A Tour through the Mass!

The Lord’s Prayer at Mass

As we saw last week, the Lord’s Prayer became part of the Mass in the fourth century.  We are not sure where it was actually placed in the Mass at first, but it gradually took up the position which it now has as the beginning of the Communion Rite.

It begins to elaborate what communion means by its very use of the words ‘OUR Father’.  As we pray it, we are acknowledging that we are in this together.  We do not pray My Father but Our Father.  In so doing, we come together before the One who is Father of us all, the One who is Father of Our lord Jesus Christ and all of us together.  We also remember that he is Father to all humankind, even those who do not know him.

We use the version of the Lord’s Prayer that we find in St Matthew’s gospel, not that in St Luke.  It is a longer version and the one traditionally used in all the Christian churches.

The first three lines refer to God: he who is in heaven, may his kingdom come, his will be done on earth as in heaven.  What that last phrase means is that his will be done willingly.

The rest of the prayer is about ourselves.  We pray for our daily bread, for forgiveness, not to be put to the test and to be delivered from evil.  Notice that it prays for very basic things: what keeps us going, the forgiveness that would heal the world’s conflict and violence.  Asking not to be put to the test is a great prayer because it comes out of fear of such a trial.  And of course, that evil may not come to us.  Basic things but radical things!

The prayer which the priest prays following the Lord’s Prayer continues the Lord’s prayer in what it prays for in the awareness that we live before the Lord has completed his work among us – “we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Saviour Jesus Christ”.  All our prayers will not be answered fully until he returns.

The people’s reply is “For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours now and forever”.  This is attached to the Lord’s Prayer by some other Christian churches.  It does not appear in the gospels.  It appears in some ancient manuscripts and in an ancient Christian document called ‘The Didache ‘which originated around the year 100 AD.

The Lord’s Prayer is precious to us because it was given to us by Jesus and as part of the Mass, it already begins to reveal to us what it means to be in communion with the Lord Jesus and each other.

By Fr Frank O’Loughlin