IN BRIEF

2797 Simple and fait hful trust, humble and joyous assurance are the proper dispositions for one who prays the Our Father.


2798 We can invoke God as ‘Father’ because the Son of God made man has revealed him to us. In this Son, through Baptism, we are incorporated and adopted as sons of God.

2799 The Lord’s Prayer brings us into communion with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. At the same time it reveals us to ourselves (cf GS22~1).

2800 Praying to our Father should develop in us the willto become like him, and foster in us a humble and trusting heart.

2801 When we say ‘Our’ Father, we are invoking the new covenant in Jesus Christ, communion with the Holy Trinity, and the divine love which spreads through the Church to encompass the world.

2802 ‘Who art in heaven’ does not refer to a place but to God’s majesty and his presence in the hearts of the just. Heaven, the Father’s house, is the true homeland toward which we are heading and to which, already, we belong.


Article 3

THE SEVEN PETITIONS

2803 After we have placed ourselves in the presence of God our

I Father to adore and to love and to bless him, the Spirit of adoption 2627

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stirs up in our hearts seven petitions, seven blessings. The first

three, more theologal, draw us toward the glory of the Father; the last four, as ways toward him, commend our wretchedness to his grace. ‘Deep calls to deep.’6~ 2804 The first series of petitions carries us toward him, for his own sake: thy name, thy kingdom, thy will! It is characteristic of love to think first of the one whom we love. In none of the three petitions do we mention ourselves; the burning desire, even anguish, of the beloved Son for his Father’s glory seizes us:6~ ‘hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done...’ These three supplications were already answered in the saving sacrifice of Christ, but they are henceforth directed in hope toward their final fulfilment, for God is not yet all in all.6~
2805 The second series of petitions unfolds with the same movement as certain Eucharistic epicleses: as an offering up of our 1105