St. Gregory of Nyssa’s meditation on the words “Our Father Who Art in Heaven.”

When therefore the Lord teaches us in this prayer to call God “Father,” I believe He is doing nothing less than ordaining an exalted and sublime way of life. 

 

Christ leads us to heaven itself, having made it accessible to all. He does so through the practice of goodness and virtue. In this manner He brings us close to God through prayer. For this is the power of His words in the Lord's Prayer, a prayer by which we learn not merely sounds uttered through syllables of speech, but the knowledge of the ascent to God achieved through a spiritual way of life. We can comprehend the divine mystery through the words of the Lord's Prayer.

 

Christ begins with the words, "When you pray" (Mt 6:7). The Lord said to the disciples: "When you pray, say,‘Our Father who art in heaven’" (Mt 6:9). Somewhere in the Psalms the great David says, "Who will give me wings like a dove?" (Ps 55:6). I, too, would dare speak with the same voice. Who will give me such wings as to fly with my mind to the height of the noble meaning of these words? I need to leave the whole earth behind. I would have to remove my mind far from all things that change and are in flux. By attaining to an unchanging and unwavering disposition of the soul, I would first earnestly make Him my friend who is eternal and unchangeable. Only then would I invoke that most intimate Name and say, "Father!"

 

What quality of soul must the speaker possess to speak of God as "Our Father!" What confidence of spirit! What purity of conscience! To perceive God's ineffable glory, he must comprehend the mystery of God as far as it is possible from the names that have been conceived of and attributed to God in the Scriptures. He must learn that the divine nature of God is goodness, holiness, joy, power, glory, purity and eternity. Whatever God may be in His deep mystery, He possesses all these eternal and many other conceivable attributes that properly belong to the Divine Nature. Let us say that a person could understand all these endowments of God through the study of Holy Scriptures as well as one's own creative reflection. Could such a person even then dare to utter the sacred Name and call such a God his own Father?

 

One thing is very clear. If he had any sense, he would not dare address God with such a Name and say "Father," unless he perceived a reflection of the same attributes in himself. For it is impossible that God who is good in His very essence should be the Father of anyone engaged in evil activities. God who is holy could not be the Father of one defiled in life, nor He who is Eternal be the Father of one prone to every change, nor He who is the Father of life be the Father of one dead in sin. Similarly, God who is pure and spotless cannot be the Father of those who behave unseemly, neither can God who is generous be the Father of those who are greedy, nor the All Good One be the Father of those who in any way participate in evil things.

 

Someone may indeed dare seek intimacy with God while yet knowing himself to be in need of purification, discerning that his wicked conscience is filled with stains and evil wounds. If such a person, prior to being cleansed from these many evils, approaches God to call Him "Father," it would be like a person who is unjust and impure, and yet dares to address the One who is Most just and pure. It would be, at it were, to name God as the Father of one's own wickedness, a flagrant insolence. Such a person's words would amount to no less than mockery. Why? Because the word "Father" signifies fatherhood–the source and cause of a person who is made to exist by God. Therefore, whoever invokes God as Father and still possesses a wicked conscience, he in fact accuses God of nothing less than being the source and cause of his own evils.

 

According to the apostle Paul, however, "there is no communion between light and darkness" (2 Cor 6:14). Rather, the contrary is true. The light seeks intimacy, with what is just, the good with what is good, the incorruptible with what is incorruptible. The opposite things seek intimacy with their own kind. The Lord said: "A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit" (Mt 7:18). 

 

If someone is possessed, as Scripture puts it, by hardness of heart and dares to utter the words of the Lord's Prayer, he pursues falsehood. Let him know that such a person calls Father not the Heavenly One, but the Infernal One. The latter is himself a liar and the father of lies (Jn 8:44) that may arise in any given person. He is sin and the father of sin. For this reason, those whose soul is given to evil passions are called “children of wrath" (Eph 2:3) by the Apostle Paul. He who separates himself from true life is named "son of perdition” (Jn 17:12). And someone who is loose and immoral is called "the son of traitorous maidens” (1 Sam 20:30). on the contrary, those who have a conscience full of light are called "sons of light and of the day" (1 Thess 5:5). And those who have sought to fortify themselves with divine power are called “sons of power” (1 Sam 10:26).

 

When therefore the Lord teaches us in this prayer to call God “Father,” I believe He is doing nothing less than ordaining an exalted and sublime way of life. For He who is the Truth does not of course teach us to lie, that is, to state that which we are not. He does not want us to name God as Father when it is not our right. But when we dare call the Incorruptible God, the One perfectly just and good, "our Father," we must attest to our kinship with Him by our way of life. Do you see how much preparation we need? What quality of life? How much and what kind of diligence in order that our conscience rise to that level of confidence to dare address God as "Father?" 

