PRAYER “Our Father” - the essence and meaning of prayer in my understanding
In this article I will try to convey MY understanding and meaning of the prayer “Our Father” from I. Christ. on our blog . And let me start by emphasizing: I DO NOT CLAIM TO THE TRUTH. For the truth is within each of you. And its name is your feeling of LOVE.
Any prayer is an ordinary SET OF WORDS on paper. Therefore, the conditional result of reading a prayer depends on several parameters: WHO reads this prayer, HOW he reads it and what PURPOSE he pursues. The fact is that what REALLY works in prayer is not the word itself spoken by a person, but the ENERGY invested in this word. One person reads a prayer FOR LOVE. And every word he uttered resonates in the heart with a feeling of LOVE. Another person reads a prayer OUT OF FEAR, into a state of humiliated servility. And thereby he moves even further away from God and from love.
Orthodox theologians: The lengthy Orthodox catechism of Metropolitan Philaret (Drozdov) writes: “The Lord’s Prayer is the kind of prayer that our Lord Jesus Christ taught to the apostles and which they passed on to all believers.” He distinguishes in it: invocation, seven petitions and doxology.
My understanding: The Lord's Prayer is the legacy that Jesus Christ passed on to his apostles. It's right. But I. Christ himself is not God.
Our Father who art in heaven!
Orthodox theologians: Summoning - “Our Father who art in heaven!” Faith in Jesus Christ and the grace of man’s rebirth through the sacrifice of the cross gives Christians the ability to call God Father. Cyril of Jerusalem writes: “Only God himself can allow people to call God Father. He granted this right to people, making them sons of God. And despite the fact that they withdrew from Him and were in extreme anger against Him, He granted oblivion of insults and the sacrament of grace. Note "who is in heaven" is necessary in order to, starting to pray, “leave everything earthly and corruptible and lift up the mind and heart to the Heavenly, Eternal and Divine.” It also indicates the location of God.
My understanding: APPEAL - "Our Father" traditionally considered an appeal to God. But this immediately raises the question: “WHAT exactly does a person reading a prayer mean by the word God?” I. Christ clearly and clearly said: “God is LOVE. And everyone needs to look for God in their hearts, like love.” And by the appeal itself "Our Father" Christ emphasized his relationship with God and said, “I am the SON of God.” Just like all other people are sons and daughters of God. And before God EVERYONE IS EQUAL. Along with this, I. Christ said, “I am the SON of man.” And with this Christ emphasized his kinship with all people. Speaking of the fact that he is the son of his earthly parents. And he is no different from other people. In simpler terms, we are all both men and sons of God. Faith in God, and even more so in Jesus Christ, as well as religious faith itself, has nothing to do with the right to call God father. For EVERYTHING IS SO ORIGINALLY ORGANIZED and is so in its essence. That is, it was created “IN IMAGE AND SIMILARITY.” Hence my understanding of the “Our Father” address is partly an appeal to oneself, as to the creator of oneself.
"Who is in heaven": Heaven as such is NOT the place of God. This judgment is WRONG.
I. Christ said “And do NOT separate heaven from earth, for it is a continuation of the earth, so do not separate yourself from the earth, for you are a continuation of it, and it is a continuation of you. That’s why I say: you are the beginning of everything and the end of everything. When you see this, then you will see the Kingdom of God. Everything living and non-living seems to be invisibly connected with each other, and everything individually is part of the whole! The Kingdom of Heaven is ALWAYS HERE, but you don’t know HOW to enter it... And the heaven I’m talking about is INSIDE everyone and OUTSIDE everyone, and the Kingdom of God is in this sky and no other. And you don’t have to go far to get it, and they won’t say: “here, it’s here,” or: “here, there.” For the Kingdom of God IS WITHIN EVERYONE!!! There are some who will not taste death until they see the Kingdom of God.”
The earth represents the feminine, sensual and material. The worldly path of human development. The sky represents the masculine, spiritual. The spiritual path of human development. I. Christ emphasized - ALL IS ONE. And man is the beginning and the end of everything. And a person must develop HARMONIOUSLY in two directions. Both material and spiritual.
In my mind "SKY" to some extent is the personification of the FACE of God. Look: God is ONE and Heaven is one. God is one, but many-faced. That is, it constantly manifests itself in everything and never repeats itself in its manifestations. The sky is also one, but the pictures of the sky itself are constantly changing. And at the same time they also never repeat themselves. If several people simultaneously look at one cloud floating across the sky, then each of them will most likely have their own associations with what they saw. For some, the outline of the cloud will remind one of an animal, for others a fish, for others a bird, and for others some other image. Day gives way to night. Day represents LIGHT, night represents DARKNESS. In the summer, the day is longer than the night; in the winter, the night is longer than the day. And at the same time, EVERYTHING IS IN HARMONY AND CONSTANT MOTION. Now try to mentally replace the words “Light is day” with the word “good”, and “Night is darkness” with the word “evil”. And you will be able to GET INTO THE ESSENCE OF THINGS.
Hallowed be Thy name. May Your Kingdom come. Thy will be done. As in heaven, so on earth.
Orthodox theologians: petitions. In the words of Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov): “The petitions that make up the Lord’s Prayer are petitions for spiritual gifts acquired for humanity through redemption. There is no word in prayer about the carnal, temporary needs of a person.”
"Hallowed be thy name". John Chrysostom writes that these words mean that believers should first ask for “the glory of the Heavenly Father.” The Orthodox Catechism indicates: “The Name of God is holy and, without a doubt, holy in itself,” and at the same time can “still be holy in people, that is, His eternal holiness can appear in them.” Maximus the Confessor points out: “We sanctify the name of our heavenly Father by grace when we mortify the lust attached to matter and cleanse ourselves from corrupting passions.”
"Thy kingdom come." The Orthodox Catechism notes that the Kingdom of God “comes hidden and inward. The Kingdom of God will not come with observance (in a noticeable manner).” As for the impact of the feeling of the Kingdom of God on a person, Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov) writes: “He who has felt the Kingdom of God within himself becomes alien to a world hostile to God. He who has felt the Kingdom of God within himself can desire, out of true love for his neighbors, that the Kingdom of God will open in all of them.”
. By this, the believer expresses that he asks God so that everything that happens in his life happens not according to his own desire, but as it pleases God.
My understanding: "hallowed be the name". There is an expression: “God has thousands of names.” That is, so many that you can’t even count them. And in fact this is true. The fact is that EVERY Soul (Higher Self) in God at the ninth level has ITS own NAME. This name can be READ. But only that person who has ACHIEVED the appropriate level in his Spiritual Development can do this during his lifetime. Imagine this picture - against the background of the ABYSS, a series of red fiery hieroglyphs, which, as if alive, move from right to left along a line in front of your eyes. This name is not pronounced, it cannot be expressed in words. This name can only be read by your FEELINGS. The spectacle itself is simply amazing. And if you see it once, you will never confuse it with anything else. Such a person begins to GLORIFY one of the many names of God in the world and during life. Carrying this name within yourself as YOUR OWN. Just as I. Christ did in his time. Praise God with words, as is our custom now. This means CREATE APPEARANCE and thereby waste your time in vain and without benefit.
I. Christ said: “Who do you listen to and who do you go to church to worship? And who are the most revered people in it? Scribes? Pharisee? High priests? All of them, no matter how many of them came before Me, are thieves and robbers and worse. For it is not your bread or your gold that is stolen, but your life itself. They honor God with their lips and tongue, but their heart is far from Him. And they are like painted tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of the bones of the dead and all uncleanness. And those hypocrites close the Kingdom of Heaven to men, for they themselves do not enter it and do not allow those who want to enter. And they like people to call them: teacher! teacher! Don't call them teachers. They are blind leaders of the blind, and if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit. And for centuries they have been hiding the keys to true knowledge and replacing them with half-truths, which they dress up in the clothes of Truth, and therefore they are more dangerous and terrible than lies.”
"Thy Kingdom Come". The Kingdom of God is a feeling of LOVE in the Soul. And to be in the Kingdom of God means to live with a feeling of love. A person who has felt the love of God within himself can indeed become alien to the world. Due to the fact that he begins to look at things DIFFERENTLY. A person hostile to God is a person who lives in condemnation and RENUNCIATION of his feeling of LOVE for the sake of his human values. Such as morality and morality, which people put ABOVE their own feelings. Therefore, I. Christ said: “Judgment without mercy will not create mercy.” But before others, a person hates himself. And thereby renounces self-love. A person who lives by self-hatred distances himself from himself, and therefore from God. A person who has felt the love of God within himself can help other people feel the same.
