The Our Father
Please note:
The Our Father, like
other foundational prayers of the Catholic Church, comes from the time of
Christ & His Apostles. Indeed, it comes from Jesus Christ Himself. For as Sacred Scripture tells us about Jesus, “And seeing the
multitudes, he went up into a mountain, and when he was set down, his
disciples came unto him. And opening his mouth, he taught
them…” (Matthew 5:1-2 DRC, all emphases added to scriptural quotes
unless otherwise noted) Later on during this sermon or catechism upon “a
mountain,” Jesus instructed His disciples on how to pray, giving them the
Our Father while doing so. (Matthew 6:5-15) Elsewhere the Bible says concerning
the same event, “And it came to pass, that as he was in a certain place
praying, when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him: ‘Lord,
teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.’” (Luke 11:1
DRC) Whereupon Jesus imparted to them the words of this
prayer. (Luke 11:2-13)
Now, it has been popular
for at least the last one hundred years amongst supposedly
‘educated’ people to disbelieve this --- that Jesus Himself gave to
His Church the prayer of the Our Father --- yet it is true nonetheless. Indeed,
when you think about it, someone had to have given us the words to this
prayer. Everything has an origin, and the words to widely known &
recognized prayers are no exception. So why couldn’t it have been
Jesus Who originated it? Why must modern
scholars insist that someone else did so? Those who reject Jesus as the Source
of the Our Father invariably rest their case on imaginary or circumstantial
evidence. That is to say, upon so-called ‘evidence’ which does not
actually exist, or is purely happenstance and thus depends upon a man’s
prejudices to interpret it according to what he wants it to mean…
and not evidence that is ironclad, there being only one rational way to
interpret it that does not depend upon a person’s bias to decide
what it means. This is the problem with ‘higher criticism’, that
school of thought from which pretty much all the ideas have arisen in the past
couple of centuries denigrating the Sacred Origin of the Holy Bible &
ridiculing the Divine Authority of the Catholic Church.
However, this is not the
place to demolish such theories. An article entitled Gospel Veracity Defended is forthcoming, and future entries in the
Questions & Answers section will deal with these intellectual bullies &
their thuggish attacks rather thoroughly. For the time being we note again how
the two different places in the Bible mentioning the Our Father are two different
takes on the same event. This is significant since St. Luke’s
Gospel seems to leave out little portions of the Our Father here-and-there,
whilst St. Matthew’s Gospel appears to give us all, or almost all, of the
prayer.
“How can this
be?” asks the sincere Catholic or good-willed seeker after the True
Faith, perhaps consternated. Whereas the modern skeptic crows
with undisguised (and premature) glee that the proponents of ‘higher
criticism’ are right to deny the Divine Origin of the Our Father.
“How can the prayer come from God,” he chortles, “when the
books in the Bible He gave us can’t agree on what He actually said to
pray?”
The catch is, earliest
Christians --- to wit, Catholics --- knew the Bible even better than scholars
of the Bible do today. They were well aware of the purported
‘discrepancies’ between Matthew’s account and Luke’s
account of the Our Father prayer. Hence, were there truly a dilemma with these
differences, then they would have certainly rejected one of these two Gospels
as being untrustworthy and hence definitely not a part of inerrant Sacred
Scripture. Yet they didn’t. Ergo, there must be a way to reconcile the
two accounts without sacrificing honesty on the one hand or reason on the
other.
And so there is. First,
realize that, in the successful transmission of memories, it is not
usually identicalness of the words that counts but identicalness of the meaning
of the words that matters. What’s more, it is not necessary for the
sake of accuracy & truthfulness, in talking about something that’s
happened, to have absolute totality of recollection of past events ---
especially when total recall has never been explicitly claimed by the person
who is doing the remembering. Rather, it is sufficient to have accuracy &
truthfulness regarding however much is remembered about that which is
recounted. Anything beyond this is gravy. That is to say, anything
remembered & recounted beyond what is already accurately & truthfully
told is simply more of a good thing. It’s like having five dollars. Five dollars
is good; there’s nothing wrong with it. But ten is even better.
