Rogation Tuesday
The Lord’s Prayer.
Preparation. – After considering for whom we ought to pray, let us meditate on the most beautiful of prayers and we shall see, first, the excellence of the Our Father and the twofold object of the petitions our Lord proposes therein, and secondly, the means He therein indicates to attain this twofold object. As fruit of our meditation we should endeavor to recite this beautiful prayer according to the wishes of our divine Master, laying special stress on the third petition, which includes all our duties: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
I. The Excellence and Twofold Object of the Our Father.
How greatly should we not value a formula of prayer proceeding from the lips and heart of the Incarnate Word, in whom dwell all the treasures of wisdom and science! The saints were never weary of praising the Lord’s Prayer. St. Cyprian considers it as the abridgment of the Gospel. St. Thomas calls it the expression of our requests and the rule of our desires. The only-begotten Son of God, having become our Brother, taught it to us Himself, for He alone was able to teach us the right and worthy language we should use in addressing the Sovereign Majesty, deigning to listen to our supplications.
“Our Father,” He bids us call God. And is not this proper, since the heavenly Father has adopted us as His children in Jesus Christ? With what respect, confidence and love should not his name, so august and so loving, inspire us! With what charity towards all men, since we pray to Him in union with all! “Our Father, who art in heaven”; in heaven, where Thou reignest and where we are destined one day to contemplate Thee in the heritage of the saints.
But what do we ask of this infinitely rich, infinitely beneficent Father? Nothing less than His glory and our salvation. He created every thing for this twofold object, which should also be ours in all our prayers and actions. “Hallowed be Thy name,” means as if we said: “May Thou, our God and Father, be ever better and better known, loved, served and glorified.” “Thy kingdom come,” that is, “deign to reign over us, in this world by Thy grace, and in the next by the fullness of all the goods of glory.”
What is more worthy of our desires and inquiries? As children of God, is it not our chief duty to seek first the glorification of our Father? And as this duty is inseparable from that of our salvation, we add: “Thy kingdom come.”
O my God, who didst adopt me for Thy child, do not permit me to become a hireling seeking his own interest instead of Thine. Enable me to strive unceasingly to honor and glorify Thee even at the cost of my humiliation, and to seek Thy reign by subjecting myself to Thee. Purify my intentions and detach my heart from created goods. I am resolved, first, to refer to Thy glory all my actions, sufferings and combats, in order to honor Thy infinite perfections, and secondly, constantly to increase in me Thy holy friendship, without which there can be no salvation for me. “Hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come.”
II. The Means Indicated by the Lord’s Prayer to Attain Our Twofold End.
After proposing to us the twofold object to be obtained, our Lord teaches us to ask for the means of so doing. The object to be attained consists in the fulfillment of all our duties and the strength requisite for this. All our duties, whatever they may be, are contained in the divine will, which we should accomplish on earth as the angels and saints do in heaven, that is, most perfectly. “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” But how can we acquit ourselves of these duties, without the soul’s spiritual food and the body’s material nourishment? Our Lord teaches us to ask for them thus: “Give us this day our daily bread,” that is, actual grace, the Blessed Eucharist and corporal food.
Notwithstanding our good will, how many obstacles are there not to our progress in virtue! In the past, the sins we have committed and which prevent our soul from going by an easy way to God. In the present time temptations beset and harass us on our way. In the future, we see the punishments that threaten us and tend to diminish the confidence we so greatly need for our progress.
These three kinds of evils, past, present and future, are comprised in the last three petitions of the Our Father. We seek to be freed therefrom, so as the better to attain our twofold end, the procuring of the heavenly Father’s glory, and our sharing in the next life His endless happiness. O that we were as fervent as the saints when we recite this beautiful prayer! Let us, then, say with St. Francis of Assisi:
“O God, our most holy Father, who art in heaven, in the angels and the blessed! Hallowed be Thy name. Enable us to understand the generosity of Thy benefits, the extent of Thy promises, the sublimity of Thy holy Majesty. Thy kingdom come, so that Thou mayst reign over us by Thy grace, and that we may thus reach the kingdom of Thy elect. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, so that we may thereby love Thee with our whole heart, with our whole soul, with all our mind and all our strength, and our neighbor as ourselves, by drawing him to Thee. Give us this day our daily bread, that is, Thy well-beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Forgive us our trespasses, through Thy unspeakable mercy, the merits of Jesus Christ and the intercession of all the saints. As we forgive those who trespass against us; give us the grace to love our enemies. And lead us not into temptation either hidden or manifest, sudden or importunate. But deliver us from past evil, present evil and future evil. Amen."
