The Lord's Prayer, commonly known as the "Our Father," is known said so often that we can forget how extraordinary it is to call the Creator of the Universe "Abba." "Thy Kingdom Come" means that we pray for his will, not ours....
The Fatherhood of God has come under fire with the rise of feminism. If we know that God is pure spirit who transcends male and female, masculine and feminine, why preserve what some believe to be the antiquated, patriarchal practice of referring to the divinity...
St. Teresa of Avila's comments on the Lord's Prayer, specifically, on the petitions "Hallowed be thy Name" and "Thy Kingdom Come." The excerpt is from her book The Way of Perfection....
This post on the Lord's Prayer comes from one of the earliest treatises on the Our Father, written around AD 240 by Cyprian of Carthage. It discusses one of the three pillars of Lenten penance, namely, the importance and power of prayer....
Augustine here comments on the meaning of each of the petitions of the Our Father. If we do not use the exact words of the Lord's Prayer when we pray, all that we do say ought to be inspired by its spirit....
The parable of the merciless servant illustrates the meaning of "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us," a petition included in the Lord's Prayer. Anger can be righteous, but when we let it harden into resentment it becomes...
Cyprian begin's his commentary on the Lord's Prayer by analyzing the first line: Our Father. We do not pray as individuals, but in common, as a family, since we are all children of the same Father....
Cyprian prepares to analyze the Our Father by reflecting upon the basic attitude of humility necessary if prayer is to please God, reflecting upon the example of Hannah, mother of Samuel, and the story of the Publican and the Pharisee told by the Lord Jesus....
The beginning of Cyprian's treatise on the Lord's Prayer, the Our Father. He emphasizes how complete yet concise this prayer is, and how it represents a participation in the intimate relationship of unity between the Father and God the Son....
St. Cyprian, a pagan convert who went on to become bishop of Carthage in the 3rd Century, gives us one of the earliest and most extensive commentaries on the Lord's Prayer, aka the "Our Father." Here is the complete text of his treatise....