“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”- IMHO. Here we are talking about “Freedom of choice”. Initially, God gave EVERYONE freedom of choice. The essence of this freedom is the feeling of love. Most people live by passions and renunciation of the feeling of love, that is, from God and from themselves. And for this reason THEY SUFFER. But with all this, they look for the cause of their suffering not in themselves and in their own choices, but in other people or in God. According to their NAIVE understanding, someone God must intervene in the earthly affairs of people and stop their suffering. And some are so naive that they expect a miraculous “salvation” from HIGH. Considering that they suffer undeservedly. It is advisable for such people to first understand a few simple truths, which sound like this: “There is no point in blaming God (the mirror) if he himself has a crooked face,” “Saving a drowning person is the work of the drowning person himself,” and “Water does not flow under a lying stone.” . And “belief in miraculous salvation from above” is SUPERSTITION and has nothing to do with true faith. All this is ordinary SELF-DECEIPTION, which in turn is also the “Free choice” of every person.
One of the most powerful human fears is “Fear of choice.” A person living in fear shifts his choice to God and thereby tries to escape responsibility. As a result, a person’s choice is made by his own fear, that is, STRESS. Which lies at the root of human suffering. Thus, a person chooses suffering for himself, and blames God for it. From here follows a simple conclusion, which sounds like this: “The choice of man himself is the choice of God.” And “an attempt to avoid a choice, which is also an attempt to deceive oneself, is also considered a choice made.” THERE IS ALWAYS A CHOICE AND THIS CHOICE IS ALWAYS FREE. THE CHOICE THAT REPRESENTS A FEELING OF LOVE IN YOUR HEART IS CONSIDERED THE ONLY CORRECT CHOICE. And even if you once made the wrong choice, you can always CHANGE YOUR MIND and CHOOSE AGAIN.
Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, just as we forgive our debtors.
Orthodox theologians: . In the Orthodox Catechism "daily bread"- this is “the bread necessary in order to exist or live,” but “the daily bread for the soul” is “the word of God and the Body and Blood of Christ.” In Maximus the Confessor, the word “today” (this day) is interpreted as the present age, that is, the earthly life of a person.
In this petition, debts refer to human sins. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) explains the need to forgive others their “debts” by saying that “Forgiving our neighbors of their sins before us, their debts, is our own need: without doing this, we will never acquire a mood capable of accepting redemption.”
My understanding: “Give us this day our daily bread”. I. Christ said “Do not worry about tomorrow. Let tomorrow take care of itself.” And also: “Man does not live by bread alone, but by the word of God.”
A person needs two types of energy to develop. The first is material, rough “Daily Bread”... Food, water, housing, clothing and so on, associated with the development of the physical body. The second is spiritual. This is a more subtle energy associated with the development of the Soul. Fear of the FUTURE is driving modern humanity into the abyss... Many sacrifice their spiritual development for the sake of their material development. And then they themselves suffer. And at the same time they do not understand that “tomorrow” may not come at all for them. So, in order to lead people out of the mad race of acquisitiveness, greed and thirst for profit, I. Christ said - “FOR THIS DAY”, that is, FOR TODAY, and not for the whole century - as GREEDY people want. Regarding spiritual food, Christ said this: “Ask God for the Holy Spirit and it will be given to you.” For the energy of the feeling of LOVE is the food of human Spiritual Development. By “the word of God” we mean the very TEACHING of I. Christ “On love and forgiveness.” But in itself, the flesh and blood of Christ has nothing to do with food for the soul.
“Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” In fact, here we are talking about the very art of FORGIVENESS. The ability to forgive is an important aspect of the process of Spiritual Development itself. People don't know the art of forgiveness. Therefore, most people forgive only in words, but continue to hate in their hearts. A person in prayer asks God to forgive him only those debts that the person himself was able to forgive other people. And everything is fair here. BUT! At the same time, you should remember that you yourself need your forgiveness first of all. And you need to forgive first of all yourself, and not others. And if a person was able to forgive himself, then he will forgive the same to others. And if you couldn’t, then there is NO petition. There is only FARS, from which there is no benefit to the Soul, only harm. Forgiveness of oneself frees the Soul from the burden, removes the stone from the Soul. And without a feeling of LOVE, forgiveness is impossible. Read more in the books of the author Luule Viilma “I forgive myself”...
And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Orthodox theologians: "lead us not into temptation". In this petition, believers ask God how to prevent them from being tempted, and if, according to the will of God, they should be tested and purified through temptation, then God would not completely give them over to temptation and not allow them to fall.
"Deliver us from evil." In this petition, the believer asks God to deliver him from all evil and especially “from the evil of sin and from the crafty suggestions and slander of the spirit of malice - the devil.”
My understanding: "lead us not into temptation". A person is tempted not by the will of God or the devil, but by his own. And only in order to understand the LEVEL of your Spiritual Development. By itself "TEMPTATION" is a kind of TEST for SINCERENESS OF INTENTIONS. For me, the main temptation is RENUNCIATION OF LOVE, in the name of human values and concepts. Which, as a rule, is followed by UNFORGIVENESS and, first of all, of oneself - this is the first. Secondly, anyone can trip and fall. But not everyone can get up and continue on their way. And if you “fell,” then FORGIVE YOURSELF for your fall and LOVE YOURSELF in your FALL. Otherwise, you simply won’t be able to pass. Third - if you fall and cannot get up, then LOVE YOURSELF lying and helpless. And only then can you get up and move on. HE WHO IS AFRAID OF FALL IS NOT ABLE TO WALK.
I. Christ said: “Don’t be afraid to get lost when you look for your way, only the strongest are capable of this. And the Shepherd loves those who have left the flock more than others, for only they are given the power to find the cherished path.
It is not the cattle’s fault that they are in a pen, because the owner built the pen for them. Man, to his own shame, did what no living creature is capable of: he built a prison for himself with his own hands and placed himself in it.”
"Deliver us from evil". In my understanding, the “evil one” is by no means an evil spirit or the devil. And this is an infinite number of SELF-DECEIPTS in which modern humanity finds itself. Self-deception is LIE TO YOURSELF, HYPOCRISY and FALSE WITNESS. To succumb to the “evil one” means to wishful thinking and thereby fall into the web of your own LIES about yourself. The most powerful LIE in this world sounds like this: “I am a good and kind person who forgives everyone and everything. And he wishes only happiness and goodness for everyone.” You can add to this: decent, intelligent, well-mannered, educated, and so on. Doesn't change the essence. And if you consider yourself as such, then KNOW - YOU ARE IN YOUR ILLUSION and YOU STILL DO NOT KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT YOURSELF.
I. Christ said: “You must first KNOW YOURSELF. When you know yourself, then you will be KNOWN and ACCEPTED by the Most High, and you will know that you are the son of the living Father. And through you, as through all his creations, He reveals himself. When you know yourself, then you will find your true self and all the secrets that are hidden from you will be revealed to you. If you do not know yourself, then you are in poverty and you are poverty. Not only to believe, BUT CHECK EVERYTHING ON YOURSELF, to find and KNOW - that’s what I call for. And what you have learned, there is no longer any need to believe. He who has everything, needing himself, HAS NOTHING!!!”
You should also remember that someone God will not ask anything from you. You ask yourself and this trial is the most terrible. His name is SELF-JUDGMENT. That’s why people say: “Trust in God, but don’t make a mistake yourself.”
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Orthodox theologians: Doxology - “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen". The doxology at the end of the Lord's Prayer is contained so that the believer, after all the petitions contained in it, gives God due reverence.
My understanding:“For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen". This doxology actually contains the main ESSENCE of the entire prayer. In other words, it sounds like this: “LOVE RULES THE WORLD” or “ALL IS LOVE.” The fact is that God does not need service, worship and worship because God is SELF-SUFFICIENT.
I. Christ said this: “God is not far from each of you. But YOU SHOULD NOT think that you will find HIM in descriptions or sculptures that received their image from human art and invention, for then the CREATURE is worshiped instead of the CREATOR. The Almighty DOES NOT live in TEMPLES MADE BY MAN, and HE DOES NOT REQUIRE THE SERVICE OF HUMAN HANDS, FOR HE HAS NO NEED FOR ANYTHING. Heaven is his throne and earth is his footstool. And man does not need a man-made temple to speak with God, for the house of the Most High is the whole earth and the sky, and the stars, and all people... IF YOU DO NOT SEE GOD DURING YOUR LIFE, THEN YOU WILL NOT SEE AFTER!!! But try NOT to see God HIMSELF, but Divinity! The Divinity in which He manifests Himself in all things, the Divinity with which the entire universe is filled.”
