Our Father who art in Heaven

"Father! Father!" say this word and do not tire of saying it. Do you not know that every time you say it, Heaven shines with the joy of God? If you only said this word, with true love, you would already be offering a pleasing prayer to the Lord. "Father! My father!" say little children to their father. It is the first word they say: "Mother, father." You are the little children of God. I generated you from the old man you were. This old man, I destroyed by my love, to bring forth the new man, the Christian. So call by the name that little children know first the Most Holy Father who is in Heaven."

Evolution of the wording:

• Latin: Pater noster qui es in cælis:
• Before 1966: Our Father, who art in heaven,
• Current: Our Father, who art in heaven,

"Our Father"

In his general audience of Wednesday, January 16, 2019, Pope Francis, continuing his catechesis on the Our Father, states: "The prayer seems to want to get to the heart of the matter, to the point of being summarized in a single word: Abba, Father." The power of this invocation was highlighted by the Apostle Paul who twice gives God the affectionate name Abba An "invocation in which the whole newness of the Gospel is concentrated." In it "there is a power that pulls along all the rest of the prayer." And he insists on this bond of affection that God already proclaims through the mouth of Isaiah: you are precious in my eyes, you are honored and I love you. Do not fear, for I am with you.

"God seeks you even if you do not seek Him, continues the Pope in his catechesis. God loves you even if you have forgotten Him. God sees a worth in you even when you think you have uselessly wasted all your talents [...] For a Christian, to pray is simply to say 'Abba,' 'Dad,' 'Daddy,' to say 'Father' but with the trust of a child. We too may at times walk on paths far from God, as happened to the prodigal son; or sink into loneliness that makes us feel alone in the world; or err and be paralyzed by a sense of guilt. In these difficult moments, we can still find the strength to pray, starting again from this word, 'Father,' pronouncing it with the tenderness of a child [...] Never forget to say 'Father.' Thank you."

"Who art in Heaven"

"Our Father is not 'elsewhere,' He is 'beyond all' that we can conceive of His Holiness. It is rightly understood that these words 'Our Father who art in Heaven' refer to the heart of the just, where God dwells as in His temple (CCC § 2794).

In Maria Valtorta

To the Apostles

When Jesus gives the Our Father to His Apostles on the occasion of the second Passover. It is Thursday, March 30, 28 (17 Nissan 3788). In two years it will be the Last Supper. He does this in Gethsemane, facing the Temple. From the outset, He emphasizes the filial adoption of those who pray. An adoption that resonates as the change of Covenant: God is no longer the terrible God of Sinai, but a loving Father. Jesus is the mediator of this covenant of love: EMV 203.6 :

"Our Father." I call Him "Father." He is the Father of the Word, the Father of Him who became incarnate. This is how I want you to call Him because you are one with Me if you remain in Me. There was a time when man had to prostrate himself to sigh amidst the fears of terror: "God!" He who does not believe in Me nor in My word is still in this paralyzing fear...

Look inside the Temple. Not only God, but even the remembrance of God is Hidden from the eyes of the faithful by a triple veil. Separation by distance, separation by the veils, everything was taken and applied to say to him who prays: "You are mud. He is Light. You are abject. He is Holy. You are slave. He is King."

"But now!... Get up! Come closer! I am the Eternal Priest. I can take you by the hand and say to you: 'Come.' I can seize the folds of the veil and open them, throwing wide open the inaccessible place so far closed. Closed? Why? Closed because of Sin, Yes, but even more tightly closed by man's lowly thought. Why closed if God is Love, if God is Father? I can, I must, I want to lead you not into dust but into the azure; not afar but very near; not as slaves, but as sons on the Heart of God. "Father! Father!" say this word and do not tire of saying it. Do you not know that every time you say it, Heaven shines with the joy of God?

If you only said this word with true love, you would already be offering a pleasing prayer to the Lord. "Father! My father!" say little children to their father. It is the first word they say: "Mother, father." You are the little children of God. I engendered you from the old man you were. That old man I destroyed by my love to bring forth the new man, the Christian. So call by the name that little children know first the Most Holy Father who is in Heaven."

