Pattern Oster

One of the great mysteries of the Christian faith is the Lord's Prayer, also known as the "Our Father" or "Pater Noster" by many, including Catholics, for the first two words of the prayer in English and Latin.

It's mysterious for many reasons, the first and foremost being because it was spoken as the template example of how we should pray by Jesus himself.

Interestingly, what Jesus didn't say was, "Oh, just talk to God and tell him whatever's on your mind and He will understand." In fact, that part of our prayer life, which for many - and particularly devout Protestants - may be most of our prayer life, appears to be such a brief portion that the New Testament spends very little time prescribing it, instead ranging from a template prayer to the Spirit praying for us in groans deeper than words (see Romans 8:26-27).

Obviously, this prayer is not a vainly repeated one, since in Matthew 6:7, two verses before the version of this prayer used by most of us (as distinct from the version in Luke 11:2-4), clearly tells us not to use vain repetition, right before giving us the template text for the prayer likely most repeated by Christians around the world.

And yet, in English alone there are many versions of this prayer, one of the big differentiators being whether the words "debts" or "trespasses" are used, and another being which translation of the Bible it can be found in.

However, one of the most interesting parts of this prayer is one that makes a clear distinction between Catholics and most Protestants: the part right after "deliver us from evil."

This second half of verse 13 in Matthew 6 is generally absent in modern translations, which have more ancient and authoritative texts to draw upon. But Protestants are so used to saying it, based on the King James version (which, somewhat surprisingly, many Protestants seem to believe is the original language of the Bible, and not Greek or Hebrew), that it's one way that Catholics notice the first time a Protestant attends a Catholic Mass.

You see, in the Catholic Church, the prayer itself stops after "deliver us from evil," but in a Mass, the priest continues with an additional prayer confirming and building on what has just been said, and then the congregation responds with, "For the kingdom, the power and the glory are Yours, now and forever. Amen"

So, as you may guess, the first time I attended a Catholic Mass I continued on with "For Thine is the..." and stopped when I noticed that no one else had.

Now, you've probably already noticed that what Catholics say in Mass is logically identical to what Protestants say at the end of the Lord's Prayer. The main difference, other than phrasing, is that it's treated as additional to and separate from the prayer itself, which reflects how the prayer is represented in modern translations such as the NIV, ESV and New Jerusalem versions of the Bible.

Those are the main patterns I wanted to put into the mix of this particular blog/chapter, but I do have one more thought to leave you with: since Jesus said not to use vain repetitions two verses before giving us the prayer that most Christians repeat most often, it is clear that Jesus was not forbidding useful repetitions of a prayer that opens our minds and hearts to express a request for what God wants most for us, even if we aren't the ones who composed it.

I'll write more on that topic later.

(Copyright (c) 2011, Reg Harbeck, all rights reserved)