 

When we approach God, let us first examine our way of life. Let us see if we inwardly possess some quality worthy of divine kinship. And then we can take courage to speak those words. For the Lord who has directed us to say "Father" did not thereby permit us to speak a lie. Therefore, whoever conducts himself worthily of God, it is he who rightly gazes toward the heavenly city. It is he who rightly names the King of heaven "Father" and calls the heavenly blessedness his own homeland. Where does the aim of our advice lead? To think of the things above, where God is. It is there that each should lay the foundation stones of his home. It is there that each should lay up treasures and each lift up his heart. "For where the treasure is, there is also the heart" (Mt 6:21). Then one can continuously behold the beauty of the Father and adorn his own soul with that same beauty.

 

Extracted from: 

https://www.orthodoxprayer.org/Lords_Prayer.html

 

St. Gregory of Nyssa, (c. 335 – c. 394), was an early Roman Christian prelate who served as Bishop of Nyssa (in Turkey) from 372 to 376 and from 378 until his death in 394. He is venerated as a saint in Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Oriental Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, and Lutheranism. Gregory, his elder brother St. Basil of Caesarea, and their friend St. Gregory of Nazianzus are collectively known as the Cappadocian Fathers. He was an erudite Christian theologian who made significant contributions to the doctrine of the Trinity and the Nicene Creed.

 

See my Catholic books at this Link.

 

 

 

 

 

The Our Father as explained by Our Lord – Part Two.

[In Maria Valtorta’s writings there are a number of separate teachings on the Lord’s Prayer given by Jesus Himself.]

 

If the world were able to live out the “Our Father,” the Kingdom of God would be in the world.

 

In the “Our Father” the perfection of prayer is found. Observe: no act is absent in the brevity of the formula. Faith, hope, charity, obedience, resignation, abandonment, entreaty, contrition, and mercy are present. In saying it, you pray with all Paradise, during the first four petitions; then, leaving Heaven, which is the dwelling that awaits you, you return to the earth, remaining with your arms upraised towards Heaven to make entreaties for your earthly needs and to ask for aid in the battle to be won in order to go back up above.

 

“Our Father, who art in heaven.”

 

[…] Only my love could tell you, “Say 'Our Father'.” By this expression I publicly invested you with the sublime title of sons and daughters of the Most High and brothers and sisters of mine. If someone, burdened by the consideration of his human nothingness, may doubt that he is a child of God, created in his image and likeness, on considering these words of mine, he can no longer doubt. The Word of God does not err and does not lie. And the Word tells you, “Say 'Our Father'.”

 

To have a father is something sweet and a powerful aid. In the material order, I wanted to have a father on earth to protect my existence as a baby, as a boy, and as a young man. By this I wanted to teach you − both children and fathers − how great the moral figure of the father is. But to have a Father of absolute perfection, as the Father in Heaven is, is the sweetness of sweetnesses, the aid of aids. Look at this Father-God with holy fear, but let grateful love for the Giver of life in heaven and on earth always be stronger than fear.

 

“Hallowed be thy Name.”

 

With the same movement as the seraphim and all the angelic choirs, to whom and with whom you join in glorifying the name of God, repeat this exalting, grateful, just praise to the Holy of Holies. Repeat it while thinking of Me − I, God, the Son of God, who, before you, pronounced it with supreme veneration and supreme love. Repeat it in joy and in sorrow, in light and in darkness, in peace and in war. Blessed are those children who have never doubted the Father and at every hour and in every event have been able to say to Him, “Blessed be thy Name!”

 

“Thy kingdom come.”

 

This invocation ought to be the pulsation of the pendulum of your entire life, and everything should gravitate around this invocation of Goodness. For the Kingdom of God in hearts, and passing from hearts into the world, would like to say, “Goodness, Peace, and every other virtue”. Accentuate your lives, then, with numberless appeals for the advent of this Kingdom. But let them be living appeals − that is, to act in life by applying your sacrifice of every hour, for to act well means to sacrifice nature to this end.

 

“Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.”

 

The Kingdom of Heaven will belong to whoever has done the Will of the Father, not to those who have heaped words upon words and then rebelled against the Father's will […]. Here, too, you unite to all of Paradise, which does the Will of the Father. And if the inhabitants of the Kingdom do it, won't you do so to become, in turn, the inhabitants of Heaven? Oh, the joy that has been prepared for you by the Triune Love of God! How can you fail to work with a persevering will so as to conquer it?

 

Those doing the Will of the Father live in God. In living in God, they cannot err, cannot sin, and cannot lose their dwelling in Heaven, for the Father has you do nothing except what is Good and what, in being Good, saves from sinning and leads to Heaven. Those making the Father's Will their own, while annulling their will, know and savor − while on earth − the Peace which is the endowment of the blessed. Those doing the Will of the Father, while killing their perverse and perverted will, are no longer men: they are already spirits moved by love and living in love. You must, with good will, tear your will out of your heart and replace it with the Will of the Father.

