Beloved brethren, He who granted you to believe, Himself also taught you to pray, and fitted the whole form of petitioning into a few words: for when a son entreats a father, he does not labor with much prayer; for as necessity compels the begotten to ask, so charity urges the begetter to give. The Father therefore, who freely bestows, shows not so much that He should be asked, as what should be asked, that the son by asking rightly may please, who by asking foolish things may displease. Hear the Father, and now believe yourselves to be sons, that whatever you shall have asked you may obtain without hesitation. What faith avails, what belief can do, how much confession is worth, is today shown forth in you. Behold, the threefold confession of the Trinity has raised you from earthly servitude into heavenly offspring;
behold, the faith which confessed God as Father has today gained for you God as Father; behold, the voice which confessed God the Son has adopted you as sons of God; behold, the belief which proclaimed God the Spirit has changed you from the mortal substance of the flesh into the living substance of the Spirit. Who shall be found a worthy champion of so great a mercy? God the Father deigns to make men heirs; God the Son does not disdain little servants as co-heirs; God the Spirit takes flesh as a partner of the Godhead; heaven becomes the possession of earthly beings, and those condemned to the jurisdiction of the underworld are received into the heights, as the Apostle attests, saying: 'Know you not that we shall judge angels?' (1 Cor. 6)
Call God therefore Father, and though not yet born, yet believe yourselves already designated as sons, and give effort that a heavenly life may be yours, that divine morals may be yours, and that the whole form of the Godhead may shine forth in your form; because the heavenly Father enriches with divine gifts the sons who answer to their lineage, but recalls to penal servitude those who degenerate. 'Our Father who art in heaven.' The servile conscience would sink, the earthly condition would be dissolved, did not the authority of the Father Himself, the Spirit of the Son Himself, rouse us to this cry. 'God sent,' he says, 'the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father' (Gal. 4). The mind grows weary, our flesh fails at divine things, unless God Himself who commands fulfill what He commands to be done.
When did mortality dare to call God Father except now, when the inner parts of man are enlivened by supernal power? 'Our Father who art in heaven.' O man, what have you in common with earthly things, you who confess your lineage to be from heaven? Therefore show forth a heavenly life in your earthly dwelling; for if any earthly thought stirs in you, you have brought a stain upon heaven, an injury upon the heavenly lineage. 'Hallowed be Thy name.' We ask that God may hallow His own name, He who by His holiness saves and sanctifies the whole creation. Brethren, this is the name which the supernal powers dread, which they receive with awful reverence: this is the name which gives salvation to a perishing world: but we ask that the name of God may be hallowed in us by our conduct;
for when we act well, the name of God is blessed; when we act ill, it is blasphemed. Hear the Apostle saying: 'The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you' (Rom. 2). We ask therefore, we ask that as much as the name of God is holy, so much may we merit holiness in our minds. 'Thy kingdom come.' As though it had not ever been, and is not, thus we now pray that the kingdom of Christ may come. And where is it? 'The kingdom of God is within you' (Luke 17). It is among us in faith, but we beseech that it may come in reality. Brethren, so long as the devil, by various kinds of wickedness,
by the manifold art of deceiving, disturbs the keenness of things, confounds the senses and morals of men, rages in idols, is furious in sacrileges, deceives by auguries, lies by divination, beguiles by omens, mocks by the stars, occupies with spectacles, besieges with vices, wounds with sins, gashes with crimes, casts down with despair, so long does he prolong Christ's kingdom and keep it absent from us. We ask therefore that the time may come when, the author of so great an evil perishing, the whole world, the whole creation, may reign and triumph wholly unto the glory of Christ alone; and that what follows may come to pass, that as in heaven, so on earth there may be one will of the Lord. Let earth be heaven, let God be our life, eternity our time, rest our homeland, innocence our wealth, immortality our honor, chastity our glory.
Let God be all. He added, 'Give us this day our daily bread.' After the fatherhood of God, after the holiness of the divine name, after the kingdom of heaven, we are bidden to ask for daily bread. Christ is not subject to forgetfulness; Christ does not command things contrary to His own commands; He Himself said: '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),
He who was fitted into flour by the mill of the Law and of grace, who was baked by the passion of the cross, who was leavened by the sacrament of great piety, who took the washing of the light sprinkling from the sepulchre, who, that He might be baked by the heat of His own divinity, Himself heated the oven of hell, who is daily borne to the table of the Church for heavenly food, who is broken for the remission of sins, who feeds and nourishes unto perpetual life those who eat Him: we ask that this bread be given us daily, until in that day we may enjoy Him perpetually. 'And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.' O man, in your power is the authority of pardon, in you is that of indulgence, you have been appointed to yourself the author of remission.
You ask pardon in vain, you who scorn to be indulgent to another. O man, you yourself have been made the measure of your own mercy; as much mercy as you seek, do so much. 'And lead us not into temptation.' Temptation, brethren, is a deceiving appearance, which hides adversity in prosperity, prosperity in adversity, and by its guile leads human ignorance into falls; we ask therefore that we may not, under the impulse of sins, fall into the pits of temptations. God is said to lead in, when He abandons those who run to crimes. 'But deliver us from evil.' Here 'the evil' designates the author of evil, that is, the devil. We ask therefore that by this one gift we may be free from all evils together with the author of evil. 'Our Father who art in heaven.'
Let no one, when he calls himself a son, wonder that he remains in the garb of servitude: today you have been designated to the divine offspring, not promoted; know that you have obtained a hope, not yet the reality. Hear the Apostle: 'We are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope; for what a man sees, why does he hope for? But if we hope for what we see not, we wait for it by patience' (Rom. 8). Today is the day of adoption, today is the time of promise: hear, believe, wait; trust your creditor, who trusted you the debtor; wait a little that He may come, who long waited for you that you might come; grant Him a respite regarding the promise, He who has already forgiven you whatever debt there was. Or why are you wearied by the hope of God, when the whole human race subsists by hope, lives by faith?
The farmer, panting, would never sow, did he not hope in due time for the fruit of his labor; the traveler would not undertake the toil of a long journey, did he not believe he would arrive at his destination; the sailor would not enter the uncertain sea, did he not hope to compensate the perils of the ways by the gains that follow; the soldier would not spend all the seasons of his youth amid dangers, did he not hope for the most abundant honors of old age; the son would not endure the times of his father's dominion, did he not hope himself to be heir of the father's substance. And you, if you now believe yourself a son of God, according to the prophet: 'Wait for the Lord, act manfully, and let your heart be strengthened' (Ps. 26); and wait, that you may obtain the inheritance of God by the faith of expectation and by the virtue of patience.
Hear the Apostle: 'We are the sons of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be; we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him' (1 John 3:2). And again: 'Your life is hidden with Christ in God: but when Christ your life shall appear, then you also shall appear with Him in glory' (Col. 3). Brethren, blessed are the sons of God, because they shall both possess the inheritance of all things, and shall not see the mourning of the times over the departure of a father.