Sincerely, Vladimir Veter.
Our Father Prayer interpretation of words
Give us this day our daily bread;
just as we also leave our debtors;
and do not lead us into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
First part, preface: Our Father, who art in heaven!, teaches the following.
1) The one who prays must come to God not only as His creation, but also as His son by grace.
2) He must be a son of the Orthodox Church.
3) Should not doubt that he will receive what he asks from the Most Merciful Father.
4) Since God is the Father of all, we must live like brothers.
5) The word “in heaven” instructs us to raise our minds from earthly things to heaven. In addition, it must be said that although God is present everywhere, His grace, saturating the righteous, and the wealth of His wondrous deeds especially shine in heaven.
The second part is petitions, of which there are seven:
In this petition we beg, firstly, for the granting of a pious and virtuous life to us, so that everyone, looking at it, glorifies the name of God; secondly, that the ignorant would turn to the Orthodox faith and glorify the Heavenly Father with us; and thirdly, that those who bear the name of Christian, but continue their lives in evil and abominations, should abandon their vices, which slander our faith and our God.
2. Thy kingdom come.
With this we ask that it is not sin, but God Himself, who reigns in all of us with His grace, truth and compassion. In addition, the petition also contains the idea that man, being under the grace of God and feeling heavenly joy, despises the world and desires to receive God’s kingdom. Finally, here we also pray that His Second Coming will be hastened.
3. Thy will be done as it is in heaven and on earth.
We beg here that God would not allow us to lead our lives according to our will, but that we should govern it as He pleases, and that we should not resist His will, but that we should obey Him in everything. In addition, what is meant here is the idea that without allowing the will of God, nothing can come to us, from anyone, ever, as long as we live according to His will.
4. Give us this day our daily bread.
We ask here, firstly, that God does not deprive us of preaching and knowledge of His holy word, for the word of God is spiritual bread, without which a person perishes; secondly, that He may grant us communion with the Body and Blood of Christ; and, thirdly, to give us everything we need for life and to provide all this in this world in abundance, but without excess. The word “today” means the time of our present life, for in the next century we will enjoy the sight of God.
5. And forgive us our debts, just as we forgive our debtors.
Here we ask that God would grant us forgiveness of sins, for debt here refers to sins. This petition teaches us that we ourselves should forgive the debts of our debtors, that is, that we should forgive those who have angered and embittered us all their crimes. He who does not forgive his neighbor says this prayer in vain, for then his sins are not forgiven by God, and even his prayer itself is a sin.
6. And do not lead us into temptation.
By this we ask, firstly, that we be free from temptations that come from the world, the flesh and the devil and move us to sin, and from heretics who persecute the Church and deceive our souls with false teachings and other means; and, secondly, so that in the event of suffering for Christ, God strengthens us with His grace to endure torment even to the end, so that we accept the end of torment and so as not to allow us to suffer beyond our strength.
7. But deliver us from evil.
Here we beg, firstly, that God preserve us from all sin and from the devil, who incites us to sin; secondly, that He would deliver us in this life from all disasters; thirdly, so that at the time of death He would drive away from us the enemy who wants to devour our souls, and send us an Angel to guard us.
Third part, or conclusion: For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
This conclusion is in agreement with the preface, for just as the preface teaches that we will receive what we ask from the Most Merciful Father, so this conclusion shows that we will receive what is required from Him. After all, His is the whole world, His is the strength and His is the glory, for which we must ask. The word Amen means: “So be it,” or “By her, by her.” This conclusion can be spoken by a commoner alone, without a priest.
The Lord's Prayer: its interpretation and meaning
At all times, in different cultures and religious beliefs, prayer has been the main way of communicating with the gods. Services were often accompanied by musical instruments and prayers were sung as songs. Orthodoxy has adopted many ancient customs, including the reading of prayers. One of the most important prayers is the Lord's Prayer, which is described in the Gospel of Luke. Jesus introduced her words to his disciples, who asked him to teach them how to pray.
Interpretation of the Lord's Prayer
If we talk about the origins of the Lord's Prayer, we can turn to ancient sources. Previously, Greek sources were accepted as priority and correct. But they contained many inaccuracies and distortions that arose during the translation. Thus, the Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic became a real discovery to understand the essence of the Jesus Prayer. Its roots are in Jewish tradition. In form, it is clearly constructed according to the requirements by which prayers were structured in the time of Jesus. The prayer was supposed to contain seven requests and consist of three parts. First came the glorification of God, then personal requests, and the prayer ended with thanksgiving. The Lord's Prayer can be called the most valuable gift of Jesus to his disciples and all people.
Slavic prayers appeared in the Orthodox Church thanks to the enlightenment brothers Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril and Methodius, who translated the Psalter from Greek and gave the Slavs the alphabet. The Slavic language, used in Russian worship, combines the historical cultural memory of the people and unites different generations of believers. Likewise, the prayer “Our Father” during services is heard in Church Slavonic, but this does not make it any less close and understandable to true believers, for whom Orthodoxy is their conscience and soul.
The meaning and interpretation of the Lord's Prayer
We give the meaning, meaning and interpretation of the “Our Father” Prayer, which our Lord Jesus Christ left for us here on earth during his life.
"Our Father, Who art in heaven"
Truly, my brothers, how great is the mercy of our Lord and how indescribable is the love for mankind that He has shown and continues to show to us, ungrateful and insensitive towards Him, our Benefactor. For He not only raised us up, having fallen into sin, but also, out of His infinite Goodness, He also gave us a model of prayer, raising our minds to the highest theological spheres and preventing us from falling again, through our frivolity and feeble-mindedness, into the same sins.
lest we be condemned by Him."
"Hallowed be Thy Name"
Is it really true that the Name of God is not already holy from the very beginning, and therefore we must pray for it to be holy? Is it possible to allow this to happen? Is He not the Source of all holiness? Is it not from Him that everything that is on earth and in heaven is sanctified? Why then does He command us to sanctify His Name?
"Thy Kingdom Come"
Since human nature of its own free will fell into slavery to the murderer devil, our Lord commands us to pray to God and our Father to free us from the bitter captivity of the devil. This, however, can only happen if we create the Kingdom of God within us. And this will happen if the Holy Spirit comes to us and drives out the tyrant and enemy of the human race from our souls, and He Himself rules in us, for only the perfect can ask for the Kingdom of God and the Father, since it is they who have achieved perfection in the maturity of spiritual age.
“Thy will be done as it is in heaven and on earth”
There is nothing more blessed and more peaceful, either on earth or in heaven, than to do the will of God. Lucifer lived in heaven, but, not wanting to do the will of God, he was cast into hell. Adam lived in paradise, and all creation worshiped him as a king. Without keeping, however, God's commandments, he was plunged into the most severe torment. So, someone who does not want to do the will of God is completely overwhelmed by pride. And therefore the prophet David is right in his own way when he curses such people, saying: “You have tamed, Lord, the proud who refuse to obey Your law. Cursed are those who turn away from Your commandments." In another place he says: “The proud commit many iniquities and crimes.”
The meaning of the prayer “Our Father. “
Prayer “Our Father”
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven;
Give us this day our daily bread;
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors;
And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
Many people know this prayer, and even children know it by heart.
When our souls are heavy or we are in danger, we remember God. At these moments in life, we begin to pray, and the prayer left by Jesus Christ himself, “Our Father,” is the same universal prayer that teaches us communication with God!
Prayer is a conversation between a person and God. Live conversation: like a conversation between a son or daughter and his father. When children just start talking, they don’t get everything right; we remember many of our children’s “pearls” all their lives, but we don’t laugh at them. We don’t laugh at how they pronounce words incorrectly, but we teach them. Very little time passes - and the children grow up, begin to speak correctly, connectedly, consciously...
So is prayer. When a person prays, he speaks to God, says what is in his soul, what he can tell his Savior: his needs, problems, joys. Prayer expresses faith and personal feelings of gratitude and humility...
Human prayer is a sacrament that the Lord left for communication with Him.
There are different prayers. There are public prayers that are offered for the people: And I prayed to the Lord my God, and confessed and said: “I pray to You, O Lord, great and wondrous God, who keeps covenant and mercy with those who love You and keep Your commandments! We have sinned, we have acted wickedly, we have acted wickedly, we have persisted and turned away from Your commandments and Your statutes...” Dan. 9:4.5
There are family prayers, where in a narrow family circle relatives can pray for themselves and their relatives and friends: And Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord heard him, and Rebekah his wife conceived. Life 25:21.
