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2766 But Jesus does not give us a
formula to repeat mechanically.4 As in every vocal
prayer, it is through the Word of God that the Holy Spirit
teaches the children of God to pray to their Father. Jesus
not only gives us the words of our filial prayer; at the
same time he gives us the Spirit by whom these words become
in us spirit and life.5 Even more, the
proof and possibility of our filial prayer is that the
Father sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts,
crying, Abba! Father! Since our prayer
sets forth our desires before God, it is again the Father,
he who searches the hearts of men, who
knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the
Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of
God.7
the Son and of the Spirit.
2767 This indivisible gift of the
Lords words and of the Holy Spirit who gives life to
them in the hearts of believers has been received and lived
by the Church from the beginning. The first communities
prayed the Lords Prayer three times a day,8 in
place of the Eighteen Benedictions customary
inJewish piety. 2768 According to
the apostolic tradition, the Lords Prayer is
essentially rooted in liturgical prayer:
[The Lordi teaches us to make prayer in common for all
our brethren. For he did not say my Father who
art in heaven, but our Father, offering
petitions for the common Body.9 In all the liturgical traditions, the Lords
Prayer is an integral part of the major hours of the Divine
Office. In the three sacraments of Christian initiation its
ecciesial character is especially in evidence:
2769 In Baptism and Confirmation, the handing on
(traditio) of the
tian prayer is our speaking to God with the
very word of God, those who are born anew. .
.through the living and abiding word of God2°
learn to invoke their Father by the one Word he always
hears. They can henceforth do so, for the seal of the Holy
Spirits anointing is indelibly placed on their hearts,
ears, lips, indeed their whole filial being. This is why
most of the patristic commentaries on the Our Father are
addressed to catechumens and neophytes. |
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