Do you see?
The good sense of these
points is easy to comprehend. Because if identicalness of words is always
necessary when talking about something, then nobody could translate from one
language into another, could they? Any translation would be automatically
suspect since, in translating something, different words must be chosen
to represent the original words in the original language! Furthermore, if
totality of recollection were constantly required, then no court of law could
ever decide a dispute between two sides which hinges on the witnesses’
individual accounts of actual events. After all, in remembering a rather
complicated occurrence, when have two or more persons --- even if they saw the
same thing, have excellent memories & are utterly reliable --- ever given precisely
the same details in exactly the same order about what took place?
My dear soul, do you
understand? There is no need to doubt the accuracy or honesty of either Matthew
or Luke.
The first way is the
customary way. This way is based on all of the words given in St.
Matthew’s account, except for one. This one word in English is
‘supersubstantial’ and we will discuss it in another moment.
Meanwhile,
Most people who are
familiar with the Our Father prayer assume that, coming to the sentence
“Give us this day our daily bread…” (Luke 11:3 DRC), this
refers to common food. I mean, everyone needs to eat, right? Isn’t food
necessary to the existence of human life? It is, but this is not the primary
meaning of “daily bread”. After all, in the very same chapter in
which Matthew tells us the text of this prayer, does he not also record that
Jesus told His disciples not to worry about what to eat, drink & wear?
(Matthew 5:25-34) Most certainly. Life is more than just food, says Jesus, and
the birds of the air demonstrate the point. Do they plant, harvest or work? Not
at all. And yet the Heavenly Father feeds them every single day. Why, then,
should a disciple of Jesus worry about what to eat? Consequently, how could
Jesus have meant, by teaching them to say “Give us this day our daily
bread,” that they should be primarily concerned about getting enough food
to eat every day? It doesn’t add up. Jesus can’t, on the one hand,
say not to worry about what to eat, and then, on the other hand, have intended
to tell His disciples to be sure to ask God daily --- in the midst of all the
other purely spiritual requests included in the Our Father --- for a mere earthly
concern. Not that the request for “daily bread” couldn’t
possibly refer to earthly food… simply that this can’t be the only,
or even the main, meaning of the clause He teaches men to pray.
Yet if this isn’t
the primary concern expressed here, then how are we to comprehend the
phrase “daily bread”?
This is where the word
‘supersubstantial’ enters the picture.
Dear reader, do you
understand where these heavenly truths lead us? Earthly bread is of no ultimate
consequence for Eternity, nor does a true disciple of Jesus ever have to worry
about it here on earth. Whereas Celestial Bread --- the Word of God,
Jesus in the Flesh --- is of everlasting significance. It is He that the
world needs, it is His Flesh that a man must have to survive into Eternity. As
Jesus says as well, “He that eateth
my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath
everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day.” (John
6:55 DRC) This Flesh of His is known to Roman Catholics as the Eucharist (what
Protestants, if they even anymore remember something about it, still call
‘holy communion’), and thus why the eucharistic form of the Our
Father prayer is styled eucharistic. How so?