And there are personal prayers, i.e. those in which a person opens his heart to God. But you, when you pray, go into your room and, having shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you openly. Matt. 6:6.
The Lord's Prayer is a universal prayer. Listen to every phrase of this prayer.
“Our Father...” - this is how the prayer begins
“Father” – i.e. father, this word means a lot to a person. A father takes care of his children, parents are ready to lay down their lives for their children, because children are the most valuable thing they have.
“Our Father...” – and in relation to each of us – MY FATHER! Those. if He is my father, then I am His son or daughter! And if I am not His son, do I have the right to be called that? If someone else’s child approaches an adult man and asks, for example, to buy a bicycle, the adult will say: “You have parents, they must resolve this issue.”
But the word “our” speaks of the community of all people and of the one God the Father, who loves everyone without exception. Even if a child says that he does not love his father, the father still continues to love him!
Which father among you, when his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? or, when he asks for a fish, will he give him a snake instead of a fish? Or, if he asks for an egg, will he give him a scorpion?
So, if you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him. Onion. 11:11-13
The Lord – he “is” – i.e. everlasting. He is outside of time and space - he exists! He is Holy - and we need to remember this so as not to “become familiar” with Him, but to treat Him with reverence.
Holiness is the essence of God. Holiness is separation from everything sinful, from unclean, from untruth...
There is nothing unclean in God - not at all, and even His name is holy!
People also value their name, and if a person’s reputation is “tarnished”, they do not trust him and are wary of him. But if a person has lived a dignified life and he says the word, people will trust, believe him - his name is not tarnished.
The name of the Lord is purer and holier than all names in the world. He is the standard of purity and holiness, which is why we say “Hallowed be Thy name!” By saying this, we glorify God, we confirm that "Holy is His name..." Onion. 1:49.
Ask yourself: is the name of God hallowed in your heart?
Where is the Kingdom of God? It is located where there is the owner of this Kingdom - the Lord God. It's everywhere. It is in distant and inaccessible space, it is throughout visible and invisible nature, it is even inside us: “ The Kingdom of God is within you» Luke 17:21.
Outside of this Kingdom there is no full life, because... life is given by the Lord God himself. People entering this world of God receive peace and forgiveness of sins. And you can enter this Kingdom of God while living on earth by calling on God in the prayer of repentance: “Thy Kingdom come » .
Outside the Kingdom of God there is a dying world that is coming to an end, to eternal suffering. Therefore, we ask that the Kingdom of God come and that we be with God here, living on Earth.
Entering His Kingdom does not mean dying a physical death. A person can live and be in His Kingdom. And life was given to us so that we could prepare and be in communion with God - this is why prayer exists. A person who prays - prays in simple words from the heart - has communication with God, and the Lord gives such a person peace and quiet.
Have you prayed yet? Never? Begin and receive the blessings of fellowship with God.
Human pride is one of the terrible vices that burns a person from the inside.
“To submit to someone’s will: no, this is not for me! I want to be free, I want to think for myself and act as I want, and not like someone else. There’s no need to tell me, I’m too small...” Sound familiar? Isn't that what we think?
What would you say if your three-year-old son said this to you? We know that our children are not perfect, but when they communicate with us, we teach them, at some point we may punish them for disobedience, but at the same time we do not stop loving them.
It is also difficult for an adult to come to terms with someone else's will, especially if he does not agree with it.
But tell God Thy will be done» is very easy if we trust him. Because His will is good will. This is the will that wants not to make us slaves, not to deprive us of freedom, but, on the contrary, to give us freedom. The will of God reveals to us the Son of God - Jesus Christ: “This is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day" John. 6:40.
“Our daily bread” is what we need today. Food, clothing, water, a roof over your head - everything a person cannot live without. The most necessary things. And pay attention - precisely for today, and not until old age, comfortably and calmly. It would seem that He, like a Father, already knows what we need - but the Lord, in addition to “bread,” also wants our fellowship.
He Himself is the spiritual Bread with which we can feed our souls: “Jesus said to them: I am the bread of life; He who comes to Me will never hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst” John. 6:35. And just as we cannot live long without bread for the flesh, so without spiritual bread our soul will wither away.
What do we eat spiritually? Is our spiritual food of high quality?
« In everything that you want people to do to you, do the same to them."Matt. 7:12. In this prayer we ask God to forgive “our debts.” Have we borrowed something from God? What do we owe him? Only a person who does not know God at all can reason this way. After all, everything that exists on earth (and beyond) belongs to God! Everything we take and use is not ours, it is His. And we owe Him much more than anyone owes us.
But here in prayer we see the relationship between people and God: “ and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors" These words speak about how a person, nourished by God, should live in God and care not only about temporary, but also about eternal life - and this can be achieved if sins are forgiven, which the Lord calls debts in His Gospel.
“When tempted, no one should say: God is tempting me; because God is not tempted by evil and does not tempt anyone Himself, but everyone is tempted by being carried away and deceived by his own lust; But lust, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin once it has been committed gives birth to death.” James. 1:13-15.
In prayer, we must ask that the temptations (trials) that befall us are not beyond our strength. “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” 1 Cor. 10:13. For temptations come from our lustful desires.
Sometimes God allows testing for educational purposes, wanting to teach us something. And through these trials our humility before Him is tested.
In prayer we ask the Lord to deliver us “from the evil one,” i.e. from the power of Satan, from his networks, from one’s own sinful desires, for the consequences from them are death. First, spiritual, which separates a person from God, and then, perhaps, physical.
In the Gospel, the prayer “Our Father” ends with the doxology: “ For Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen" Unfortunately, in our time, very often people pray formally, mechanically. But we must not just repeat the words of the Lord’s Prayer, but think about their meaning each time. This, given by God Himself, is a perfect example of the correct prayerful structure of the soul, this is the system of life priorities commanded by Christ, expressed in succinct words.
An unbelieving friend came to visit one hunter. He lives far away and occasionally comes to the taiga to visit a friend to hunt.
And once again, when they come to visit, they sit at the table, drink tea, talk about life, the owner of the house, as a Christian, tells his friend about God. And suddenly my friend started... hiccupping.
– Let’s do this: I’ll put my hands behind my back and bend over 90 degrees, and you give me a glass of cold water to drink – I’ll drink it and stop hiccupping. People say it's a good way to get rid of hiccups.
“Friend, you better pray and ask God for forgiveness for your sins and at the same time, in order to remove the hiccups, pray with faith - the Lord will help,” the hunter advises him.
- No, give me some water...
After the third glass, the hiccups did not go away.
And again the hunter advises: “Pray! Trust God."
And then the guest stood up, folded his hands on his chest and began:
– Our Father who art in heaven! Hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven; our daily bread give us this day...
“Stop,” the owner of the house interrupted him, “What are you doing?”
“I’m praying,” the guest answered in fear. “What’s wrong?”
-You ask God of bread! And you need to ask him to from hiccups delivered.
This is what happens when people pray a memorized prayer, sometimes without delving into the essence of the words of the prayer. They need one thing, but they may ask for something completely different.
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I received the God-protected Lord himself, who appeared to me in his venerable letters; in spirit he is always with me and can never be absent, but at the same time, due to the richness of his virtue and for reasons implanted by God in his very nature, he does not shy away from communicating in a godly manner with his slaves. Therefore, marveling at the greatness of his condescension, I mixed my fear of him with attraction to him, and from these two feelings, from fear and attraction, as well as from respect and favor, I formed a single love. Thus, my fear of him, united with an attraction to him, will not turn into hatred, and besides, this attraction, united with a prudent fear, will not turn into disdain; but love, being the law, adopts out of fear and favor only that which is akin to it by nature, and at the same time, with favor it kills hatred, and with respectful fear it drives disdain far away. Blessed David, realizing that fear, mainly of other feelings, is part of the love of God, says: The fear of the Lord is pure, abide forever(Ps. 18:10); It is obvious that he distinguishes this fear from another, that is, from the fear of punishment for sins, since this latter, with the advent of love, is expelled from the heart and completely disappears, as the great Evangelist John testifies to this in one place in his epistles, saying: Love casts out fear(1 John 4:18). And this fear, on the contrary, naturally inscribes in the heart the law of true love, forever preserving incorruptible among holy people, through reverent shame, their love for God and for each other, which they observe as a sacred institution and as a way of life.
