Should We Stop Saying The Our Father?

by Deacon Bob Schnell

The prayer Jesus taught us-- the Our Father-- is certainly one of the most popular Christian prayers, and it should be. it is how Jesus told us to pray, after all (Mt 6: 15-17). It is said at every Mass, and most, if not all, communion services. We say it regularly in the rosary. It is always in Morning and Evening Prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours.
But I wonder if we should be praying it at all, because I wonder if we really want to ask God for what the Our Father says. Sure, we want our daily bread and to be delivered from evil.
It is the third thing that we ask for in the Our Father that is the problem. We ask to have our sins forgiven as we forgive those who sin against us. That slides off the tongue really-easily, but do we really mean that?
As a society, the answer is clearly "no." We have more people in prison-- in absolute numbers and as a percentage of the population-- than we have ever had. Don't tell me people are there to be reformed. I've seen enough of prisons to know that isn't what goes on.
No, we put people in prison to punish them. They're "serving their tiime." Nothing more, and nothing less. There is nothing about forgiveness in the whole penal process.
So is that how we want God to be with us? I sure hope not.
But, you might say, how the society as a whole acts isn't the issue. The issue is what we as individuals do. Do we, each and every one of us in our own hearts and souls, forgive those who trespass against us is the issue, right?
Let me challenge that as a cop-out. We certainly share in the responsibility for what the society does, and if we don't work to change things, we're accepting responsibility for the status quo. We can't just pass off the blame for our hyper-incarceration to the nameless "system."
But let's accept, for the sake of discussion, that the issue is what is in our individual hearts in terms of forgiveness. I wonder if we still don't fail the test.
I know lots of people, myself included, who still need to forgive things that happened to them in the past. Maybe we don't think about them much-- maybe we've even buried them deep inside somewhere. But they're still there.
True forgiveness is really hard-- it is the notion that you've completely forgotten what someone did that hurt you, that it no longer matters to you, that it is as if it never happened. We have such long memories sometimes, which is why that kind of forgiveness challenges so deeply.
Think about it the next time you say the Our Father. Who do you need to forgive, and for what? Before you say the Our Father again, work on real forgiveness, and don't let yourself say that prayer until you've gotten rid of the anger, shame, frustration and hurt.
It is a sort of penance, I guess. But it is better than getting what you pray for, when what you're really praying for isn't forgiveness at all.
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From the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

WORSHIP

New Translation of the Lord’s Prayer?

Whether the English translation used in the liturgy changes – and if so, when – is too early to tell. For now, do not make any changes to how you pray the Lord’s Prayer in English. The USCCB will notify us if anything changes sometime in the future.

You may have heard that Pope Francis recommends vernacular versions of the Lord’s Prayer be retranslated to avoid a theological misperception. While the Latin “ne nos inducas in tentationem” is accurately rendered into English as “lead us not into temptation,” this could imply that God is the agent of evil. The Spanish avoids this by rendering it “no nos dejes caer en la tentación” (lit., “do not allow us to fall into temptation”), and the Holy Father favors such a translation.

St. Richard's Catholic Church

Richfield, Minnesota

Should We Stop Saying The Our Father?

WORSHIP

New Translation of the Lord’s Prayer?