Catholic Dictionary

Find accurate definitions of over 5,000 Catholic terms and phrases (including abbreviations). Based on Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

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OUR FATHER

The Lord's Prayer, taught by Christ in answer to a request by the Disciples to teach them how to pray. As recited in the Catholic Church, it says: "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; they kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen." It consists of seven petitions, of which the first three are concerned with the interests of God, and the last four are requests for divine assistance to man. The single most commented on words of the Bible, the Our Father, is also the common heritage of all Christians, which synthesizes their common belief in the Fatherhood of God, the primacy of the divine over the human, the need for prayer to obtain grace, the source of morality in doing the will of God, and the struggle with evil as a condition for salvation. The longer ending, with the words "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory," used by Protestants, is a liturgical addition that found its way into some manuscripts of the New Testament but was not part of the original biblical text, either in Matthew (6:9-13 or Luke (11:2-4).