All things that are reported as spoken and done by God are matters of miracle, of astonishment, things to be dreaded by mortals, and even fearful to the heavenly powers themselves; yet nothing so astounds heaven, so terrifies earth, so strikes the whole creation with dread, as that which you are today, as we speak, about to hear. The servant dares to call the Lord Father; the guilty man names his judge as begetter; the earthly creature by the very voice of God adopts himself as a son: he who lost earthly things reckons himself heir of the Godhead. Yet we dare, because there is no presumption in the speaker where there is the authority of Him who commands; for He Himself willed us today to speak thus, who taught us thus to pray. And what wonder if He consecrated men into sons of God, when He gave and fitted Himself into the son of man?
He then translated the nature of the flesh into the divine, when He brought down the Godhead to the human nature; He then set man as co-heir with Himself in the heavenly places, when He made Himself a partaker of earthly things. Or what of love, what of gift, could He deny to man, He who took upon Himself all that was man's, even sin and death? Or how shall He not have man as companion in His prosperity, He who in adversity made Himself man's partner? O man, return to God, so loved by God; and give your whole self to His glory, He who gave His whole self for you unto His own injury; and with confidence call Father Him whom by so great a love you prove, feel, and understand to be your begetter. 'Our Father.' Let no one wonder that one not yet born calls Him Father:
To God, things about to be born are already born; things to come are already done to God. 'The things that are to come,' He says, 'have already been' (Eccl. 3). Hence it is that in the womb John perceives his Author (Luke 1); and he becomes a messenger to his mother who was unaware of his own life. Hence it is that Jacob is read to have warred before he was born, to have triumphed before he lived (Gen. 25). Hence it is that they already are to God who as yet are not to themselves, they who were chosen before the foundation of the world. 'Who art in heaven.' Not that He is not on earth, but that by this you may know yourself, through this offspring, to be heavenly: and if you confess yourself to be the Son of God, live as a Son of God, that by deed, by life, by virtues you may correspond to so great a begetter. 'Hallowed be Thy name.'
Because you were called Christian by Christ, you ask that the prerogative of so great a name may be hallowed in you; because the name of God, which in itself and to itself is holy, is either hallowed in us by our conduct, or by our conduct is blasphemed among the nations. 'Thy kingdom come.' He Himself says: 'The kingdom of God is within you' (Luke 17). If it is within us, why do we pray that it may come? It is in faith, it is in hope, it is in expectation; but that it may come in reality, we now pray. But let it come to us, not to Him who ever reigns together with His Father, ever reigns in the Father; but let it come to us. 'Come, you blessed of my Father, take possession of the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the origin of the world' (Matt. 25). We say, 'Thy kingdom come.'
That so God may reign in us, in so far as in us death may cease to reign, sin may cease to reign. 'Death reigned,' he says, 'from Adam until Moses' (Rom. 5). And elsewhere: 'Let not sin reign in your mortal body' (Rom. 6). 'Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.' Now on earth many things are done according to the devil's will, according to the wickedness of the age, according to the desire of the flesh; but in heaven nothing is done except the will of the Lord. We ask therefore that, the devil being destroyed, the age made new, the body changed, the dominion of death overthrown, the tyranny of sin abolished, in heaven and on earth, in God and in men, there may be one and the same will of God. 'Give us this day our daily bread.'
After the heavenly kingdom, we are not bidden to ask for earthly bread, since He Himself forbids it when He says: 'Be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink' (Matt. 6). But because He Himself is the bread which came down from heaven (John 6), we ask and pray that we may receive that very bread by which daily, that is, continually, we shall live unto eternity: today, that is, in the present life, from the banquet of the holy altar we may take it for the strength of body and mind. 'And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.' By speaking thus, O man, you have set for yourself the measure of pardon and the mode of forgiveness, you who ask the Lord to forgive you only so much as you yourself have forgiven your fellow-servant.
Forgive therefore entirely him who offends against you, if you yourself wish to owe the Lord nothing for your own faults: in another forgive yourself, if you yourself wish to escape the judge's sentence. 'And lead us not into temptation.' God, as it is written, tempts no one (James 1); but He is said to tempt when He abandons to the snares of temptations those who obstinately walk into them. Thus Adam ran into the tempter's ambush, while he forsook the precepts of his Maker. But whence and by whom man was tempted, He discloses by saying: 'But deliver us from evil.' That is, from the devil, who is both author and origin of all evil: the devil was by nature a heavenly being; now he is spiritual wickedness, older in age than the world, practiced by long use in doing harm, most skilled in the art of injuring;
whence he is now called not merely evil, but evil itself, from whom comes all that is evil. Hence it is that man cannot be freed by his own strength, bound as he is by carnal chains. We must therefore ask that God free us from the devil, He who lent Christ to the earth that He might conquer the devil. Let man cry out, let him cry out to God, let him cry, 'Deliver us from evil,' that from so great an evil, by Christ alone conquering, we may be freed. 'Our Father who art in heaven.' The theme of prayer, the matter of petition, the norm of supplication, He Himself who is to be entreated has granted you in very few words, that from this you may take a sense of asking, gain an understanding of petitioning, gather the measure of obtaining, and by the briefest schooling of prayer you may take in the widest discipline;
at the same time because, as a token of love, the King Himself performed the office of an advocate, that He might dictate the prayers to which He Himself was to respond. All hesitation in obtaining has been removed; nay rather, full confidence in prevailing has been conferred, when one reads Him Himself in the prayers who is being entreated. Fear has no place, where a son, with filial devotion as his interpreter, desires to obtain the things that are holy from a Father.