 

After having provided for the petitions regarding the spirit, since you are poor, living amidst the needs of the flesh, ask Him who supplies food to the birds of the air and clothing for the lilies of the field for bread.

 

“Give us this day our daily bread.” 

 

I said this day and I said bread. I never say anything useless. “This day. Ask the Father for help day by day. It is a measure of prudence, justice, and humility.

 

Prudence: if you had everything at once, you would waste a great deal. You are eternal children and capricious, in addition. The gifts of God should not be wasted. Furthermore, if you had everything, you would forget God.

 

Justice: Why should you have everything at once when I received help from the Father day by day? And would it not be unjust to think that it is well for God to give you everything together, […] in the fear that God will not provide tomorrow? Distrust − you do not reflect on this − is a sin. God must not be distrusted. He loves you perfectly. He is the most perfect Father. To ask for everything at once affronts trust and offends the Father.

 

Humility: having to ask day by day refreshes in your mind the concept of your nothingness, of your condition as poor ones, and of the All and Wealth of God. Bread. I said “bread” because bread is the king of foods, the one indispensable for life. With one word and in the word I have enclosed − so that all of you would request them − all the needs of your stay on earth. But as the temperature of your spirituality varies, so does the extent of the word. 

 

Bread as food for those who have an embryonic spirituality, to such a degree that it is already a great deal if they are able to ask God for the food to fill their stomachs. There are some who do not ask for it and take it with violence, cursing God and their brothers and sisters. These are looked upon with wrath by the Father because they trample upon the precept from which the others come: “Love your God with all your heart; love your neighbor as yourself.'

 

Bread as help in moral and material needs for those living not only for their stomachs, but who are able to live for thought as well, possessing a more highly-formed spirituality. 

 

Bread as religion for those who, even more highly formed, place God before the satisfactions of sense and of human sentiment and are already capable of spreading their wings in the supernatural.

 

Bread as spirit, bread as sacrifice for those who, once the full age of the spirit is reached, are able to live in spirit and in truth, concerning themselves with the flesh only to the extent that is strictly necessary to continue to exist in mortal life, until it is time to go to God. They have now chiseled themselves according to my model and are living copies of Me over whom the Father bends in a loving embrace.

 

“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

 

There is no one, among the number of those created, except for my Mother, who has not had to seek the Father's forgiveness for more or less serious sins, according to each one's capacity to be a child of God. Ask the Father to erase you from the list of his debtors. If you do so in a humble, sincere, and contrite spirit, you will incline the Eternal in your favor.

 

But an essential condition to receive, to be forgiven, is to forgive. If you only seek mercy and do not grant it to your neighbor, you will not experience God's forgiveness. God does not like the hypocritical and the cruel, and whoever refuses to forgive his brother refuses the Father's forgiveness for himself. Consider, moreover, that no matter how much you may have been wounded by your neighbor, the wounds you have inflicted upon God are infinitely more serious. Let this thought spur you to forgive everything, as I forgave through my Perfection and to teach you forgiveness.

 

“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

 

God does not lead you into temptation. God tempts you with gifts of Goodness alone, and to attract you to Himself. You, interpreting my words incorrectly, think they mean that God leads you into temptation to test you. No. The good Father who is in Heaven permits evil, but does not create it. He is the Good from which every good flows. But Evil exists. It existed from the moment Lucifer set himself up against God. It is up to you to make Evil a Good by overcoming it and by beseeching the Father for the strength to overcome it. 

 

This is what you request in the last petition. That God may grant you enough strength to be able to withstand temptation. Without his aid temptation would bend you, for it is cunning and strong, and you are dull and weak. But the Father's Light illuminates you, and the Father's Power strengthens you, and the Father's Love protects you, so that Evil dies and you are left freed from it.

 

This is what you ask for in the “Our Father” which I have taught to you. Therein everything is comprehended; everything understood; everything which it is just to request and grant, requested. If the world were able to live out the “Our Father,” the Kingdom of God would be in the world. But the world is unable to pray. It is unable to love. It is unable to save itself. It is capable only of hating, sinning, and condemning itself.

 

But I did not give and make this prayer for the world, which has preferred to be the kingdom of Satan. I have given and made this prayer for those whom the Father has given to Me because they are his, and I have made it so that they may be one with the Father and with Me, beginning in this life, so as to reach the fullness of union in the other. 

 

Based on Jesus’ Commentary from The Notebooks, July 7, 1943.

 

View my web page and Catholic books Here. 

 

Teachings of St. Padre Pio.