Thus, as was said above, I, having mixed my fear with an attraction to my Master, am to this day governed by this law of love: respectful fear of him forbids me to write, so as not to give room to contempt, and disposition towards him, on the contrary, encourages write so that a decisive refusal to write would not be explained by hatred. And I write not guided by my own understanding, for, as the Scripture says: The thoughts of mortals are fearful(Wis. 9:14), but only insofar as God, by His grace, gives me understanding for the benefit of those who read. The advice of the Lord, says David, endures forever, the thoughts of His heart to generation and generation(Ps. 32:11). Here, it seems, by the advice of God the Father is meant the ineffable exhaustion, which determines the end of all ages, of the Only Begotten Son for the deification of our nature. By “the thoughts of His heart” are meant the logoi of Providence and Judgment, according to which the Lord wisely controls both our present and future lives, like different tribes, differently applying to each the appropriate mode of action.
If the work of God’s council is to deify our nature, and the intention of God’s thoughts is to fully realize the sought-after goal of our life, then, of course, it is useful to understand the meaning of the Lord’s Prayer and fulfill the requirements contained in it. Therefore, an explanation of the Lord's Prayer, properly written, is also useful. And since my Master, in his letter to me, his servant, mentioned, at the inspiration of God, about this Prayer, then, beginning my reasoning about it, I pray to the Lord, the Teacher of this Prayer, to open my mind to comprehend the secrets hidden in it and give me the appropriate word to explain them. For this Prayer contains in itself the whole indicated intention of God, secretly hidden in a summary, or, better said, contains the meaning of everything that is preached for the strong in spirit. After all, the exhausted Word of God, the Self-perfecter of everything through His flesh, gives us a petition in the words of this Prayer, teaching us to assimilate those benefits that God the Father alone truly gives, acting through the Son - by the nature of the Mediator in the Holy Spirit. And since, according to the words of the divine Apostle, the Mediator between God and people is the Lord Jesus, He reveals to people through His flesh the unknown Father, and through the Spirit brings in Himself reconciled people to the Father, for whom and for whose sake He immutably became man; He becomes the Self-Accomplisher and Teacher of new mysteries, of which there are so many that the mind cannot comprehend either their number or greatness. Among them, He gave people, out of the abundance of His generosity, the seven most important, the meaning of which, as I said, lies hidden in the content of this Prayer. These mysteries are: theology, adoption by grace, the equality of people with Angels, the communion of eternal life, the restoration of human nature to its original dispassionate state, the overthrow of the law of sin and the overthrow of the evil one, who has subjected us, through deception, to his tyrannical dominion. Now let's check what was said.
Theology is taught by the incarnate Word of God, showing in Himself the Father and the Holy Spirit, because the whole Father and the whole Holy Spirit dwelt essentially and perfectly in the whole incarnate Son, not being incarnate themselves, but one favoring, and the other assisting in the Incarnation the self-acting Son. The Word remained rational and alive, not comprehended in essence by anyone else except the Father and the Spirit alone, and hypostatically united with the flesh through His love for mankind.
The Son of God gives adoption to people, giving them a supernatural and grace-filled birth from above through the Holy Spirit. The preservation and observance of adoption in God depends on the free will of those regenerated: they, with their sincere inner disposition, accept the beauty bestowed by grace, and through the exhaustion of passions they assimilate the Divinity to the extent that the Word of God, according to the Economy of our salvation, willed Himself in His pure glory, becoming true Man .
Equality with the Angels was given to people by the Word of God not only by reconciling with Himself, having pacified everything through Himself, the Blood of His cross, both earthly and heavenly(Col. 1:20), and having abolished the hostile forces that fill the middle place between heaven and earth; during the distribution of divine gifts, It arranged one common celebration for the earthly and heavenly powers, when human nature, having the same will with the heavenly powers, together with them exultantly sang the glory of God, but also because, in fulfillment of the Economy of our salvation, It united heaven and earth with Himself, ascending together with the body received on earth to heaven; It united the intelligible with the sensible, and also showed the unity of the extreme parts of the created nature, internally connected by virtue and knowledge of the First Cause, and showed this, I think, in a mysterious way through what He accomplished. For reason is the unity of what is divided, and unreason is the division of what is united. So, let us learn to assimilate our minds through action, so that we can not only unite with the Angels through virtue, but also unite with God Himself through knowledge of Him and detachment from all created things.
And God the Word gives divine life through the fact that He gives Himself as food to those faithful to Him in the only way known to Him. Those who have received such a spiritual sensation from Him can truly know through eating this food, for the Lord is good(Ps. 33:9), Who, for the sake of the deification of those who eat, assimilates His divine property to them, since He clearly exists and is rightly called the Bread of Life and Strength (John 6:48).
The incarnate Word restores human nature in its original form not only by the fact that, having become Man, He preserved the will free from passions and not prone to rebellion, which did not shake in its natural basis against the crucifiers themselves, but, on the contrary, chose death for them instead of life. From this philanthropic disposition of the Suffering One towards the crucifiers, it is clear that He suffered voluntarily. However, the Lord recreated human nature in its original purity also by the fact that, having abolished enmity, nailed handwriting on the cross(Col. 2:14) sin, as a result of which this nature waged an irreconcilable struggle against itself; calling upon those far and near, that is, those under the law and those outside the law, and destroying the barrier that stood in the middle, abolishing hostility in His flesh, and the law of commandments in teaching, in order to create in Himself one new man from the two, establishing peace(Eph. 2:1415), reconciled us through Himself to the Father and to each other. And at the same time, we no longer have a will that opposes the logos of nature, but both by nature and by free will we remain unchanged.
And clean from law of sin(Rom. 7:23, 25; 8:2) God of the Word makes human nature through the fact that He did not allow His Incarnation to be preceded for our sake by carnal pleasure. For His conception in an incredible way was seedless, and His birth in a supernatural way was incorruptible, since the born God by His very birth strengthened the bonds of virginity in the bowels of His Mother, surpassing nature. And He freed all human nature, in the person of those who desire this and imitate His voluntary death through the killing of their earthly members (Col. 3:5), from the power of the law of sin dominating over it. For the sacrament of salvation is given to those who voluntarily thirst for it, and not to those who are forcibly attracted.
The tyrannical power of the evil one, who subjugated us by deception, God the Word overthrew, putting up against him as a weapon the flesh defeated in Adam, and defeating it. And this is in order to show that the flesh, previously captured by death, captured the one who captured it, destroyed his life with its natural death and became poison for him, so that he would vomit everyone he was able to devour, as having the power of death(Heb. 2:14). And for the human race, this flesh became life, raising all human nature, like leavened dough, to the resurrection of life, for which purpose God the Word actually became Man - a truly strange and unheard of thing - and voluntarily accepted fleshly death. The content of the Lord's Prayer, as I have already said, contains a prayer for all this.
This is how the Prayer speaks about God the Father, about the name of the Father and about His Kingdom. Moreover, it shows that he who prays is a son of this Father by grace; demands unity of will for heavenly and earthly beings and commands them to ask for their daily bread. It legitimizes the reconciliation of people with each other, and through their mutual compliance, it binds together human nature, which is not divided by the difference of will of individuals. She teaches to pray not to fall into temptation, that is, into the law of sin, and also exhorts to pray to get rid of the evil one. For it is necessary that the Self-Accomplisher and Distributor of good things should be at the same time a Teacher for His disciples who believe in Him, and that He should give to those who imitate His life according to the flesh, as a guarantee of eternal life, the words of this Prayer, with which He showed the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col. 2:3), existing in Him in a visible way, in order, no doubt, to arouse in those who pray the desire to enjoy them.
Scripture called this teaching “prayer” because, I think, it contains asking God for the gifts that He bestows on people by grace. For our God-inspired fathers define prayer this way: prayer is asking for what God, in His own way, usually gives to people. And prayer is defined as a promise or vow that people who serve God sincerely bring to Him. This is repeatedly confirmed by Scripture in its own words, as, for example: Pray and give thanks to the Lord our God(Ps. 75:12). And further: Elikaobeshtah, I will render You my salvation, Lord.(Jonah 2:10) This is said about prayer. On the other hand, Scripture also speaks about prayer, as, for example, And Anna prayed to the Lord, saying: Adonai, Lord Eloi of hosts, if thou hearest Thy handmaid, and give me the fruit of the womb(1 Samuel 1:11). And further: And Hezekiah the king of Judah, and Isaiah the son of Amoz the prophet, prayed before the Lord(2 Chron. 32:20). Also: When you pray, say: Our Father, dry in heaven!(Luke 11:2) - what was said to the disciples by the Lord Himself. So, prayer is keeping the commandments and fulfilling them with the will of the one praying, and prayer is asking the one who has kept these commandments from God to renew himself for good deeds. Or, better to say, prayer is a feat of virtue dedicated to God, who graciously accepts it; and prayer is a reward for a feat of virtue, given to a person by God with great joy.