Enter
‘supersubstantial’. This word is unique in Sacred Scripture, and it
is utterly unique in the English language. It is the same in Latin. The term
means --- obviously --- something beyond normal. This is the import of
the prefix ‘super’. Whereas ‘substantial’ is what
something consists of, the substance of it. Hence,
‘supersubstantial’ is a substance beyond normal. Ergo, when
In Protestant
translations of Matthew’s Gospel, this meaning is lost. This is because
Protestants don’t believe, and don’t want to believe, in the
Eucharist, that it really is the actual Flesh & Blood of Jesus. It is also
because they depend on the ancient Greek text of Matthew solely, while Catholic
scholars have relied upon equally old copies of Matthew’s Gospel in Latin
as well, which in turn, all serious scholars agree, derive from Latin
manuscripts that go back to at least the second century A.D. (and which
actually derive from manuscripts of the first century while several of the
apostles were still alive, were such scholars only permitted by their academic
prejudices to admit it). Greek never had any convenient way to convey
Jesus’ profound meaning of “supersubstantial” in Matthew
6:11. (DRC) Meanwhile, Latin had --- or Latin-speaking Christians early on
devised --- a unique way to say it. As a result, when St. Jerome compiled the
authoritative version of the Bible for the Roman Catholic Church in Latin
around A.D. 400, he apparently took the Latin word already used by Christians
within the Roman Empire for Matthew 6:11 and incorporated it into his revised
text. (I say ‘revised’ since Jerome did not translate from scratch
the New Testament. Instead, he took Latin translations previously made and
compared them carefully with the oldest & most reliable manuscripts in
Greek or Aramaic that he had available to him at that ancient date in order to
ensure their accuracy. Whilst, in contrast, the Old Testament he pretty much
rendered from a blank slate, going back to the original Hebrew since he found
previous translations from the Greek Septuagint too uneven for it to be
worthwhile working in conjunction with their texts or the text of the
Septuagint.) Yet where did translators of Matthew’s Gospel into Latin get
the idea of a “supersubstantial bread” if the Greek never
contained such a meaning?
Here is where Protestants
betray a lack of history, not having existed until the 1500s. Or, to be more
precise, a lack of knowledge of history. Because if one reads the
earliest Christian writers very closely, one learns that both Matthew’s
Gospel and St. Paul’s Hebrews were written in Aramaic, having both been
written to Jewish Catholics. That is to say, they were written to those who
spoke the language of Hebrew. It was only later, a few years after being first
composed in the Jewish tongue, that they were translated into Greek.
Consequently, whatever the original words of Jesus in Aramaic (the Hebrew
spoken when He was upon the earth) as He taught His disciples the Our Father
prayer, St. Jerome’s authoritative Latin version of Matthew conveys a
proper meaning of those Aramaic words when it comes to the phrase “daily
bread.”
This, then, is why the
Eucharistic Mode of saying the Our Father includes both Matthew’s
“supersubstantial” and Luke’s “daily” right
before the term “bread” --- because both together more fully convey
the meaning of Jesus’ original word or words in Aramaic when He taught
His disciples how to pray. And while there is nothing ‘deficient’
in the Customary Mode of saying the Our Father, as if it lacked something
intrinsically crucial to the prayer, there is a certain advantage in saying it
according to the Eucharistic Mode. For in praying it eucharistically, the good
Catholic confirms his belief in the infallible teaching of Jesus Christ’s
Body, the Holy Roman Catholic Church, that His Divine Flesh is really, truly
& substantially present in the Eucharist under the mere appearance of bread
& wine, and he is doing so simply as Jesus Himself instructed us to do so,
St. Matthew confirming this by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost in the account
of his inerrant Gospel, the words therein translanted into English via the
Greek & Latin affirmed by the Infallible Divine Authority of Jesus’
Catholic Ecclesial Body to be what they are.
Hence, while it is by no
means ‘wrong’ to say the Our Father in the customary way --- and
long tradition confirms this, which should not be carelessly forgotten or
discarded lightly & recklessly --- it is certainly advantageous to perform
it in the eucharistic way. When praying by one's self or with other good
Catholics who are aware of the Eucharistic Mode and favourably disposed toward
its use, one should feel free to use it. But if with Catholics who are not
aware of the Eucharistic Mode or who are not disposed toward it, then one
should remain with the Customary Mode and not cause needless discomfort or
fruitless division. All the while let the true Catholic recall two things:
first, that the Eucharistic Mode is the Customary Mode with only one
word added; and, second, that this one word, “supersubstantial”, is
without doubt, as inerrantly guaranteed by St. Matthew the Apostle &
infallibly guaranteed by the Holy Roman Church, what Jesus Himself taught us to
pray. It is therefore neither forbidden by God's Sacred Law nor
has it ever yet been forbidden by the Church's Law to say the Our Father prayer
eucharistically by any Catholic as he sees fit, provided he is doing so in a
reverent & proper fashion.
