The Our Father — the prayer Jesus Himself taught us
Of all the prayers of the Christian tradition, only one was given to us by Jesus Christ Himself. The disciples saw Him at prayer often, and one day they asked Him: “Lord, teach us to pray.” He answered them with the words we still pray today — the Our Father, the Pater Noster, the Lord’s Prayer.
It is a complete prayer in seven petitions. To pray it slowly is to pray everything the Christian heart needs to say.
Where the prayer comes from
The Our Father is recorded in two places in the Gospels. The longer form, the one we pray most often, is in the Sermon on the Mount, in the Gospel of Matthew (6:9-13). A shorter version appears in the Gospel of Luke (11:1-4), where one of the disciples specifically asks Jesus to teach them to pray “as John taught his disciples.”
The earliest Christians prayed the Our Father three times a day — a practice the Didache, a first-century Christian manual, simply takes for granted. By the time of the great liturgies of the East and West, the prayer was at the heart of every Mass, every Liturgy of the Hours, every personal devotion. It has not stopped being prayed since.
The words of the prayer
The Catholic English translation prayed in the Rosary and at Mass is:
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.
A walk through the seven petitions
Our Father, who art in heaven — we begin by remembering who God is, and who we are: not orphans, but children. He is in heaven, but He is also ours.
Hallowed be thy name — before we ask anything for ourselves, we ask that God’s name be honored. The first prayer of the heart is praise.
Thy kingdom come — we ask for the reign of God to break in: in the world, in the Church, in our own hearts.
Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven — we surrender our own preferences. The angels in heaven do God’s will perfectly. We ask for that obedience here, where it is harder.
Give us this day our daily bread — the simplest petition. Bread enough for today. Not next year. Not yesterday. Today.
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us — we tie God’s forgiveness of us to our forgiveness of others. Of all the petitions, this is the one Jesus expanded on most after teaching the prayer.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil — we are weak. We ask to be kept from the trials that would break us, and to be delivered from the Evil One who would rejoice in our fall.
How the Our Father is prayed
In the Rosary, the Our Father is prayed at the beginning of each decade — six times in a complete five-decade Rosary, on the larger beads.
At Mass, the whole congregation prays the Our Father together just before Communion, often with hands raised or joined.
In the Liturgy of the Hours — the daily prayer of the Church, prayed by clergy, religious, and many lay people — the Our Father is prayed in the morning and evening offices.
In private prayer, the Our Father is the simplest and most universal form of Christian prayer. Saint Teresa of Avila said that one Our Father, prayed slowly, is enough for the soul to become a saint.
A small reflection
When you pray the Our Father, you are praying with the voice of Jesus Himself. Every word He gave you. Every word the Church has prayed for two thousand years. You are joining a great river of praying voices — and you are coming home.
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