaking Catholics prayed a formula that translates literally as “Do not submit us to temptation.” Used from 1966, it created a real theological difficulty: read literally, it could suggest that God himself subjects people to temptation, despite Scripture's explicit affirmation that “God tempts no one” (James 1:13). The Greek verb εἰσενέγκῃς (eisenegkēs, “to bring in, lead into”) means rather “do not bring us in, do not let us enter”: the petition asks God not to abandon us in a trial in which we would succumb[69].
| Before (1966-2017) | Since 3 December 2017 |
|---|---|
| “Do not submit us to temptation” | “Do not let us enter into temptation” |
| Could suggest action by God toward evil | Emphasizes God's protection and accompaniment |
| Difficult to reconcile with James 1:13 | Conforms to the Greek verb and Catholic doctrine |
The new formula was established within the complete French liturgical translation of the Bible, received by Rome and published in 2013, then introduced into the Missal. It states what the Catechism already taught: we ask God not to allow us to take the way that leads to sin[70].
The timetable for implementation
The change entered use gradually across the French-speaking Catholic world. In France, the bishops set its introduction for the First Sunday of Advent, 3 December 2017[71]. In Belgium and Benin, the new translation had already been introduced at Pentecost 2017[72]. In Switzerland, where introduction had initially been planned for Advent 2017 as in France, it was postponed to Easter 2018, to allow joint adoption with the Reformed Churches of French-speaking Switzerland and the Evangelical Network[73]. French-speaking Protestants likewise prepared for the change: as early as 2015, the Protestant Lutheran-Reformed Communion had the question studied, followed by the 2017 synods[74]. The Lord's Prayer thus remains, in the Catechism's words, the common good of the baptized[75].
The doxology: “for thine is the kingdom…”
A very ancient liturgical ending
Many Christians conclude the Lord's Prayer with a doxology, a formula of praise: “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever.” This ending is no late invention. A closely related form appears in the Didache around AD 100, the earliest surviving manual of Christian life. It directs believers to recite the Our Father “three times a day” and concludes: “For yours is the power and the glory for ever”[76]. The Apostolic Constitutions later added “the kingdom,” yielding the received form[77].
“Do not pray like the hypocrites… but as the Lord commanded in his Gospel, pray thus: Our Father in heaven… Three times a day, pray in this manner.” — Didache, ch. 8, c. AD 100[78]
The Catechism explains that this praise resumes the first three petitions—the Name, Kingdom and Will—now in the form of adoration and thanksgiving. The ruler of this world had falsely attributed kingship, power and glory to himself; Christ restores them to the Father[79].
Why it is not part of the Gospel text
The doxology does not occur in the earliest manuscripts of Matthew. It is liturgical in origin, added very early by the praying Church rather than by the Evangelist. In the Catholic rite it is therefore slightly separated from the body of the prayer: at Mass, the assembly says it after the priest's embolism. The Lord's Prayer proper ends with “deliver us from evil”; the doxology is the Church's response, returning everything to God after asking everything from him. The final word is Amen, our fiat to the seven petitions[80], as Saint Cyril of Jerusalem explained to the newly baptized[81].
The Lord's Prayer in the life of the Church
At the heart of the Mass
The Our Father occupies a strategic place in the Eucharistic liturgy. It is prayed after the Eucharistic Prayer and before Communion, as immediate preparation to receive Christ's Body. The Catechism gives two reasons: “daily” bread receives its fullest Eucharistic meaning, and the petition for forgiveness prepares the faithful to approach the holy mysteries with reconciled hearts[82]. Prayed by the whole assembly in one voice, it manifests that the Church is one body addressing one Father.
Praying three times a day: an apostolic habit
The Didache directed Christians to pray the Our Father three times a day[83], a rhythm inherited from Jewish prayer and adopted by the earliest communities. The practice never disappeared. The prayer occurs in the Liturgy of the Hours, the Rosary, morning and evening prayer, and prayers for the dying. Every Christian knows it by heart. It is taught to children and whispered when no other words come.