So, after it has been shown that this Prayer is a request for benefits from the incarnate Word and that it represents Him Himself as the Teacher of Prayer, let us dare to examine it carefully, clarifying through speculation, as far as possible, the meaning of each phrase. For the Word of God itself is in the habit of bestowing the proper ability to understand the thought of the speaker:
Our Father, who is in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come
In these words, the Lord teaches those praying that prayer should begin immediately with theology, and also initiates them into the mystery of the way of existence of the Creative Cause of all things, being Himself in essence this Cause. For the words of the Prayer reveal to us the Father, the Name of the Father and His Kingdom, so that from the very beginning of the Prayer we learn to honor the one Trinity, call upon Her and worship Her. For the Name of God the Father, which exists in an essential manner, is His Only Begotten Son. And the Kingdom of God the Father, which also abides in an essential manner, is the Holy Spirit. What Matthew calls here the Kingdom, another Evangelist called the Spirit, saying: Yes Your Holy Spirit will come and cleanse us. After all, the Father does not possess this Name as newly acquired, and we understand the Kingdom not as a dignity contemplated in Him, since He did not begin to be in order to become first a Father and then a King, but, the Ever-Bearing One, He is always both Father and King, completely having no beginning either for His being, or for becoming a Father or King. If He is Ever-present and is always both Father and King, then this means that both the Son and the Holy Spirit always essentially coexist with the Father. They naturally exist from Him and in Him in such a way that they transcend all reason and all reason. They did not begin to exist after Him and not according to the law of causality, since Their connection has the ability to jointly manifest that of which it is the connection and is called, not allowing Them to be considered as following One after the Other.
Therefore, having begun this Prayer, we learn to honor the Consubstantial and Pre-Existent Trinity as the creative Cause of our existence. At the same time, we learn to proclaim the grace of adoption in us, being worthy to call our Creator by nature Father by grace. And this is so that, experiencing reverent fear of the name of our Parent by grace, we would try to imprint in our lives the features of the One who gave birth to us, sanctifying His name on earth, becoming like Him, revealing ourselves through our deeds as His children and glorifying the Self-Accomplisher with our thoughts and deeds. our adoption as sons by the nature of the Son of the Father.
And we sanctify the name of our heavenly Father by grace when we mortify the lust attached to matter and cleanse ourselves from corrupting passions. For sanctification is complete immobility and mortification of sensual lust. Being in this state, we calm down the obscene howl of rage, no longer having lust that excites it, and also incites it to fight for its pleasures. And therefore, lust, thanks to holiness consistent with reason, is mortified in us. After all, rage, by its nature carrying within itself retribution for lust, usually ceases to rage when it sees lust mortified.
So, through the rejection of lust and rage, the power of the Kingdom of God the Father naturally comes to us, according to the Lord’s Prayer, when, after rejecting passions, we are worthy to say: Thy kingdom come that is, the Holy Spirit, and when they have already become, through this Spirit and thanks to the way of existence and the logos of meekness, temples of God. For the Lord says: To whom will I look but to him who is meek and silent and trembles at My words?(Isa. 66:2). From this it is clear that the Kingdom of God the Father belongs to the humble and meek. For it says: Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth(Matt. 5:5). God did not promise this earth as an inheritance to those who love Him, which by nature occupies a middle position in the universe. Revealing the truth to us, He says: For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but remain as the angels of God in heaven(Matt. 22:30). And further: Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world(Matt. 25:34). And again in another place He said with thanksgiving to the worker: Enter into the joy of your master(Matt. 25:21). And after Him the divine Apostle says: For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will rise incorruptible(1 Cor. 15:52). Also: Then we, having remained alive, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord(1 Thess. 4:17).
So, if all this was promised in a similar way to those who love the Lord, then who, chaining his mind to only one saying of the Holy Scriptures, will begin to talk about the identity of Heaven and the Kingdom prepared from the creation of the world with the earth on which we now live? mysteriously hidden joy, as well as the permanent and non-spatial residence and habitation of people worthy with the Lord? Who will say this if he is prompted by the Word of God and passionately longs to be His servant? Therefore, I think that “earth” here refers to the unshakable and unchanging skill, inner strength and steadfastness in goodness of the meek, for they always abide with the Lord, have inexhaustible joy, adhere to the Kingdom prepared from the beginning, and are worthy of standing and rank in heaven. Such rational virtue is like a kind of earth occupying a middle position in the universe. Accordingly, the meek, being between praise and blame, remains dispassionate, neither puffed up by praises nor embarrassed by reproaches. For the mind, having abandoned passion, no longer feels uneasy from attacks from that from which it is by nature free, since it has calmed within itself the storm caused by these passions, and has transferred all the strength of its soul into the haven of divine and motionless freedom. Wanting to teach this freedom to His disciples, the Lord speaks. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls(Matt. 11:29). The Lord here calls “peace” the power of the Divine Kingdom, which creates in the souls of worthy people autocratic rule, alien to any slavery.
If the indestructible power of the immaculate Kingdom is given to the humble and meek, then who will be so lazy and completely indifferent to the Divine blessings that he will not strive with the utmost effort towards humility and meekness in order to become, as far as humanly possible, an imprint of the Divine Kingdom, truly carrying within oneself the great, by nature and essence, King Christ and becoming, by grace, His unchanging image in the Spirit. In this image, says the divine Apostle, no male or female(Gal. 3:28), that is, there is no wrath or lust. After all, the first tyrannically steals the understanding and takes thought beyond the boundaries of the law of nature, and the second makes more desirable than the One and Only, the desired and impassive Cause of all things and the Nature of this being, that which is lower than It, and therefore the flesh prefers to the spirit, makes pleasure visible more pleasant than the glory and radiance of mental goods and the pleasantness of sensual pleasures keeps the mind from the divine and akin to it perception of intelligible things. But in this image there is only one single mind, due to the excess of virtue, revealed even from the most completely dispassionate, but still natural, love and inclination towards the body, since the Spirit finally conquers nature and forces the mind to no longer engage in moral philosophy, for it should already to unite with the transcendent Word through simple and indivisible contemplation. However, it is in the nature of the mind to facilitate the easy dissection of the temporary flow of existence and the transition through it. And after passing through temporary existence, it is indecent for the mind to burden itself, like mercy, with moral concerns, since it is no longer under the power of the sensory.
The great Elijah clearly shows this, typifying such a sacrament by what he did. Namely: when he ascended to heaven, he gave Elisha a mantle, signifying the mortification of the flesh and containing the splendor of moral decency, to assist the Spirit in the fight against every hostile force and to defeat the fickle and fluid nature, the image of which was Jordan, so that the disciple would not kept from crossing into the Holy Land, immersed in the dirty and slippery addiction to material things. And Elijah himself, marching towards God completely free, not held back by any connection with existence and possessing a simple aspiration and an uncomplicated will, ascends to the Simple God by nature through interconnected, universal and connected by knowledge one with another virtues, as if making his way on fiery horses. For he knew that a disciple of Christ should not have unequal spiritual dispositions, since their difference exposes alienation from Christ. If the excitement of lust dissolves the spirit located near the heart, then rage generates boiling of the blood. Therefore, Elijah, as one who anticipates life in Christ, moved and existing by Him (Acts 17:28), eliminated from himself the unnatural source of passions, not carrying in himself, as I said, opposite predispositions of these passions, like the male and female sexes . And this is so that the mind, which is endowed by nature itself with honoring the divine image, is not enslaved by them, changing from their unstable changes, convincing the soul to recreate itself, of its own free will, to become like God and become the bright dwelling of the great Kingdom, that is, the Holy Spirit , The Kingdom, which essentially exists together with God and the Father of all creatures. Such a person receives, if I may say so, the full power of knowledge of the Divine nature, as far as this is possible for him. By virtue of this knowledge of God, the soul tends to renounce the worst and become better, if only it, like God, preserves within itself, by the grace of vocation, the unspoiled essence of the given blessings. In such a soul, Christ always deigns to be mysteriously born, incarnated by those who are being saved, and He makes the giving birth soul a virgin mother. Therefore, due to this property, it does not have in itself the signs of a nature that is under the laws of decay and birth, such as, for example, the signs of male and female.
