Our Father Who Art in the Heavens
Our Father Who Art in the Heavens¹
In the Lord’s Prayer, what belongs to God we ask for first. God alone is the Giver, therefore we turn to Him with our requests. We turn to Him as a Father, with all His tenderness, who knows our needs.
The saints found in their prayers an enjoyment of the love of God as a Father.
When we say “Our Father,” do we remember that we should walk as children? It is enough to say, “O our Father,” and You know the rest…
We have spoken in the past two issues about prayer and its importance, and about the phrase “Thy will be done” from the Lord’s Prayer. Perhaps it is better that we take the entire Lord’s Prayer and try to contemplate it together from its first phrase.
What does this prayer contain? It contains seven requests: the first three concern God Himself—Hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
The next three concern the human being—Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses… and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
Thus we find in this prayer that God must be first.
Before anything else, we ask that God’s name be sanctified among people, that His will be fulfilled, and that His kingdom stand—this is what matters, whether our personal requests exist or not.
We may find something similar in the Ten Commandments. The first four commandments—those of the first tablet—are commandments concerning the relationship between humans and God. The remaining commandments concern relationships between humans and one another.
This is because the relationship with God is more important. And if we are able to be in a good relationship with God, then we will consequently and necessarily be in a good relationship with others.
The Lord teaches us this by saying, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you,” even without your asking.
And when Christ was asked about the greatest commandment in the Law, He said: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength.
The second commandment is: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Naturally, if a person loves God with all his heart, he will consequently love his neighbor.
God is therefore first in the commandments, as He is first in prayer, and likewise in obedience.
For God must be obeyed more than people. And if there is something that pleases people at the expense of obedience to God, then God is preferred—even if people become angry.
In this St. Paul says: “If I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”
He who said: “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me…”
In prayer we turn toward God—we lift our hearts to Him before our hands.
The human being has many needs, and in prayer he asks them from God, not from people. As the Psalm says: “It is better to trust in the Lord than to trust in man” (Ps. 117).
For God is the source of all goodness and of every good gift. He wants to give, and He is able to give. He alone gives—not people.
Even the gifts we receive from people, we actually receive from God through them.
God is the origin. He is the One who gave them what they give. And He is also the One who placed in their hearts the desire to give.
The gift a person receives from God is guaranteed to be sound and good, for “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (Jas. 1:17).
Scripture says: Cursed is the one who trusts in the arm of flesh.
This is why in some of the Church’s prayers we repeat the phrase: “From the Lord we ask.”
This giving God is the One we approach as a Father and say at the beginning of our prayers:
Our Father Who Art in the Heavens.
That we approach Him as a Father, and not merely as a Master… As a Father, He gives us through this title an idea of His tenderness and love, and of the emotional relationship that binds us to Him.
In prayer we are not merely slaves speaking to their Master; we are children speaking to their Father.
In our prayers we ask with the boldness of children, not with the humiliation of slaves.
This filial relationship is very clear in the New Testament. Christ repeated it many times in the Sermon on the Mount to teach us that God is our Father.
St. John the Beloved said: “Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us, that we should be called children of God” (1 Jn. 3:1).
Thus the word Father indicates the deep love in God’s heart toward humanity. He does not want to treat them as slaves but as children.
He said explicitly in the Holy Gospel: “I no longer call you servants, but friends.”
And this attribute of “Father” is not found only in the Lord’s Prayer.
God is the Father—
This relationship existed since ancient times, even if not everyone realized it.
We see this in the account of human errors before the Flood, where Scripture says: “The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were beautiful” (Gen. 6:2).
Thus humans were called “sons of God” before the Flood.
We find this expression also in the story of righteous Job (Job 1:6; 2:1), and in the book of Isaiah: “You, O God, are our Father.”
And in God’s rebuke to sinners: “I have reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against Me” (Is. 1:2).
And in the famous commandment: “My son, give Me your heart.”
And God as a Father knows our needs.
He knows them even without our asking or praying. As the Holy Gospel says: “Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.”
Therefore He fulfills all our needs without waiting for us to request them in prayer and then providing them.
For this reason, we must rise above the level of material requests, focusing our hearts on spiritual matters, because these material needs are provided by God as a Father without our asking.
More than that, He makes His sun rise on the righteous and the wicked, and sends rain on the good and the evil, and satisfies every living being with His goodness—without request.
He fulfills the needs of His children as part of His paternal care.
Thus the saints were not concerned with asking for such needs; rather, their prayers were an outpouring of enjoyment of the Father’s love.
And when we say “Our Father”:
We cling to this relationship with God and remember its requirements as well…
God, as a Father, does everything required of a father. He shows all the paternal feelings we expect from Him.
But the important question we must place before ourselves every time we pray and say “Our Father” is this:
Do we behave as children?
Truly, we received this sonship when we believed and received the grace of baptism.
But do we actually behave as children toward their Father?
Here we recall the saying of St. John the Beloved: “If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him” (1 Jn. 2:29).
Our deeds reveal whether we are truly children of God…
Thus the Apostle says that the children of God are evident (1 Jn. 3:1).
He gives a serious proof of this sonship when he says: “Whoever is born of God does not commit sin… and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” (1 Jn. 3:9).
So are we like this?
Or do we call God our Father without behaving as His children, without possessing the attributes of the children of God?
Truly, it is an honor for us to be children of God—He granted us this adoption.
But it is also a responsibility…
Every time we say “Our Father Who Art in the Heavens,” we also say to Him that this sonship rebukes us.
Each one of us—when comparing what is required of him as a son with what actually exists in him—says to the Lord with contrition of heart: “I am no longer worthy to be called Your son. Make me as one of Your hired servants.”
Why? Because the one born of You is supposed not to sin, even to not be able to sin.
Therefore he who sins says justly: “I am not worthy to be called Your son.”
A son should bear the image of his Father…
And we were like this, for God created us in His image and likeness.
We received this image again in baptism (Gal. 3:27).
So do we still have the image of God?
Does one who sees us and deals with us say: Truly, these are the children of God?
We rely on His love continually and say to Him: O our Father…
If we do not have Your image, grant us this image as a Father…
We cling to Your love—You who formed us when we did not exist, and created us for Yourself without our asking, and granted us to be called Your children.
With this boldness we speak to You.
We, the earthly beings, call upon You: O our Father Who Art in the Heavens…
From Your heaven, look upon us as Your children. Teach us Your ways and grant us understanding of Your paths. Lead us in the way You see, grant us strength for the journey, and grant us Your image.
It is enough to stop at the phrase “O our Father,” even without asking for anything.
It is enough that we have a Father like You—the Creator of heaven and earth, the unlimited and incomprehensible Love.
It is enough to say “O our Father,” and You know the rest, O Knower of the hidden and the visible…
Each one of us, as a son, has in his weariness fled to his Father, thrown himself into His arms, and said to Him: “O my Father…”
And his Father fully understands what this child needs, and does not ask him much: What do you request?
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An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III, published in Watani newspaper on 28–6–1981.
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