From his Letters:  

1. Do not turn in on yourself as so often happens, unfortunately. In the midst of trials which may afflict you, just place your confidence in our Supreme Good in the knowledge that He takes more care of us than a mother takes of her child. (Pg. 260, Letter 36, Pietrelcina, 26-11-14)

 

2. Don’t allow any sadness to dwell in your soul, for sadness prevents the Holy Spirit from acting freely. If ever you insist on being sad, then let it be a holy sadness at the sight of the evil that is spreading more and more in society nowadays. How many poor are every day deserting God, our Supreme Good! (Pg. 260, Letter 36, Pietrelcina, 26-11-14)

3. To refuse to submit one’s own judgement to that of others, especially to those who are quite expert in the field in question, is a sign that we possess very little docility and an all too obvious sign of secret pride. (Pg. 260, Letter 36, Pietrelcina, 26-11-14)

4. The soul that is destined to reign with Jesus Christ in eternal glory, then, must be remodeled by the blows of hammer and chisel. But what are these blows of the hammer and chisel by which the divine Artist prepares the stone, the chosen soul? These strokes of the chisel are the shadows, fears, temptations, spiritual torments and agitation, with a dash of desolation and even physical pain. (Pg. 97, Letter 8, Pietrelcina, 19-5-14)

5. Never lie down to sleep without having first examined your conscience on the way you have spent the day and without first turning your thoughts to God. Then offer and consecrate your whole person and that of every Christian.

Offer, moreover, to the glory of His divine Majesty, the rest you are about to take and never forget your Guardian Angel who is always close to you, who never leaves you no matter how badly you treat him. O unspeakable excellence of this good angel of ours! How many times, alas, have I made him weep when I refused to comply with his wishes which were also God’s wishes! May this most faithful friend of our save from further unfaithfulness. (Pg. 292, Letter 41, Pietrelcina, 17-12-14)

6. Drive away what the enemy is whispering loudly in your when he wants you to believe you are almost on the point of being lost. Despite these evil insinuations, the Lord is with you as never before in your tribulations. God tells us. Take heart, then, and don’t be afraid, for it is quite certain that the one who fears to be lost will not be lost and the one who fights with his eyes fixed on God will cry victory and the triumphal hymn. There is nothing to be afraid, for the heavenly Father has promised us the necessary help to prevent us from being overcome by temptations. (Pg. 411, Letter 62, Piertelcina, 10-4-15)

7. May Mary, the Mother of Jesus and our Mother, enable you to understand all that is contained in the great secret of suffering borne with a Christian spirit. May she obtain for you all the strength you require to climb to the summit of Calvary loaded with your own cross. Great strength is needed, unfortunately, to follow this path, but take heart, for the Savior will never leave you alone or without his help. (Pg. 487, Letter 79, Pietrelcina, 4-8-1915)

8. No matter how great the trial to which the Lord is to subject you, no matter how unbearable your spiritual desolation at certain moments of your life, never lose heart. Have recourse with more childlike trust to Jesus who will never be able to resist bestowing on you some little solace and comfort. Turn to Him at all times even when the devil tries to cast a pall over your life by showing you your sins lift up your voice loudly to Him and let it express your spiritual humility, your heartfelt contrition and your vocal prayer. It is true that God’s power triumphs over everything, but humble and suffering prayer prevails over God Himself. (Pg. 504, Letter 82, Pietrelcina, 7-9-1915.)

 

His Famous Quotes:

• Prayer is the best weapon we have; it is the key to God’s heart. You must speak to Jesus not only with your lips, but with your heart. In fact on certain occasions you should only speak to Him with your heart.

• Some people are so foolish that they think they can go through life without the help of the Blessed Mother. Love the Madonna and pray the rosary, for her Rosary is the weapon against the evils of the world today. All graces given by God pass through the Blessed Mother.

• Every Holy Mass, heard with devotion, produces in our souls marvelous effects, abundant spiritual and material graces which we, ourselves, do not know…It is easier for the earth to exist without the sun than without the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass!

• Pray, Hope, and Don’t Worry.

• Our Lord loves you and loves you tenderly; and if He does not let you feel the sweetness of His love, it is to make you more humble and abject in your own eyes.

• Go to the Madonna. Love her! Always say the Rosary. Say it well. Say it as often as you can! Be souls of prayer. Never tire of praying, it is what is essential. Prayer shakes the Heart of God, it obtains necessary graces!

• On this earth everyone has his cross. But we must act in such a way that we be not the bad, but good thief.

• God commands us to love Him, not as much as He deserves, because He knows our capabilities and therefore He does not ask us to do what we cannot do. But He asks us to love Him according to our strength, with all our soul, all our mind, and all our heart.

• You must concentrate on pleasing God alone, and if He is pleased, you must be pleased.

• May the Child Jesus be the star that guides you through the desert of your present life.

• Prayer is the oxygen of the soul. Padre Pio

• The Lord is a Father, the most tender and best of fathers. He cannot fail to be moved when His children appeal to Him.

• Only in Heaven will everything be as beautiful as spring, as pleasant as autumn, and as full of love as summer.