And let no one be surprised to hear that corruption comes before birth. After all, having impartially and with sound understanding examined the nature of what is born and disappears, he will clearly see that birth begins with corruption and ends with corruption. Christ, that is, Christ’s and life and mind according to Christ, do not have the passionate properties of this birth. For the Apostle truly says, pointing, without a doubt, to the signs and properties of nature, which is under the laws of corruption and birth: In Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female(Gal. 3:28), but there is only a godlike mind created by divine knowledge, and a single movement of the will that chooses virtue alone.
Also in Christ Jesus neither Jew nor Gentile These words denote a different, or, more precisely, opposite way of thinking about God. For one way of thinking about God, namely the Hellenic one, foolishly introduces the idea of multi-principle, divides the one Principle into opposing actions and forces, invents polytheistic veneration, which, due to the multitude of gods worshiped, brings discord and disgraces itself in different ways of worship. And the other, that is, the Jewish way of thinking about God, although it teaches about one Beginning, presents Him as narrow, imperfect and almost non-existent, devoid of Word and Life and through this opposite extreme falls into evil equal to the previous teaching, that is, into atheism . For he limits the single Principle to the Person alone, existing either completely without the Word and the Spirit, or possessing the Word and the Spirit as properties. This teaching does not notice that God, deprived of the Word and the Spirit, is no longer God. For he who is endowed with the Word and the Spirit as random properties by participation, like rational created beings who are under the laws of birth, will not be God. Both of these teachings about God are absent in Christ, for in Him there exists the only teaching of true piety and the unshakable law of sacramental theology, which rejects the expansion of the Divine in the first teaching and does not accept His contraction in the second. After all, the Divinity should not be presented, due to Its natural plurality, as being in internal discord with Itself - which is a Hellenic delusion; It should not be presented, due to its unity, as subject to suffering, being deprived of the Word and the Spirit, or endowed with the Word and the Spirit as random properties; this is a Jewish delusion. Therefore, the law of sacramental theology teaches us, through the calling of grace adopted by faith to the knowledge of the truth, to comprehend the one nature and power of the Divine, namely the One God, contemplated in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, that is, to know the only and uncaused Mind, which abides in an essential manner and being the Parent of the only Word, existing without beginning in essence, and also to cognize the Source of the one ever-present Life, essentially abiding as the Holy Spirit. One should recognize the Trinity in the Unity and the Unity in the Trinity; not one in the other, because the Trinity is not for the Unit what a random property is for the essence, and the Unit is not in the Trinity, for it is without quality; and not as one and the other, because the Unity is not distinguished from the Trinity by the otherness of its nature, being a simple and united Nature; and not as one along with the other, because it is not by weakening of power that the Trinity differs from the Unity, or the Unity from the Trinity; and not as something general and generic, contemplated by thought alone, does the Unit differ from the Trinity, for the Divine essence is truly Self-existent, and the Divine power is truly self-powerful; and not as one through the other, for that which is completely identical and irrespective is not mediated by a connection, like the connection of an effect with a cause; and not as one from the other, for the Trinity, being unbegotten and self-manifested, does not come from the Unit by creation.
But we think and talk about God, Who truly is both Unity and Trinity; He is One due to the logos of His essence and Trinity due to the image of His existence. We confess the same entire Unit, undivided by Hypostases; and the entire same Trinity, not fused by the Unity, so that polytheism by division or atheism by merging is not introduced, and, avoiding these two extremes, the teaching of Christ shines with all light. By the teaching of Christ I mean the new preaching of the truth, in which there is no male or female, that is, there are no signs of the weakness of nature, which stands under the law of corruption and birth; there is no longer Jew or Gentile, that is, there are no opposing doctrines about the Divinity; there is no circumcision nor uncircumcision, that is, there are no ministries corresponding to these teachings; for one of them, the Jewish ministry, through the symbols of the law, condemns the visible creation and slanderes the Creator as the Creator of evil, and the other, the pagan ministry, idolizes the creation for the sake of satisfying the passions and restores this creation against the Creator: in the same way, both ministries lead to the same evil blasphemy; there is no barbarian, no Scythian, that is, there is no division of a single human nature, which rebels against itself of its own free will, as a result of which, contrary to nature, the destructive law of mutual murder invaded humanity; there is neither slave nor free, that is, there is no division of human nature that goes against the will, which makes dishonorable those who are equally honest by nature and has as its assistant the law, reflecting the way of thinking of those in power and tyrannically trampling on the dignity of the image of God; "O Christ is everything and in everything, by means of the fact that above nature and law He creates in the Spirit the image of the beginningless Kingdom, and this image, as has been indicated, is outlined [in the soul] by humility of heart and meekness, the combination of which indicates a person perfect in Christ (Col. 1:28) . After all, everyone who is humble in wisdom is, without a doubt, meek, and everyone who is meek is, without a doubt, also humble in wisdom. He is humble because he has learned that he has a borrowed existence, and he is meek because he has learned the correct use of the powers given to him by nature. By forcing these natural forces to serve the mind for the birth of virtue, he completely distracts their energy from sensory sensations. As a result of this, in the mind he always moves towards God, but in feeling he is completely motionless, not perceiving the experience of everything that causes sadness to the body, and not drawing a trace of sadness in the soul instead of the joy that reigns in it. For he does not look at the absence of pleasure as a felt pain, because he knows only one pleasure - the cohabitation of the soul with the Word; deprivation of this pleasure. For him it is endless torment, spreading to eternity. Therefore, leaving the body and the physical, he rushes towards Divine coexistence; even if he had dominion over everyone living on earth, even then he considered only one thing to be a true deprivation - the unattainability of the expected deification by grace.
So, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit (2 Cor. 7:1), so that, having quenched lust, which absurdly flirts with the passions, we sanctify the Divine Name, and let us bind with our minds the rage driven into frenzy by pleasures, so that, having become meek, we can accept the future Kingdom of God the Father. Let us add the following to the previous words of the Prayer:
Thy will be done as it is in heaven and on earth.
He who mysteriously brings service to God with his own rational strength, detached from lust and rage, fulfills the will of God on earth, like the ranks of angels in heaven. He has already become a co-servant and cohabitant of the Angels, as the great Apostle says: Our residence is in heaven(Phil. 3:20). Such people have neither lust, which relaxes the tension of the mind with pleasure, nor rage, which rages and shamelessly barks at those close to itself. There remains only one single mind in them, which naturally leads rational beings to the first Mind. This is the only thing God rejoices in and this is the only thing He demands from us, His servants. This is revealed in His words to David: What is there in heaven? And from you what did the earth desire?(Ps. 72:25). But the holy Angels in heaven bring nothing to God except reasonable service . Wanting the same from us, the Lord teaches those praying to say: Thy will be done as it is in heaven and on earth.
So let our minds rush to the search for God, and let the power of desire become an attraction to Him, just as let the fierce beginning enter into the struggle to preserve Him. Or, more precisely, let our whole mind extend to God, prompted, as if by a certain voice, by the tension of passion and inflamed by the utmost impulse of the power of desire. Imitating in this way the heavenly Angels, we will always be servants of God and on earth we will demonstrate an equal life with the Angels, and therefore, along with the Angels, we will have a mind completely indifferent to what is lower than God. Living in this way, through Prayer we will receive, like our daily bread, life-giving and satiating our souls to preserve the strength of the blessings given to us, the Word itself, which spoke: I am the bread of life that came down from heaven, giving life to the world(John 6:33, 3538). This Word becomes everything, proportionate to us, saturated with virtue and wisdom, and is embodied in various ways, as soon as It Himself knows, for the sake of each of those being saved. Let us accept Him, while still living in this age, according to the meaning of the following saying of the Prayer:
Give us this day our daily bread;
The word “today,” I think, means the present age. Or, to interpret this passage of the Prayer more clearly, we can say: our bread, which You prepared in the beginning for the immortality of human nature, give us today, in this mortal life, so that eating the bread of life and knowledge will overcome the death of sin, the bread of which the crime deprived the first man of the Divine commandment. After all, if he had been satisfied with this Divine food, he would not have been taken captive by the death of sin.
However, the one who prays to receive this daily bread does not receive it entirely as it is, but receives only as much as the recipient himself can perceive it. For the Bread of Life, as a Lover of Mankind, although He gives Himself to all who ask, does not give Himself equally to everyone: to those who have committed great deeds He gives more, but to those who have committed lesser deeds He gives less, that is, He gives to everyone as much as he can accept his spiritual dignity.
