Our Father who art in Heaven

"Say: “Father! Father!”. And never tire repeating this word. Do you not know that every time you say it, Heaven shines because of God’s joy? If you said with true love no other word but that one, you would be saying a prayer pleasing to the Lord. “Father! Father!” the little ones say to their fathers. It is the first word they say: “Mother, father”. You are the little children of God. I created you from the old man you were and whom I destroyed by means of My love to give birth to the new man, the Christian. Call, therefore, the Most Holy Father Who is in Heaven, with the first word that little children learn."

Wording:

• Latin: Pater noster qui es in cælis:
• English: 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, stated:

"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."

In the work of 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:

"'Our Father'.

I call Him: “Father”. Father of the Word, Father of the Incarnate. That is how I want you to call Him because you are all one with Me, if you remain in Me. Once man had to prostrate himself with his face on the ground to whisper, trembling with fear: “God!” He who does not believe in Me and in My word is still in such paralyzing fear… Watch the interior of the Temple. Not God, but the very remembrance of God is concealed from the eyes of the faithful by a triple veil. He who prays is separated by remoteness and veils, everything has been devised to say to him: “You are mud. He is Light. You are contemptible. He is Holy. You are a slave. He is King”.

But now!… Stand up! Come near Me! I am the Eternal Priest. I can take you by the hand and say: “Come”. I can grasp the veils and draw them, and thus throw open the inaccessible place closed so far. Closed? Why? Closed by Sin, yes. But even more closed by the dispirited thought of man. Why closed if God is Love, if God is Father? I can, I must, I want to take you not into the dust, but into the azure; not far, but near; not as slaves, but as children onto the heart of God.

Say: “Father! Father!”. And never tire repeating this word. Do you not know that every time you say it, Heaven shines because of God’s joy? If you said with true love no other word but that one, you would be saying a prayer pleasing to the Lord. “Father! Father!” the little ones say to their fathers. It is the first word they say: “Mother, father”. You are the little children of God. I created you from the old man you were and whom I destroyed by means of My love to give birth to the new man, the Christian. Call, therefore, the Most Holy Father Who is in Heaven, with the first word that little children learn."

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:

"Let us pray: Our Father, Who are in Heaven, may Your Name be held holy by all mankind! To know it is to set out towards holiness. Let Gentiles and heathens become aware of Your existence, O Holy Father, and let them come to You, Father, like the three wise men in days gone by but not inert, because nothing pertaining to the coming of the Redemption of the world is inert, let them come to You guided by the Star of Jacob, by the Morning Star, by the King and Redeemer of the stock of David, by Your Anointed Son, Who has already been offered and consecrated to be the 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:

"Jesus stretches out His arms in His usual attitude of prayer and intones: «Our Father Who art in Heaven.»

He stops and comments:

«That He is a Father is proved to you by the fact that He has forgiven you. You, obliged to be perfect more than anybody else, you, who have received so many favours, and so, as you say, unsuited for the mission, which Lord, who were not your Father, would not have punished you? I have not punished you. The Father has not punished you. Because the Son does what the Father does, because the Father does what the Son does, as we are one only Divinity united in Love. I am in the Father, and the Father is with Me. The Word is always near God, Who is without beginning. And the Word is before all things, since always, since an eternity named always, since an eternal present near God, and is God like God, being the Word of the divine Thought.

So, when I shall have gone, and in this manner you will pray our, My, your Father, whereby we are brothers, I the first-born, you, the younger brothers, be always willing to see also Me in My Father and yours. Be willing to see the Word, Who was “the Master” for you, and loved you even to accepting death and beyond death, leaving Himself to you in food and drink, so that you may be in Me and I in you as long as the exile lasts, and then you and I in the Kingdom, for which I taught you to pray, saying: “Thy Kingdom come”, after you have implored that your work may sanctify the Name of the Lord, giving Him glory on Earth and in Heaven. Yes. There would be no Kingdom for you in Heaven, the Kingdom for those who will believe like you, if first you did not want the Kingdom of God in yourselves through the real practice of the Law of God and of My word, which is the perfectioning of the Law, having given, in the time of Grace, the Law of the chosen ones, that is, 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 "sons and daughters of the Most High" and calls us to remember it in all situations, even "burdened by the consideration of his human nothingness", for love must be stronger than fear.

"'Our Father, who art in heaven'.

O Maria! Only my love could tell you, 'Say "Our Father."' By this expression I publicly invested you with the sublime title of sons and daughters of the Most High and brothers and sisters of mine. If someone, burdened by the consideration of his human nothingness, may doubt that he is a child of God, created in his image and likeness, on considering these words of mine, he can no longer doubt. The Word of God does not err and does not lie. And the Word tells you, 'Say "Our Father."'

"To have a father is something sweet and a powerful aid. In the material order, I wanted to have a father on earth to protect my existence as a baby, as a boy, and as a young man. By this I wanted to teach you-both children and fathers-how great the moral figure of the father is. But to have a Father of absolute perfection, as the Father in Heaven is, is the sweetness of sweetnesses, the aid of aids. Look at this Father-God with holy fear, but let grateful love for the Giver of life in heaven and on earth always be stronger than fear."

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 of the Catholic Church

§ 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).

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.