• Who can assure us that we will be alive tomorrow? Let us listen to the voice of our conscience, to the voice of the royal prophet: “Today, if you hear God’s voice, harden not your heart.” Let us not put off from one moment to another (what we should do) because the (next moment) is not yet ours.

• Through the study of books one seeks God; by meditation one finds him. 

   

  See my books on Saint Padre Pio and others Here.   

  
  

  

  
  

St. Cassian on the Lord’s Prayer.

Our daily bread: “Our daily need for it warns us that we should pour out this prayer constantly, because there is no day on which it is not necessary.” 

 

The mind, having been dissolved and flung into love of Him, speaks most familiarly and with particular devotion to God as to its own father. […] We must tirelessly seek this condition when it says: 'Our Father." When, therefore, we confess with our own voice that the God and Lord of the universe is our Father, we profess that we have in fact been admitted from our servile condition into an adopted sonship. 

 

Then we add: 'Who art in heaven,' so that, avoiding with utter horror the dwelling place of the present life, wherein we sojourn on this earth as on a journey and are kept at a far distance from our Father, we may instead hasten with great desire to that region in which we say that our Father dwells and do nothing that would make us unworthy of this profession of ours and of the nobility of so great an adoption, or that would deprive us as degenerate of our paternal inheritance and cause us to incur the wrath of his justice and severity. 

 

Having advanced to the rank and status of sons, we shall from then on burn constantly with that devotion which is found in good sons, so that we may no longer expend all our energies for our own benefit but for the sake of our Father's glory, saying to him: 'Hallowed be thy name.' Thus we testify that our desire and our joy is the glory of our Father, since we have become imitators of him who said: 'The one who speaks of himself seeks his own glory. But the one who seeks the glory of Him who sent him is true, and there is no unrighteousness in him. 

 

The words, 'Hallowed be thy name' can also be quite satisfactorily understood in this way – namely, that the hallowing of God is our perfection. And so when we say to him: 'Hallowed be thy name,' we are saying in other words: Make us such, Father, that we may deserve to understand and grasp how great your hallowing is and, of course, that you may appear as hallowed in our spiritual way of life. This is effectively fulfilled in us when 'people see our good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven.' 

 

The second petition of a most pure mind eagerly desires the kingdom of its Father to come immediately. This means that in which Christ reigns daily in holy persons, which happens when the rule of the devil has been cast out of our hearts by the annihilation of the foul vices and God has begun to hold sway in us through the good fragrance of the virtues; when chastity, peace, and humility reign in our minds, and fornication has been conquered, rage overcome, and pride trampled upon. And of course it means that which was promised universally to all the perfect and to all the sons of God at the appointed time, when it will be said to them by Christ: 'Come, blessed of my Father, take possession of the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.'

 

Desiring and hoping for this with intent and unwavering gaze, we tell him: 'Thy kingdom come.' For we know by the witness of our own conscience that when he appears we shall soon be his companions. No sinner dares to say this or to wish for it, since a person who knows that at his coming he will at once be paid back for his deserts not with a palm or rewards but with punishment has no desire to see the Judge's tribunal. 

 

The third petition is of sons: 'Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.' There cannot be a greater prayer than to desire that earthly things should deserve to equal heavenly ones. For what does it mean to say: 'Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,' if not that human beings should be like angels and that, just as God's will is fulfilled by them in heaven, so also all those who are on earth should do not their own but his will? No one will really be able to say this but him who believes that God regulates all things that are seen, whether fortunate or unfortunate, for the sake of our well-being, and that he is more provident and careful with regard to the salvation and interests of those who are his own than we are for ourselves. 

 

And of course it is to be understood in this way – namely, that the will of God is the salvation of all, according to the text of blessed Paul: 'Who desires all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.' Of this will the prophet Isaiah, speaking in the person of God the Fathers, also says: 'All my will shall be done.' When we tell him, then: 'Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,' we are praying in other words: Father, just as those who are in heaven are saved by the knowledge of you, so also are those who are on earth." 

 

Then: 'Give us this day our "supersubstantial bread,"which another evangelist has referred to as 'daily.' The former indicates the noble quality of this substance, which places it above all other substances and which, in the sublimity of its magnificence and power to sanctify, surpasses every creature, whereas the latter expresses the nature of its use and its goodness. For when it says 'daily' it shows that we are unable to attain the spiritual life on a day without it. 

 

When it says 'this day' it shows that it must be taken daily and that yesterday's supply of it is not enough if we have not been given of it today as well. Our daily need for it warns us that we should pour out this prayer constantly, because there is no day on which it is not necessary for us to strengthen the heart of our inner man by eating and receiving this. But the expression 'this day' can also be understood with reference to the present life – namely: Give us this bread as long as we dwell in this world. For we know that it will also be given in the world to come to those who have deserved it from you, but we beg you to give it to us this day, because unless a person deserves to receive it in this life he will be unable to partake of it in that life. 