The Church of the Pater Noster in Jerusalem
On the Mount of Olives, where a tradition locates Jesus' teaching of the prayer, stands the Church of the Pater Noster. Its cloisters are famous: the prayer appears on ceramic panels in a great many languages — from French to Chinese, from Aramaic to braille. The place makes visible what the prayer has become: the common good of redeemed humanity, one prayer rising to one Father in all the languages of the earth.
Beyond vain repetition: inhabiting the prayer
The best-known prayer can become mechanical. Jesus warned against empty repetition[84]. Spiritual masters repeatedly taught that one attentive Our Father is worth more than a hundred distracted recitations. Saint Teresa of Ávila describes contemplatives so close to their King that “an hour passes in saying the Pater a single time”[85]. The Lord's Prayer is not a formula to dispatch but a dwelling to inhabit: each petition can sustain a lifetime of prayer.
Further reading
The Lord's Prayer is inseparable from the other pages of Jesus' life and teaching:
- The Sermon on the Mount — the great discourse in which Matthew places the Lord's Prayer.
- The Beatitudes — the opening of the Sermon and a teaching for life corresponding to the prayer.
- The Synoptic Gospels — to understand the Synoptic question concerning Matthew and Luke.
- Jesus' agony in Gethsemane — where Christ lives his “thy will be done” to the end.
- The temptations of Jesus in the desert — the background to “lead us not into temptation.”
- The Divine Will and Luisa Piccarreta — a spiritual deepening of “on earth as it is in heaven.”
- The Catechism of the Catholic Church — whose fourth part (nos. 2759-2865) comments on every petition.
Notes and References
Gospel according to Saint Luke 11:1-4. A disciple's request—“Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples”—provides the setting in which the prayer is handed on. See Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2759.
1 5Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2759: Saint Luke gives a brief text of five petitions and Saint Matthew a version of seven; “the liturgical tradition of the Church has retained Saint Matthew's text.” Official text on vatican.va.
2 10Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2761, quoting Tertullian, De oratione, 1: “The Lord's Prayer is truly the summary of the whole Gospel.”
3 25Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 83, a. 9: the Lord's Prayer is the most perfect because it asks for everything rightly desired, in the order in which it should be desired.
4 28Gospel according to Saint Matthew 6:7: “In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words.”
6 84Gospel according to Saint Matthew 6:8: “Do not be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”
7Gospel according to Saint Matthew 6:9-13. The version retained by the Church's liturgical tradition.
8Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2766: Jesus does not give a formula to repeat mechanically; through God's Word, the Holy Spirit teaches God's children to pray to their Father.
9Kaddish, an Aramaic prayer of synagogue liturgy proclaiming “may his great Name be magnified and sanctified… and may he establish his reign.” The comparison with the opening of the Lord's Prayer is that of commentators, by way of echo, not as a cited source.
11Book of Exodus, ch. 16: the manna given daily in the desert. A traditional comparison made by commentators for the petition for bread, by way of echo, not as a quotation.
12Book of Leviticus, ch. 25: the jubilee year, with release of debts and liberation. A comparison proposed by commentators for the petition for forgiveness of “debts,” by way of echo, not as a quotation.
13Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2763: all the Scriptures are fulfilled in Christ; the Lord's Prayer is the summary of the Gospel.
14Gospel according to Saint Mark 14:36: at Gethsemane Jesus prays “Abba, Father,” the Aramaic Abba expressing unique filial intimacy.
15Saint Paul, Letter to the Romans 8:15: “You received the Spirit of adoption, through whom we cry, ‘Abba, Father!’” See also Galatians 4:6.
16Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 2783-2784: in the Lord's Prayer we are revealed to ourselves as the Father is revealed to us; the free gift of adoption requires continual conversion.
17Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2775: it is called the Lord's Prayer because it comes from the Lord Jesus, master and model of prayer.
18Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2776: the Our Father is “the prayer of the Church par excellence” and belongs to the principal hours of the Divine Office and the sacraments of Christian initiation.
19Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2769: in Baptism and Confirmation, the traditio of the Lord's Prayer signifies new birth into divine life.
20Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 2803-2804: after the invocation come two groups of petitions, first concerning God and then presenting our needs.
21Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2857: the first three petitions concern the Father's glory; the other four present our wants so that our life may be nourished or healed.
22Gospel according to Saint Matthew 6:33: “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.”
