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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