 

And ‘forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.' Oh, the unspeakable mercy of God! It has not merely given us a form of prayer and taught us how to act in a manner acceptable to him, uprooting both anger and sadness through the requirements of the formula that he gave, by which he ordered that we should always pray it. It has also conferred on those who pray an opportunity by disclosing to them the way that they may bring upon themselves the merciful and kind judgment of God, and it has conferred a certain power by which we can moderate the sentence of our Judge, persuading him to pardon our sins by the example of our own forgiveness, when we tell him: 'Forgive us as we forgive.' 

 

[…] some of us – which is bad – are accustomed to show ourselves mild and very merciful with respect to things that are committed to God's disadvantage, although they may be great crimes, but to be very harsh and inexorable exactors with respect to the debts of even the slightest offenses committed against ourselves. 

 

Whoever, then, does not from his heart forgive the brother who has offended him will, by this entreaty, be asking not for pardon but for condemnation for himself, and by his own say-so he will be requesting a harsher judgment for himself when he says: Forgive me as I also have forgiven. And when he has been dealt with according to his own petition, what else will the consequence be that that, following his own example, he will be punished with an implacable anger and an irremissible condemnation? Therefore, if we wish to be judged mercifully, we must ourselves be merciful toward those who have offended us. For we shall be forgiven to the degree that we have forgiven those who have injured us by any wrongdoing whatsoever. 

 

Some people fear this, and when this prayer is recited together in church by the whole congregation they pass over this line in silence, lest by their own words they obligate rather than excuse themselves. They do not understand that it is in vain that they contrive to quibble in this way with the Judge of all, who wished to show beforehand how he would judge his suppliants. For since he does not wish to be harsh and inexorable toward them, he indicated the form that his judgment would take. Thus, just as we want to be judged by him, so also we should judge our brothers if they have offended us in anything, 'because there is judgment without mercy for the one who has not acted mercifully.' 

 

Next there follows: 'And subject us not to the trial. In this regard there arises a question of no small importance. For if we pray not to be allowed to be tried, how will the strength of our steadfastness be tested, according to the words: 'Whoever has not been tried has not been proven?' And again: 'Blessed is the man who undergoes trial?' Therefore, the words 'Subject us not to the trial' do not mean: Do not allow us ever to be tried, but rather: Do not allow us to be overcome when we are tried. 

 

For Job was tried, but he was not subjected to the trial. For he did not ascribe folly to God, nor did he as a blasphemer, with wicked tongue, accede to the will of the one trying him, to which he was being drawn. Abraham was tried and Joseph was tried, but neither of them was subjected to the trial, for neither of them consented to the one trying them. 

 

Then there follows: 'But deliver us from evil.' This means: Do not allow us to be tried by the devil 'beyond our capacity, but with the trial also provide a way out, so that we may be able to endure.' 

 

You see, then, what sort of measure and form for prayer have been proposed to us by the Judge who is to be prayed to by it. In it there is contained no request for riches, no allusion to honors, no demand for power and strength, no mention of bodily health or of temporal existence. For the Creator of eternal things wishes nothing transitory, nothing base, nothing temporal to be asked for from himself. And so, whoever neglects these sempiternal petitions and chooses to ask for something transitory and passing from him does very great injury to his grandeur and largesse, and he offends rather than propitiates his Judge with the paltriness of his prayer. 

 

Extracted from this site: https://www.orthodoxprayer.org/Articles_files/Cassian-Lords%20Prayer.html

A brief bio of the saint courtesy of https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=3955

St. John Cassian was an Eastern monk and theological writer. He went to Palestine in 380 with a companion, Germanus, and became a monk in Egypt. In 400 he entered into the discipleship of St. John Chrysostom, going to Rome to defend the much-oppressed saint before Pope Innocent I. Ordained in Rome, John started monasteries in southern France, near Marseilles, thus helping to pioneer monasticism in Europe. His two main writings, Institutes of the Monastic Life and Conferences on the Egyptian Monks, were much praised by St. Benedict and were long influential; the former had a direct impact upon Benedict during the time that he was composing his famed Rule. John also authored the work De Incarnatione Domini, in seven books, at the behest of Pope Leo I the Great so as to inform the Western Church of the details of the teachings of the heresiarch Nestorius. While never canonized officially in the West, John has long been considered a saint among the Eastern Churches. 

 

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The Essence of the Gospel.

Love everyone, hate no one.  Forgive everyone, judge no one.

Holy Mass Reading for September 12, 2024: The Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 6, 27-38.

 

Jesus said to his disciples : "To you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic. 

 

Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same. If you lend money to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit (is) that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, and get back the same amount. 

 

But rather, love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as (also) your Father is merciful. Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. 

 

Forgive and you will be forgiven. 

 

Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you."

Copyright © Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, USCCB

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St. Mechtilde’s ‘Our Father’ for the souls in Purgatory.

