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Our Father – Lord’s prayer
Marijan Vugdelija
; Katolički bogoslovni fakultet, Sveučilište u Splitu
Sažetak
The article explains the meaning of Jesus’ order: “So you
should pray like this” and also the initial invocation: “Our
Father, who art in heaven!”
Jesus says: “So you should pray like this!” He does not say:
“This is what you should pray” because he does not want to
ban other prayers, but he teaches the way of praying. Therefore,
the Teacher gives us here an example and a model of a genuine
prayer that can be put to good use in forming other prayers.
He definitely did not want to say that one should only pray the
Lord’s Prayer, but all prayers could be brought down to the
Lord’s Prayer by their content, since this prayer contains all that
is necessary for a true Christian prayer, which corresponds to
the image of God as Jesus proclaimed it.
The God of Jesus from Nazareth is “Father”. In the idea of
“Father” all Jesus teaching about God is condensed. It is the
foundation of the Lord’s Prayer, the Sermon on the Mount and
the entire Mathew’s gospel. The author tries to bring to light
the scope and the meaning of that central idea of this famous
prayer of Jesus. Jesus took over the name “father” for God from
the Old Testament, but he takes one step further: he fills it with
new content and makes it the central category of his Sermon on
the Mount.
The word “Father” guides us to God who is the Father,
and the word “our” connects us with brothers and sisters in
the family of his children. Our feelings are directed here to our
neighbour. If there is one father of all the people, we are all
brothers and sisters. As brothers and sisters we all have to love
and help one another, and an important part of that love is to
pray for one another. Thus the whole Christian revelation can be
reduced to these two words: “Our Father”
The one who we call “Our Father” in the prayer is at the same
time extremely great, which is expressed in the precision “who
art in heaven”. We address God intimately and with familiarity
as the Father (Abba), but at the same time we recognize his
infinite greatness. As one can see, Mathew’s community, who
addresses God as “Our Father” in this prayer, uses the highest
adjective available, in order to express its faith that God, who
they address in the prayer, has the highest authority and the
greatest power.
Ključne riječi
the Lord’s Prayer; heavenly Father; God’s fatherhood; universal brotherhood of people in God
Hrčak ID:
93048
URI
Datum izdavanja:
15.12.2004.
Posjeta: 3.490 *