To believers

One year later, Tuesday, March 7, 29 (5 Adar II 3789), Jesus teaches in the Temple, at the portico of Solomon, where Jews and proselytes are present. The Our Father transforms: it is no longer a teaching to the Apostles, but a priestly prayer (prayer said by Jesus or by the priest). It is a call to the universality of believers from all horizons. Its language uses many religious codes: In EMV 364.7 :

"Let us pray: Our Father who art in Heaven, may your Name be sanctified by all Humanity! To know Him is to walk towards sanctity. Make gentiles and pagans acknowledge your existence, O Holy Father, and, like the three wise men of a distant but not inert time, for nothing is inert that relates to the advent of Redemption in the world, let them come to God, to You, Father, guided by the Star of Jacob, by the Morning Star, by the King and Redeemer of the race of David, by Him whom You have anointed, already offered and consecrated to be Victim for the sins of the world."  

The prayer of the Risen One

On Sunday, April 14, 30 (25 Nissan 3790), the risen Jesus appears for the second time to the Apostles (Salton John XXX). Thomas has joined them. From the Cenacle where they were standing, Jesus takes them to Gethsemane, where two years before He gave them the gift of the Our Father. He will recite the Lord’s prayer one last time, giving it a testamentary dimension:

"Our Father who art in Heaven.” He (Jesus) pauses and comments in EMV 630.21 :

“He is Father; He gave you proof by forgiving you. You, held more than all to perfection, you, who received so many Blessings and, as you say, so unfit for the Mission, what lord who was not a Father would not have punished you? I did not punish you. The Father did not punish you. For what the Father does, the Son does; for what the Son does, the Father does; for We are one Divinity united in Love. I am in the Father, and the Father is with Me. The Word is always near God who is without origin. And the Word is before all things, forever, since an eternity named 'forever,' since an eternal present near God, and He is God as God, for He is the Word of the divine Thought.

So when I have gone, praying thus Our Father, mine and yours, by whom we are brothers, I the firstborn, you the younger, do always see Me also in my Father and yours. See the Word who for you was the Master and loved you unto death and beyond death, leaving Himself to you as food and drink so that you are in Me and I in you as long as exile lasts, and then you and I in the Kingdom for which I taught you to pray: "Let Your Kingdom come" after invoking it so that your works sanctify the Name of the Lord by giving Him glory on Earth and in Heaven. Yes. There would be no Kingdom for you in Heaven, no Kingdom for those who will believe as you do, if first you had not willed the Kingdom of God in you through the 'real' practice of the Law of God and of My word which is the perfection of the Law having given, in the time of Grace, the Law of the elect, that is, that of those who are beyond the civil, moral, religious constitutions of the Mosaic time, already in the spiritual Law of the time of Christ.(...)"

For our time

 In his dictation of July 7, 1943, Jesus recalls our election as "children of the Most High" and calls us to remember it in all situations, even "crushed by the consideration of one's human nullity," for love must be stronger than fear.

"Our Father who art in Heaven." Oh! Maria! Only my love could have invited you to say: "Our Father." By this expression, I publicly invested you with the sublime title of children of the Most High and of my brothers and sisters. If someone, crushed by the consideration of his human nullity, doubts being the son of God, created in his image and likeness, he "can no longer" doubt thinking of this word of mine. "The Word of God does not err nor lie." And the Word invites you to say: "Our Father." It is a sweet thing and a great help to have a father. In the material order, I wanted to have a father on earth to protect my existence as a baby, child, young man. I wanted thereby to teach you, sons as much as fathers, how great the moral figure of the father is. But to have a Father of absolute perfection, such as the Father who is in Heaven, is the sweetness of sweetness, the help of helps. Look at this Father-God with holy fear, "but let love always be stronger than fear," a grateful love to the giver of life on earth and in heaven."   

For further reading

• Our Father
• 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
• Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us
• Lead us not into temptation
• But deliver us from evil

In the Catechism

§ 2795 - The symbol of the heavens refers us to the mystery of the Covenant we live when we pray Our Father. He is in heaven; it is His Dwelling, the Father's House is therefore our "Homeland." It is from the land of the Covenant that sin exiled us, and it is towards the Father, towards heaven, that the conversion of the heart makes us return. Now it is in Christ that heaven and earth are reconciled because the Son "descended from heaven" alone, and He makes us rise with Him through His Cross, Resurrection, and Ascension. § 2796 - When the Church prays "Our Father who art in Heaven," she professes that we are the People of God already "seated in the heavens with Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:6).

The Gospel as it was revealed to me (Maria Valtorta).

Persons of non-Israelite origin who renounce their beliefs to join Judaism.

Place located in Jerusalem where Jesus celebrated Passover with his Apostles and instituted the Eucharist on the eve of his death (from Latin cenaculum: dining room). This place became the first Church at the request of the Virgin Mary.