 

Whenever Saint Mechtilde (a mystic nun 1241 -1298) recited this prayer, she saw legions of souls from Purgatory ascend to Heaven.

 

OUR FATHER, WHO ART IN HEAVEN, I beseech You, O Heavenly Father, pardon the Souls in Purgatory, for they did not love You sufficiently, nor render to You all the honor which is Your due, due to You their Lord and Father, Who, by pure grace, have adopted them as Your children. By their sins, rather, have they driven You from their souls, where You none the less wished always to live. In reparation for these faults, I offer You the love and veneration which Your Incarnate Son showed You all during His earthly life, and I offer all the acts of penance and satisfaction which He performed and by which He effaced and atoned for the sins of men.

HALLOWED BE THY NAME, I beg You, O Father Most Good, pardon the Souls in Purgatory, for they did not honor, always and fittingly, Your Holy Name, but often they took It in vain and proved unworthy of the name "Christian", by their lives of sin. In reparation for their faults, I offer to You all the honor which Your Well-Beloved Son rendered to Your Name by His words and deeds.

THY KINGDOM COME; I pray You, Father Most Good, pardon the Souls in Purgatory, for they did not always seek or adore Your Kingdom with enough fervor and diligence; this Kingdom, the only place where true rest and peace reign. In reparation for their omissions, through indifference to do what is good, I offer You the Most Holy Desire of Your Son, by which He wished that they also might become heirs of His Kingdom.

THY WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN; I pray You, Father Most Good, pardon the Souls in Purgatory, for they did not always submit their will to Your Will. In reparation for their disobedience, I offer You the perfect conformity of the Heart, full of love, of Your Divine Son with Your Holy Will and the most profound submission which He showed in obeying You unto death on the Cross.

GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD; I pray You, Father Most Good, pardon the Souls in Purgatory, for they did not always receive the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist with enough desire, but often without contemplation, or love, or even unworthily, or they neglected to receive It. In reparation for these faults, I offer You the outstanding Holiness and the great contemplation of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Divine Son, addressed to You in favor of His enemies when He was on the Cross. 

 

FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US; I pray You, Father Most Good, pardon the Souls in Purgatory, all the faults of which they have been guilty through succumbing to the Seven deadly Sins and also in not having wished either to love or pardon their enemies. In reparation for these faults, I offer You the out-standing Holiness and the great contemplation of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Divine Son, addressed to You in favor of His enemies when he was on the Cross.

AND LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION; I pray You, Father Most Good, pardon the Souls in Purgatory, because too often they did not resist the pitfalls of the devil and the flesh, but they followed the Enemy of all goodness. In reparation for all these sins, in thought, word, and deed, I offer You the glorious victory which Our Lord won against the world, as well as His Most Holy Life, His Work and Sorrows, His Suffering and His Most Cruel Death.

BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL; and from all punishments through the Infinite Merits of Your Well-Beloved Son and lead us, as well as the Souls in Purgatory, into Your Kingdom of eternal glory. Amen.

The source for her commentary on the Lord’s Prayer: https://www.salvatormundi.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Prayer-for-Souls-in-Purgatory.pdf

A short biography of St. Mechtilde courtesy of this site: https://angelusnews.com/faith/saint-of-the-day/mechtilde-2/

St. Mechtilde was born Matilda von Hackenberg-Wippra around the year 1240. She came from a noble family in Saxony, and when she was seven years old, she was so inspired by the lives of the nuns that she went to live at the convent of Helfta. She learned a great deal there, and was known for her humility and her fervent love for God. 

 

Mechtilde was close with the child who would become St. Gertrude the Great, who was given to the nuns at Helfta when she was five. Mechtilde was 15 years older, and took Gertrude under her wing. They shared a strong spirituality and devotion to Christ’s humanity and the Eucharist. 

 

Both nuns were known to be mystics. Mechtilde had her first mystical vision when she received Holy Communion. Jesus appeared to her and held her hands. She said he left an imprint on her heart “like a seal in wax,” and gave her his own heart in the form of a cup, saying, “By my heart you will praise me always; go, offer to all the saints the drink of life from my heart that they may be happily inebriated with it.” 

 

In another vision, Mechtilde wrote that she had seen that “the smallest details of creation are reflected in the Holy Trinity by means of the humanity of Christ, because it is from the same earth that produced them that Christ drew his humanity.” 

 

Because of her visions, Mechtilde was highly revered by her community, and considered a prophet and counsellor. St. Gertrude recorded her teachings and visions in the “Book of Special Grace.” 

 

St. Mechtilde died on Nov. 19, 1298. 

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Give us the Bread of your Will.

Jesus explains the Our Father to Luisa Piccarreta. 

 

I Myself wanted to pray as the first, making my voice resound from one end of the earth to another, and even up high in Heaven, saying: ‘Our Father, who art in Heaven’.  I did not say ‘My Father’, but I called Him Father of the whole human family, so as to engage Him in that which I was going to add:  ‘May all hallow your Name, so that your Kingdom may come, and your Will be done on earth as It is in Heaven’.  This was the purpose of Creation, and I asked the Father that it be fulfilled.  