Period.
Meanwhile, a final note
on “supersubstantial” in the Lord’s
Prayer and why it is spiritually profitable --- and, indeed, in every way advantageous
--- to say Christ’s words in the Eucharistic Mode. For, as we have just seen, the highest significance of “daily
bread” is that it confirms a Catholic’s profession of Holy
Communion (which a true priest offers in sacrifice to God during the Mass of
the Catholic Church) as the Very Flesh & Blood of Jesus when crucified upon
the Cross. This Daily Bread the Devil detests. He fears it, for it is the
transubstantiated & literal presence of his enemy, of God Almighty, on
earth. But he is no creator of things original, only a perverter of that which
already exists. And, wanting all men to follow him into the Pit of Hell, he
therefore takes on earth what is useful to himself and
twists it through deception to his purposes. In this way he appears like an “angel
of light” (DRC) in the sight of men --- even in the sight of real Catholics
--- as St. Paul warns them in 2 Corinthians 11:14, blinding them in false
religion & immorality.
God will permit Satan
to do so in a powerful & universal fashion near the end of our age, as
Look at the structure of
the word. Ever noticed how it is remarkably similar to the word ‘Communion’?
This is no accident. The etymological origin of the two separate terms is identical. In fine, Communism is a mimickry of Communion --- and purposely so. Now the import of ‘Communion’ is that men are made
one with God via their incorporation into His Son’s Body, via
which they then lawfully take part in the sharing of His Flesh, which is the Most Holy Eucharist offered in the Mass of the
Catholic Church. The point is, God commands all men to
enter into communion with Him through His Son’s Catholic Body, the
Holy Roman Church. Nevertheless, if they will not obey God’s command,
then they continue to be the children of the Devil, incorporated into the oneness, the unified Communism, of his own body. Except, his body is no body of a rational man made in the Image of
God similar to the Body of Christ, He Who is fully human as well as fully divine. No, the Devil’s body is instead like the flesh of irrational animals made to serve men who are made in
the Image of God, being himself merely a fallen angel and now nothing like God. And whereas animals can have a certain degree of ‘cleverness’,
being reasonable to a certain extent, they are not, and cannot ever be, the equal of
men, reasoning like men do in the fullness of divine-like understanding.
Likewise Satan’s
body. Composed of his
children, of those men who serve him --- whether consciously or not --- they may
reason cleverly, some of them, but not to the extent normally that men are designed to reason overall in every way,
being endowed, most of them, with the capability to do so. What’s
more, they reason badly, using their God-given rationality to conclude false
& abominable things, calling good evil and evil good. This, then, is why
Satan’ body is entitled “the beast”. Because it is a communion
of predatorial men utterly opposed to the Body of Christ, unwilling to
obey God or submit to His Commandments. They, like the Devil, usually refuse to admit
the Saving Truth, and they insist on having their individual wills done on
earth rather than God’s Sovereign Will as it is done in
Heaven. It is the Beast of Satan at violent war with the Body of Christ.
This war is
non-negotiable, too. There is no way to establish lasting or real peace between the
two sides. Either the one triumphs and the other is
vanquished, or else the other wins and the former is annihilated. There is no
middle ground. One side may become exhausted for a time, letting the other side
rest. But there is no true reconciliation ever possible. Such is the case of Communism
with the One True Religion of Roman Catholicism. The intelligent reader knows
this, or can easily find it out by a little serious study. Communists have
always viciously hated Catholicism, persecuting Her members horribly, and the Catholic Church has vehemently fought the
lies of Communism wherever it arises. The two are in mortal combat.
