Our Father who art in heaven’ (CCC2779-2793)
Posted on December 22nd 2009 in The catechism explained
The ability to exclaim ‘Father’ requires a purification of all images drawn from the world, and our own personal and cultural history. This helps answer the unjust criticism that to use the title ‘Father’ is an exercise in patriarchy. The Church is specifically rejecting all created categories, and all attempts to turn God into an idol. To pray to the Father is to enter the mystery of a living relationship, since only Jesus Christ, the Son, has made this relationship known. The depths of the relationship remain unknown but the Holy Spirit has allowed an entry into this mystery. The prayer then becomes a communion with the Trinity. This communion recognises that the first aspect of the Our Father is adoration of God as God, before supplication, since He has caused us to be reborn in Baptism and thus adopted us as sons and daughters. In this way the prayer of the Our Father reveals our new self-identity, along with that of God.
The outcome of this prayer is that every Christian should desire to become more like Christ. The Book of Genesis describes Adam and Eve as being originally created in the ‘image and likeness’ of God. After the Fall they kept the ‘image’ but lost the ‘likeness’ which can now only be regained through grace received within the new relationship expressed by the prayer of the Our Father. There is also the need to become trusting like ‘little children’, because it is to them that Jesus promises to reveal the secrets of the kingdom of God.
The expression ‘our’ does not denote possession, but that the promises made in the Old Testament are fulfilled in Christ and, being His people, we may say ‘Our’ God. The prayer also expresses our hope in God’s ultimate promise, and in the unity of all Christians, since the prayer is that of the Church. The ‘our’, like the ‘us’ at the end of the prayer, excludes no-one and does not admit of division. It therefore becomes the prayer of mission, to encourage all men and women to accept the dominion of ‘Our Father’.