 

As I prayed, the Father surrendered to my supplications, and I formed the seed of a good so great; and so that this seed might be known, I taught my prayer to the Apostles, and they transmitted it to the whole Church, so that, just as the people of the future Redeemer found salvation in Him and disposed itself to receive the promised Messiah, in the same way, with this seed formed by Me, the Church might pray and repeat my very prayer many times, and might dispose Herself to receive the good of recognizing and loving my Celestial Father as their Father, in such a way as to deserve to be loved as children and receive the great good that my Will be done on earth as It is in Heaven.

 

In this seed and in this hope that my Will be done on earth as It is in Heaven, the very Saints have formed their sanctity, and the martyrs have shed their blood.  There is no good which does not derive from this seed. And if in Redemption It wanted to come to save lost man, to satisfy for his sins – which man had no power to do – and to give him refuge and many other goods which Redemption contains, now, wanting to display even more love than in Redemption Itself by making my Will be done on earth as It is in Heaven, my Will comes to give man his state of origin, his nobility, the purpose for which he was created.  It comes to open the current between Itself and the human will, in such a way that, absorbed by this Divine Will, being dominated by It, the human will will give It life within itself, and my Will will reign on earth as It does in Heaven.”

 

And when my ‘Fiat Voluntas Tua’ has its fulfillment ‘on earth as it is in Heaven’, then will the complete fulfillment of the second part of the Our Father occur – that is, ‘Give us this day our daily bread.’  I said:  ‘Our Father, in the name of all, I ask You for three kinds of bread every day:  the bread of your Will, or rather, more than bread, because if bread is necessary two or three times a day, this one is necessary at each moment and in all circumstances.  Even more, it must be not only bread, but like balsamic air that brings life – the circulation of the Divine Life in the creature.  Father, if this bread of your Will is not given, I will never be able to receive all the fruits of my Sacramental Life, which is the second bread we ask of You every day. 

 

Oh! how my Sacramental Life feels discomforted, because the bread of your Will does not nourish them; on the contrary, it finds the corrupted bread of the human will.  Oh! how  disgusting it is to Me!  How I shun it!  And even though I go to them, I cannot give them the fruits, the goods, the effects, the sanctity,  because I do not find Our bread in them.  And if I give something, it is in small proportion, according to their dispositions, but not all the goods which I contain; and my Sacramental Life is patiently waiting for man to take the bread of the Supreme Will, in order to be able to give all the good of my Sacramental Life.  See then, how the Sacrament of the Eucharist – and not only that one, but all the Sacraments, left to my Church and instituted by Me –  will give all the fruits which they contain and complete fulfillment, when Our  bread, the Will of God, is done on earth as it is in Heaven. Then I asked for the third bread – the material one.

 

How could I say: ‘Give us this day our bread’?  I could do so in view of the fact that, as man would do Our Will, what was Ours would be his, and so the Father would no longer have to give the bread of His Will, the bread of my Sacramental Life and the daily bread of natural life, to illegitimate, usurping, evil children, but to legitimate and good children, who would share in the goods of their Father.  This is why I said:  ‘Give us our bread.’  Then will they eat the blessed bread; everything will smile around them, and Heaven and earth will carry the mark of the harmony of their Creator.

 

After this I added: ‘Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.’  So, charity also will be perfect.  Once man has eaten the bread of my Will as my Humanity ate it, then will forgiveness have the mark of heroism, as I had it on the Cross.  Then will the virtues be absorbed into my Will and receive the mark of true heroism and of divine virtues; they will be like many little rivulets, which will gush forth from the bosom of the great sea of my Will.

 

And if I added,  ‘And lead us not into temptation’ – how could God ever lead man to temptation? – […] man is always man, free in himself, since I never take away from him the rights I gave him in creating him; and he, frightened and fearful of himself, tacitly cries out, and prays without  expressing it with words: ‘Give us the bread of your Will, that we may reject all temptations; and by virtue of this bread, deliver us from every evil.  Amen.’

 

See, then, how all the goods of man find again their connection, the tight bond of the ‘Let Us make man in Our image and likeness’, the validity of each of his acts, the restitution of the lost goods, as well as the signature and the assurance that his lost happiness, both terrestrial and celestial, is given back to him.  Therefore, it is so necessary that my Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven, that I had no other interest, nor did I teach any other prayer but the ‘Our Father’.  And the Church, faithful executor and depository of my teachings, has it always on Her lips, and in every circumstance; and everyone – learned and ignorant, little and great, priests and lay people, kings and subjects – all pray that my Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.

 

Extracts from Luisa Piccarreta’s The Book of Heaven, volume 15; April 14, 1923 and May 2, 1923.

 

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