The catch is, Communism has seemed to win. The battle nowadays appears
to have been lost by Catholicism. By 1960 and the supposed election of ‘Pope’
John XXIII to the Throne of
But what about the
apparent ‘fall’ of Communism some twenty years ago, you might say?
Wasn’t the 3rd Secret of Fatima fulfilled in the ‘collapse’
of Communist
It is beyond the scope of
this short writing to discuss these things. Suffice it to say that the ‘collapse’
of Communism in Russia and elsewhere was a ruse (most people don’t
realize how the vast majority of leaders in these countries after the supposed ‘collapse’
were the same leaders as before, who merely dropped the title of ‘communist’
in most cases), and that an entire one third of the world is still
openly Communist (think China, Vietnam, Cuba, etc.). Furthermore, and most
tellingly, that the rest of the world in the meantime, since the advent of the
first communist nation in 1917 (which was the year of the Apparition of Our
Lady of
People look to non-Catholic
governments to essentially perform or crucially support what was once, in
truly Catholic nations, done solely by the Church, or, at a bare minimum, by Her
children holding the reigns of power in a government which fully recognized
& supported the Roman Catholic Church as Jesus’ Body and the only
way that a man can save his immortal soul. To wit, men today think non-Catholic
authority --- which despises Catholicism by rejecting Her Message of ‘no
Salvation outside the Church’ and protects the so-called ‘rights’
of false religions & wicked philosophies, as well as supports their
expansion throughout the world --- can build a kind of terrestrial ‘heaven’
by safeguarding men from the vicissitudes of life on earth, providing for their
basic physical ‘needs’ from birth till death, increasing their happiness in this world, and extending their physical existence for as long as possible. In a word, that men are, and should be, in communion one with
another via their governing powers or learned leaders, and regardless of their type of religion
or lack thereof.
Yet what have real
Catholics in common with such men, who despise & reject the
God-Given Supreme Authority & Divine Knowledge of the Catholic Church? How can the Children of the
Triune Catholic God be in communion with the Children of the Blasphemous
& Lying Devil? How can the Beast of Satan communicate (in the
old-fashioned sense of the word, meaning to be intimately connected to) with
the Body of Christ? How can those who condemn the teaching of the Catholic
Church as undoubtedly wrong be true friends or allies with those who uphold the teaching of
the Catholic Church as infallibly right?
There is no in-between.
You’re either one or the other. You either love this world and where it
is headed, especially during modern times, or else you despise it and seek
another destiny altogether: the destiny of utter communion with God,
which can be found only through membership in His Catholic Church,
partaking then of His Eucharistic Flesh, which is the “daily” and “supersubstantial bread” of the Roman Catholic Religion. Communists
--- including the rest of the world that will not call itself ‘communist’
but is very much communized in its thinking, nonetheless --- deny this
Supersubstantial Bread. They instead seek the bread of this earth… of
wealth, riches, pleasure, liberty, knowledge, power, leisure, amusement and happiness during this
life. They oppose themselves implacably to the infallible assertions of the
Catholic Faith, denying it with adamant hatred. Rather than achieve a heavenly unity with
one another through the auspices of the Church of Rome --- which is the only
worldwide authority that God has ever sanctioned at this point in time --- they
work to achieve, or at least tacitly approve of while standing quietly on the
sidelines, a hellish authority & world government that is staunchly anti-Catholic and thus utterly
evil in its aims.
