by Mrs. Rita D'Souza
Jesus in giving us the “Our Father” gives us not a formula to be mechanically repeated but teaches us just to approach God, our own Daddy God or Abba Father. We are then to lift or hallow his name, praise and worship him for his holiness, for who he is, to seek his kingdom & will in our lives to bring our daily needs to him in prayer. We then pray..
“Forgive us our sins…” This refers to coming to the Lord in repentance and asking forgiveness for our sins. We may ask why this petition is placed at this point in the Lord’s Prayer and why not at the very beginning. This is because:
- The Lord does not want us to be pre-occupied with our sins and to feel condemned so that we are not able to worship him at all.
- Repentance is intended to be an immediate response after we sin. Each time we sin, our fellowship with the Lord is broken and need to immediately restore it by repenting, confessing our sin and receiving his forgiveness. We do not have to wait for our time of prayer to repent.
- After we lift the name of the Lord and worship him in his holiness, we are able to truly see our sinfulness and we are convicted (not condemned) in His love and so we then need to ask for forgiveness. (Read Luke 5:3-8 and Isaiah 6:1-6).
- When we come into his presence in prayer and still have something unconfessed weighing on our conscience, this does not mean that we have to carry it with us right through our time of worship, we can confess it, receive his forgiveness and then focus on him and not our sins.
Repentance involves:
- Acknowledging or agreeing with God about our sin. This means we take up responsibility for our sins and we call sin as sin according to the standard of God’s Word.
- Confessing our sins to the Lord. (Read 1 John 1:9). We need to be specific when confessing our sins and not only confess in general.
- Turning back or forsaking our sins. To make a clear decision not to sin against or to do those things that lead to that sin.
- Restitution – We need to wherever possible to make right the wrong done.
- Receiving his forgiveness: This is a very important part of repentance. “For Godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings regret, but worldly grief leads to death” (2 Corinthians 7:10).
“…..As we forgive those who sin against us”: In the Lord’s prayer asking forgiveness/ receiving forgiveness for our sins is clearly linked with us forgiving others who have sinned against us by the word “as”. And just in case we do not get the point or rather we don’t want to see the connection, the Lord ends the our Father in Matthew 6 with the words “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:14-15)
As we read the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18:23-35, it is very evident why the Lord will not forgive us if we do not forgive others. The servant who owed the king ten thousand talents owed him something that he could not pay off in his whole lifetime. To be forgiven such a debt which was in a sense to be given new life and then not forgive someone who owed him almost nothing in comparison would be unforgivable.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) – “Now this is daunting – this outpouring of mercy cannot penetrate our hearts as long as we have not forgiven those who have trespassed against us. Love in the Body of Christ is indivisible; we cannot love the God who cannot see if we do not love the brother or sister we do see. In refusing to forgive our brothers and sisters our hearts are closed and their hardness makes them impervious to the Father’s merciful love but in confessing our sins, our hearts are opened to his grace” (ccc 2840).
Coming back to the parable of Matthew 18 – we see yet another possibility. What if the servant was so pre-occupied with his debt and all he could think was “I’ll pay you back” and so he would not have heard the king say “Go, I set you free”, then it is understandable why just after leaving the King’s presence he catches the throat of a person who owes him a small amount of money.
The point is this, if we have not received God’s forgiveness, we cannot forgive and if we have truly recognized that we are sinners and that the Lord has forgiven us unconditionally and freely, then we dare not, not forgive someone else. According to the CCC, it is not in our power not to feel or not to forget an offence, but the heart that offers itself to the Holy Spirit turns injury into compassion and purifies the memory in transforming the hurt into intercession (ccc 2843).
“And lead us not into temptation”: At first glance this petition could be wrongly understood to mean that the Lord tempts us but James 1:13-15 says “let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted by God; for God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one, but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it is conceived, gives birth to sin and sin when it is full grown brings forth death.”
Hence, lead us not into temptation has to be understood as “do not allow us to enter into temptation” and “do not let us yield to temptation” (ccc 2846).
Jesus himself said, “watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation, the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41). Yet we see in Matthew 4:1 “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” The Lord does not tempt us, but allows us to be tested for a purpose.
All temptation involves a test where we have a choice to make – we either chose obedience to the Lord or to sin against him. Moreover, the Lord also allows trials where our faith is tested (Read 1 Peter 1:6-7)
The purpose of testing is to – (1) let us know where we stand (2) to give us opportunity for spiritual promotion (growth). However, when we are faced with temptation, the Lord does not tempt us or induce us or persuade us to sin but rather in his love shows us that we call out to him in prayer, he will strengthen us to resist the devil, temptation. The enemy on the other hand does not passively watch us, but tries everything in his power to persuade us to sin.
Therefore, we see the need for prayer in facing temptation. A practical application would be to bring our areas of weakness specifically to the Lord in our prayer time and pray “Lord, let me not fall into temptation in these areas.” For it is only through the power of the Holy Spirit, that we can overcome sin and not self effort.
“But deliver us from all evil”: This refers to a prayer of protection and deliverance from all evil harm of the enemy. According to the CCC – 2851 “In this petition, evil is not an abstraction but refers to a person, Satan, the Evil One, the angel who opposes God.” And 2854 “When we ask to be delivered from the evil one, we pray as well to be freed from all evils present, past and future of which he is the author or instigator.”
We then have the final doxology "For the Kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, now and forever. Amen"
We end this beautiful prayer by giving glory and praise to the Father, by declaring the victory of Jesus on the cross which now makes it possible for God’s Kingdom to come into our life. And we end by saying Amen – so be it, Lord.