23Tertullian, De oratione (On Prayer), ch. 1, early third century (c. AD 200): the first Christian treatise on prayer, in which the Our Father is defined by the Latin formula breviarium totius Evangelii, “the summary of the whole Gospel” — a formula taken up by the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2761. No more precise dating is established; “c. AD 200” is the usually accepted dating.
24Saint Cyprian of Carthage, De dominica oratione (On the Lord's Prayer), c. 250: a major patristic commentary emphasizing the communal character of “our” Father rather than “my” Father.
26Origen, On Prayer (Peri Euchēs), ch. 29 (c. 233): a major treatise on Christian prayer. The English rendering quoted in the article is that given by the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2847, on the usefulness of temptation for self-knowledge.
27 62Saint Augustine, Letter 130 to Proba, ch. 12, § 22 (c. 412): “Quamlibet alia verba dicamus… nihil aliud dicimus quam quod in ista dominica oratione positum est, si recte et congruenter oramus” (“whatever else we may say, we say nothing other than what is contained in this prayer of the Lord, if we pray rightly and fittingly”). Saint Thomas Aquinas takes up this passage in a free form: “we can say nothing other” (Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 83, a. 9).
29Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2762: each person may address prayers to heaven according to need, but always beginning with the Lord's Prayer, which remains the fundamental prayer.
30Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2761 and its four-part structure (Creed, sacraments, commandments and prayer), inherited from the Roman Catechism (1566). Part Four culminates in the commentary on the Lord's Prayer.
31Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2764: “The Sermon on the Mount is teaching for life, the Our Father is a prayer.”
32Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2780: Christians can invoke God as Father because the incarnate Son reveals him and the Spirit makes him known.
33Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2792: praying “Our Father” in truth draws us out of individualism.
34Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2791: despite Christian divisions, prayer to “our” Father remains a common good and an urgent call to unity.
35 75Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 2794-2795: “who art in heaven” indicates not a place but a way of being; God is beyond all and present in the heart of the just.
36Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2807: “hallowed” is understood not primarily in a causative sense but as acknowledging and treating as holy.
37Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2814: the hallowing of God's Name among the nations depends inseparably on Christian life and prayer.
38Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2818: the petition chiefly concerns the final coming of God's reign through Christ's return, without excluding the Kingdom's growth today.
39Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2817: this petition is the Marana tha, the cry of the Spirit and the Bride: “Come, Lord Jesus.”
40Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2822, citing 1 Timothy 2:3-4: the Father's will is that all should be saved and come to knowledge of the truth.
41Gospel according to Saint Matthew 26:39: Jesus' prayer at Gethsemane—“not as I will, but as you will.” See Luke 22:42.
42Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2824: in Christ and through his human will, the Father's will has been perfectly fulfilled once for all.
43Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2860: in the third petition, we ask the Father to unite our will to his Son's for the fulfilment of his plan of salvation.
44 45Book of Heaven, writings of Luisa Piccarreta (1865-1947), a laywoman of Corato (Apulia), in 36 volumes: Jesus distinguishes the human holiness of doing God's will from life in the Divine Will, in which the divine Will itself acts in the creature. A private revelation received with discernment, not to be confused with the Magisterium's teaching recalled in the body of the article.
46Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2828: “Give us” expresses the beautiful trust of children who look to their Father for everything.
47Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2861: “our bread” means earthly food necessary to all and also the Bread of Life, God's Word and Christ's Body.
48Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2831: those who hunger reveal another depth of this petition and engage Christian responsibility.
49Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2837: epiousios has no other New Testament occurrence; understood literally as “super-essential,” it signifies the Bread of Life and Christ's Body, the “medicine of immortality” (Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians, 20:2).
50 52Saint Jerome, Vulgate (c. 390-405): renders epiousios as supersubstantialem (“supersubstantial”) in Matthew 6:11 — “Panem nostrum supersubstantialem da nobis hodie” — but as quotidianum (“daily”) in Luke 11:3 — “Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis cotidie” — signalling the Greek term's irreducible richness.
51Saint Augustine, Sermon 57, 7 (PL 38, 389), c. 410, on daily bread understood of the Eucharist. The wording quoted in the article is that of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2837, building on this sermon: a “force of unity” joining us to the Saviour's Body, “so that we may become what we receive.”
53Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2840: the outpouring of mercy cannot penetrate our hearts while we have not forgiven those who trespass against us.
54Gospel according to Saint Matthew 6:14-15: “If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you.” This is the only petition Jesus immediately develops.
55Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2841: this is the only petition on which Jesus immediately comments; what is impossible to man is possible to God.
56Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2843: a heart offered to the Holy Spirit turns injury into compassion and purifies memory by transforming offence into intercession.
57Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2845, quoting Saint Cyprian, De dominica oratione, 23: God sends those who sow division from the altar so that they may first be reconciled.
58Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2847: the Spirit enables discernment between a trial needed for inward growth and temptation leading to sin and death.
59Letter of Saint James 1:13: “No one experiencing temptation should say, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God is not subject to temptation to evil, and he himself tempts no one.”
60Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2846: the Greek means both “do not allow us to enter into temptation” and “do not let us yield to temptation”; God frees us from evil rather than leading us into it.
61 69 70Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2849: through prayer Jesus conquers the Tempter, from the desert to the agony, and unites us to his battle.
63Gospel according to Saint Matthew 26:41: “Watch and pray that you may not undergo the test. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
64Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2851: evil in this petition is not an abstraction but designates Satan, the Evil One, the angel who opposes God.
65Gospel according to Saint John 17:15: Jesus' priestly prayer—“I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one.” See Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2850.
66Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2853: victory over the ruler of this world was won once for all when Jesus freely gave himself up to death.
67Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2854: asking deliverance from the Evil One also asks freedom from every evil of which he is author or instigator; the Roman Missal's embolism develops the petition.
68French Bishops' Conference, decision of the 2017 spring plenary assembly: the new French wording of the Our Father (“Do not let us enter into temptation”) took effect on the First Sunday of Advent, 3 December 2017, within the liturgical Bible translation received by Rome in 2013. Sources: CEF statements and press kit (eglise.catholique.fr, December 2017).
71National Catholic Reporter, November 2017 (Tom Heneghan): the bishops of Belgium and Benin introduced the new Our Father wording at Pentecost 2017 (“introduced the new Our Father wording at Pentecost”). Pentecost 2017 fell on 4 June 2017.
72Swiss Bishops' Conference (French-speaking COR), statement following the meeting of 16 March 2018 (eveques.ch): a presentation leaflet for the new formula, published jointly with the Conference of Reformed Churches of French-speaking Switzerland, distributed in the vicariates — adoption coordinated with the Reformed. National Catholic Reporter, November 2017 (Tom Heneghan): French-speaking Swiss Catholics began using it at Easter 2018 (“will start using it next Easter”).
73Union of Protestant Churches of Alsace and Lorraine (UEPAL), assembly of 18 November 2017 in Strasbourg, report “À propos du Notre-Père”: as early as June 2015, the Protestant Lutheran-Reformed Communion (CPLR) had the new wording studied by two theologians with a view to coordinated adoption.
74Didache (Teaching of the Twelve Apostles), ch. 8:2-3, c. AD 100: the earliest manual of Christian life directs believers to recite the Lord's Prayer three times daily and concludes it with the doxology “For yours is the power and the glory for ever.” See Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2760.
76 78 83Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2760: liturgical use very early concluded the Lord's Prayer with a doxology; Didache 8:2 mentions power and glory, while Apostolic Constitutions 7:24:1 adds the kingdom.
77Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2855: the doxology resumes the first three petitions as adoration and thanksgiving; Christ restores kingship, power and glory to the Father.
79Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2865: by the final Amen we express our fiat concerning the seven petitions.
80Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2856, quoting Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, Mystagogical Catecheses, 5, 18: the final Amen ratifies what is contained in the prayer God taught.
81Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 2770-2771: in the Eucharistic liturgy the Lord's Prayer appears as the prayer of the whole Church and reveals its full eschatological and Eucharistic meaning.
82Saint Teresa of Ávila, The Way of Perfection, ch. XXXI, within her commentary on the Our Father (chs. XXVII-XLII depending on the edition, c. 1566): describing the contemplatives close to their King, she writes that “an hour passes in saying the Pater a single time.”
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