Therefore, in praying the Our Father in the
Eucharistic Mode, Catholics today stand against this Beast of Satan, denying
him the free reign of lies that he has constructed during modern times. For remember, the Catholic’s battle is mainly spiritual --- with the powers of the invisible realm --- and not corporeal, with the men of this realm. Satan may
have almost all men in his grip nowadays, molding them to his wicked will, but
he is fought spiritually by real Catholics, who see through his appearance of ‘brotherly
love’, ‘universal peace’, ‘global government’, ‘respect
for the earth’, ‘human rights’, ‘democracy’, ‘equality’, ‘social
justice’, ‘liberty’ and so forth and so on. His ‘light’ is a dark light
that denies love of God above all else, breaking God’s first three of the
Ten Commandments by getting men to pretend that ‘religious liberty’
is an actual ‘good’, that men have a ‘right’ to disobey
God by worshipping in any religion they please without opposition or
limitations. He allows men to pay lip service to an afterlife, knowing that
most people cannot deny what is placed in their hearts to know --- that the
souls of men exist immortally --- but he enslaves them to love of this earthly
existence primarily, binding their hearts & minds to the ‘daily bread’
of this world & its communistic promises.
Their bread is indeed communistically
‘substantial’ --- as in being of the ‘substance’ of
this earth that is held in common by all men who are of this world ---
but it is not “supersubstantial”, it not being of the
‘supersubstance’ of the Supernatural Bread of Holy Communion with God Above, held in common by all men
who are truly His within the Roman Catholic Church, which is His Divine Body.
Yet, of course, this is
not all that Jesus taught them to pray --- although it is at the heart of what
He imparted. To begin with, He instructed His disciples to address their
Heavenly Father. “Our Father, Who art in Heaven…” Whose Name,
says He, is to be treated as holy: “Hallowed be Thy Name.”
Most people realize this means not using God’s Name profanely, as in
cussing; but it also means, and necessarily so, that we are not to use His Name
in any other wrong way, either, especially religiously. That is to say, to not
use His Name in a religious way as if you were doing so rightly, when, in fact,
you are using it in the wrong religion, one He never started or
commanded! As Jesus warned His disciples in St. Matthew’s Gospel, “Not
every one that saith to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, shall enter
into the kingdom of heaven: but he
that doth the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the
kingdom of heaven. Many
will say to me in that day: ‘Lord, Lord, have not we prophesied in thy
name, and cast out devils in thy name, and done many miracles in thy
name?’ And
then will I profess unto them, ‘I never knew you: depart from me, you
that work iniquity.’” (Matthew 7:21-23 DRC)
This use of God’s
Name rightly, especially in the correct religion, is what the first three of the
Ten Commandments are all about. These are the commandments that govern how we
behave toward God… which is the very definition of the true
religion. Ergo, to worship God in a false religion, one that He never began or
authorized, is to break these first three commandments and thus fail to
hallow His Name.
And yet God expects even
more from us. For Jesus goes on to say in teaching the prayer, “Thy
Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.” Again, the
importance of obedience. For what is disobedience if not God’s
Will not being done on earth as it is in Heaven? This is crucial. It is
also much disputed and disbelieved by people nowadays, who want to think either
that God does not expect obedience from anybody for anything, or else that He
doesn’t ever actually exact payment from anyone in punishment for
disobedience. The latter is what certain kinds of Protestants imagine,
pretending that they, at least, are off the hook no matter how grievous their
rebellion against God’s orders. Whichever, the end result is the same:
His Will is not done on earth like it is in Heaven. Nevertheless, as His
Kingdom comes to earth (present, active tense), His Will very much will
get done upon the earth --- and whether or not the individual person wishes
to cooperate! This is why good Catholic nations have always demanded that their
citizens (the ones who are Catholic, that is) at a bare minimum do not flaunt
publicly the breaking of the first three of the Ten Commandments regarding
correct religion. It is also why good Catholic nations have restricted those
citizens who were never Catholic, preventing them from practicing their false
religions openly in a shameless fashion. Because how is God’s Kingdom coming
to earth, how is His Will being done on earth like it is in Heaven,
if a nation which calls Him ‘Lord’ does not truly obey Him as
Lord? And can it please the Triune Catholic Creator to let people worship
in false religions with the approval of a supposedly Catholic government,
thereby showing everyone that there are no consequences for doing so? Men dying
in false religions go to Hell. So how can letting people think it’s okay
to practice false religions --- when it’s possible to restrict them in
this practice --- be pleasing to the God Who is not willing that any should
perish? How is this an example of Catholics in a Catholic nation obeying
His Commandments & loving their Hell-bound neighbors?
You see, then, my dear
reader, how the Our Father is a Catholic prayer and not a Protestant one. Or,
to put it another way, Jesus was Catholic… not Protestant. Merely talking
like you hope God’s Will is done on earth (someday in the comfortably far
away future when it will have no immediate & uncomfortable repercussions
for you today) is not the same as literally making sure that it is done
when it is in your power to accomplish it. Not that anyone can
‘force’ someone else to be Catholic. Men have free will. But just
as men who are not Catholic are free to exercise their will against the
Catholic Religion when it comes to themselves privately, refusing to
convert, so are Catholics free to exercise their wills against false
religions when it comes to themselves publicly, restricting the religious
activities of those who refuse to convert in a thoroughly Catholic nation. Free
will works both ways, and not just for those who are not Catholic! Moreover,
the point of God commanding anything at all is that those who are His disciples
--- Roman Catholics --- exercise their free wills to obey His Commands. Hence
why Catholics in a Catholic nation must restrict any religion other than the
one that God commands, which is the Catholic Faith.
Leading us to the part of
the prayer after “daily bread.” For at this juncture Jesus tells
His disciples to pray, “And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them
that trespass against us.” Now, if you stop and think about it, this
means God links the forgiveness of His disciples’ sins to their
forgiveness of those who sin against them. Yet should you doubt this, then hear
what Jesus Himself adds following the text of the Our Father: “For if you
will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive also your
offences. But if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you
your offences.” (Matthew 6:14-15 DRC) Crystal clear,
dear soul. A man must obey God --- forgiving those who sin
against him, just like He has commanded --- and if he does not, then he suffers
the consequences. To wit, God will not forgive him his sins, which are the
commandments that he has broken. And if not forgiven, how is it he shall enter
Heaven where God lives? Most Protestants today are fond of saying that all they
have to do once in their lives is say a ‘sinner’s prayer’,
asking God to forgive them for various vague sins that they commit both past
& future, and they’re headed for Heaven. Nevertheless, how does this
stack up in comparison to the testimony of the Bible? Very stark: “But if
you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your
offences.” (Matthew 6:15) It’s as plain as day! God commands
something and we’re to obey it. No obedience, no forgiveness. No
forgiveness, no Heaven. Because even such Protestants will admit how it’s
the forgiveness of sins which allows people into Heaven. Ergo, with sins
unforgiven due to a man not forgiving others their sins against him, how in the
world can he expect to enter into Heaven, even if he has said a
‘sinner’s prayer’? As a result, Salvation is not free of
requirements apart from ‘just believing’ or saying a
‘sinner’s prayer’. Rather, a man’s eternal salvation
depends on God’s grace, professing the right faith & rendering proper
obedience. Come up short in any one of these three and you cannot save your
soul. Indeed, Sacred Scripture says many similar
things throughout its precious pages. Causing one to wonder… do
Protestants actually read their bibles? And if so, do they actually take
time to ponder carefully what it says?
Bringing us to the very
last thing in the Our Father. “And
lead us not into temptation: but deliver us from evil.” Most people
assume, if they even think about it, that this means God will sometimes lead
men into temptation. After all, if we are to ask Him not to lead us into
temptation, then doesn’t this necessarily imply that he will at least
occasionally do the opposite, tempting someone? However, this is not so.
Earlier in Matthew’s Gospel, in chapter four, we witness Jesus tempted by
the Devil. This alone shows us who it is that tempts men --- and it’s not
God. It is, as a matter of fact, our own selves & wicked, fleshly desires
that lead us astray; Satan is merely the one who lights the tinder that’s
ready to burn. Yet should you be skeptical, then let us look elsewhere in
Scripture where St. James tells us quite bluntly, “Let no man, when he is
tempted, say that he is tempted by God. For God is not a tempter of evils, and
he tempteth no man. But every man is tempted by his
own concupiscence [lusts of the flesh], being drawn away and allured.”
(James 1:13-14 DRC, annotation added)
There you are. Whatever
Jesus meant to say by telling men to pray, “And lead us not into
temptation…”, it can’t have been to make us think God is the
One Who tempts us. Perish the thought! What, then, did He intend by this? What
are we to understand by these words?
Simply this: that God by
His grace can protect us from temptation, or God by withholding His grace can
let us suffer temptation. When, therefore, a real disciple of Jesus --- a Roman
Catholic --- prays these words, he is asking God to give him the graces to
protect him from temptation… to keep his wicked, corrupt flesh in check
and the wicked & corrupt Devil from assailing him. As a result,
“…but deliver us from evil…” cannot mean merely that we
want God to keep ‘bad things’ from happening to us. Viz., disease, accidents, injuries, thefts, etc., etc.
It’s perfectly alright asking for protection from such as these,
notwithstanding, the greater evil is the evil done to the soul. And temptation,
if assented to, is the ultimate evil that can occur to a soul while alive on
earth. Ergo, it makes a whole lot of sense to beg God not to let us be
tempted, to deliver us from this terrible test instead! Rescued as
Catholics from this threat, we may then more certainly ensure the salvation of
our souls.
And “Amen”? This is the way almost all Catholic prayers end. It is as if
one is saying “May it be so” or “It is true.” What
Jesus has taught the Roman Catholic to pray, the good disciple --- the obedient
Catholic --- professes to be true and that it ought to be as he has supplicated
or stated. Knowing, too, that his God, the One True Creator of All That Exists,
is all-powerful, being also all-knowing & everywhere-present, then he prays
this with confidence & absolute trust. For although God often permits
things to happen which are against His Will, even these actions & events,
as allowed by Him, are not out of His control, being worked through His
Sovereign Power to the inevitable accomplishment of His Good Will and ultimate
success of His Good Design. The true Catholic, then, learns to be a good
Catholic by, amongst other things, learning to resign himself to what God
permits to occur, without murmuring or complaint. As
To which let every man
learn to say, “Amen.”
+ + +
In English (Eucharistic Mode):
Our Father,
Who art in Heaven,
Hallowed be Thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come.
Thy Will be done,
On earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily, supersubstantial bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive them that trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation:
But deliver us from evil.
Amen.
In Latin (Eucharistic Mode):
Pater noster,
Qui es in Cælis,
Sanctificétur Nomen Tuum.
Advéniat Regnum Tuum.
Fiat Volúntas Tua,
Sicut in Cælo
et in terra.
Panem nostrum quotidiánum,
superstantialem da nobis hódie.
Et dimítte nobis
débita nostra,
Sicut et nos dimíttimus debitóribus
nostris.
Et ne nos indúcas in tentatiónem:
Sed líbera
nos a malo.
Amen.
In English (Customary Mode):
Our Father,
Who art in Heaven,
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.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive them that trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation:
But deliver us from evil.
Amen.
In Latin (Customary Mode):
Pater noster,
Qui es in Cælis,
Sanctificétur Nomen Tuum.
Advéniat Regnum Tuum.
Fiat Volúntas Tua,
Sicut in Cælo
et in terra.
Panem nostrum quotidiánum
da nobis hódie.
Et dimítte nobis
débita nostra,
Sicut et nos dimíttimus debitóribus
nostris.
Et ne nos indúcas in tentatiónem:
Sed líbera
nos a malo.
Amen.
+
+ +
Pilate’s
query met:
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