The Savior Himself led me to this understanding of the present saying of the Prayer, commanding His disciples not to worry at all about sensual food, saying to them: Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will wear.(Matt. 6:25), because all this is what the people of this world are looking for(Luke 12:30), [and you] seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you(Matt. 6:33). How does the Lord teach in Prayer not to seek what He Himself previously commanded? It is clear that in Prayer He did not order to ask for what He did not command in His commandment, for in Prayer we must ask for what we should seek according to the commandment. And what the Lord does not allow us to seek is unlawful to pray for. If the Savior commanded to seek one Kingdom of God and truth, then He encouraged those seeking Divine gifts to ask for the same thing in Prayer, so that, through this Prayer, having confirmed the grace of the goods sought by nature, to unite and identify through relative unity the will of those asking with the desire of the Giver of grace.
If Prayer commands us to ask for that everyday bread that naturally supports our present life, then this is so that we do not cross the boundaries of Prayer, covering whole periods of years in our thoughts, and do not forget that we are mortal and have a life here that is similar to the transitory one. shade, but so that, without being burdened with unnecessary worries, they ask in Prayer for bread for the day. And we will show that we wisely, according to Christ, turn our earthly life into a meditation on death, by our own will forestalling nature and, before death, cutting off the soul’s care for the bodily, so that it does not cleave to the corruptible and does not pervert its natural use by attraction to matter striving for God, becoming accustomed to covetousness, which deprives the wealth of Divine blessings.
So, let us avoid, as far as possible, love for matter and wash away, like dust, from our mental eyes the very connection with it; Let us be content only with what supports our life, and not with what gives it pleasure. Let us pray to God, as we have learned, so that our soul does not fall into slavery and not, for the sake of the body, fall under the yoke of visible things. Then it will be clear that we eat in order to live, and do not live in order to eat, since the first is characteristic of rational nature, and the second of irrational nature. Let us be strict guardians of this Prayer, showing by our very deeds that we firmly adhere to one and only life - life in the Spirit, and use our entire present life to acquire it. Let us prove in practice that for the sake of spiritual life we only endure this mortal life, supporting it with one bread and keeping it, as far as possible, in a healthy state, only so that we not only live, but live for God, making the body, inspired by virtues, a messenger soul, but a soul distinguished by constancy in goodness, making it a preacher of God. And we will naturally limit this bread to the needs of one day, not daring to extend requests for it to another day out of obedience to the One who Granted this Prayer. Therefore, having actively adjusted ourselves in accordance with the meaning of the Prayer, let us proceed in purity to the rest of the sayings, saying:
and forgive us our debts, just as we forgive our debtors;
Who, according to the understanding of the previous saying of the Prayer, in this age, which is symbolized, as we said, by the word “today,” seeks through Prayer the incorruptible Bread of Wisdom, the tasting of which was deprived us by the original transgression of the commandment; who recognizes only one pleasure - success in the Divine, the Giver of which by nature is God, and the preserver by choice is the free will of the recipient; who knows only grief - failure in this success, the inspirer of which is the devil, and the accomplisher - everyone who, due to weakened will, gets tired of the Divine and does not keep this treasure, which is held in the soul by the loving disposition of the will; whoever does not voluntarily gravitate towards visible things and therefore does not yield to the bodily sorrows that happen to him, he truly forgives those who sin against him dispassionately. After all, no one can take away the good that he preserves within himself with love and care, for it, as verified by faith, is inalienable by its nature. He appears before God as an example of virtue and, so to speak, calls on the Inimitable One to imitate himself, saying: forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors: he prays to God to be what he himself was in relation to his neighbors. For if he wishes that God would forgive him in the same way as he himself forgave the debts of those who sinned against him, that just as God dispassionately forgives those whom he forgives, so he forgives those who have sinned, remaining dispassionate to what happens to him, and therefore does not allow his mind to be imprinted with memories of previous sorrows, showing himself to be a man who is not separated from other people and does not dismember the unified human nature. For when the will is united in this way with the logos of nature, then the reconciliation of God with human nature usually occurs, since it is otherwise impossible for nature, which voluntarily rebels against itself, to accept the ineffable condescension of the Divine. And, of course, the Lord desires our reconciliation with each other not in order to learn from us to reconcile with those who have sinned and agree to redress many and terrible grievances, but He desires this in order to cleanse us of passions and show that our spiritual state is cramped. associated with grace. And it is clear that when the will has united with the logos of nature, the free will of the people who do this will no longer rebel against God. After all, there is nothing contrary to reason in the logos of nature, since it is both natural and Divine law, taking into itself the movement of the will acting in accordance with it. And if there is no counter-reason in the logos of nature, then it is quite natural that the will, moved in accordance with it, will act in everything in accordance with God. This is the active disposition of the soul, through the grace of God, Good by nature, contributing to the birth of virtue.
The one who asks for spiritual Bread in Prayer has this disposition of soul, and after him, the same disposition will be found by the one who, forced by the needs of the physical nature, asks only for everyday bread. Realizing himself to be mortal by nature, he leaves debts to debtors, and then, in view of the uncertainty of the hour of death, every day he expects the naturally inevitable and with his will warns nature, becoming a self-willed dead man for the world, according to the words of the Psalmist: For your sake we are killed all day long, counted as sheep of the slaughter(Ps. 43:23). As a result of this, he is reconciled with everyone, so that, when he is presented to unfading life, he does not bring with him signs of the depravity of the present age and in order to receive from the Judge and Savior of all in equal recompense what he borrowed here on earth. For a good spiritual disposition towards those who have grieved is necessary for both for their own benefit. And this is demonstrated by the following words of the Prayer:
and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
With these words, Scripture shows that whoever has not completely reconciled with those who sinned against him and has not presented to God a heart pure from sorrow and enlightened by the light of reconciliation with neighbors, he will not only not receive the grace of those benefits for which he prayed, but will also be handed over to temptation by righteous judgment and the evil one, so that he can learn to cleanse himself from sins, eliminating his complaints about others. The law of sin is called temptation; the first man, brought into being by God, did not have it, and by “the evil one” is meant the devil, who mixed this law into human nature and deceived man into directing all the aspirations of his soul to the unlawful instead of the permitted, and thereby to bow down. to the violation of the Divine commandment, as a result of which he lost the incorruptibility given to him by grace.
Or in other words: “temptation” is the voluntary disposition of the soul towards carnal passions, and “evil” is the way of actively fulfilling the passionate mood of the soul. No righteous Judge will deliver from them the one who did not forgive his debts to his debtors, but only asked for it in prayer. The Lord allows such a person, cruel and harsh in heart, to be desecrated by the law of sin and leaves him in the power of the evil one, since he preferred the passions of dishonor, the seeds of which are sown by the devil, to nature, the Creator of which is God Himself. And indeed, the Lord does not hinder him when he is willingly inclined towards carnal passions, and does not deliver him from the many different ways of actively realizing the passionate moods of the soul, since, considering nature lower than passions that do not have independent existence, he, due to the care of these passions, did not know the logos nature. And man must learn what the law of nature is and what the tyranny of passions is, not naturally, but randomly invading him due to his free consent. And he must preserve this law of nature, observing it in an activity consonant with nature, and expel the tyranny of passions from his will and by the power of reason preserve his nature immaculate, in itself pure, untainted and free from hatred and discord. Then he is obliged to make his will, which should not bring anything that is not given by the logos of nature, a companion to nature. And therefore, he should remove from himself all hatred and all discord towards those close to him by nature, so that God would hear him when he says this Prayer, and instead of simple grace would give him double grace: forgiveness of past sins, and protection and deliverance from future ones. ; and so that he would not allow him to fall into temptation and become a slave of the evil one, all this for the sole reason that he readily forgives debts to his neighbors.
Therefore, when we return, we will briefly repeat the essence of what was said. If we want to get rid of the evil one and not fall into temptation, let us believe in God and forgive the debts of our debtors. And if you do not forgive people their sins, then your Father will not forgive you your sins.(Matt. 6:15). Then we will not only receive forgiveness of the sins we have committed, but we will also defeat the law of sin itself, since the Lord will not allow us to experience it, and we will trample on the parent of sin, the evil serpent, for whose deliverance we pray. And our Commander will be Christ, who has conquered the world; He equips us with the laws of the commandments, and in accordance with these laws, through the rejection of passions and through love, he binds human nature together. As the Bread of life, wisdom, knowledge and truth, He draws to Himself our insatiable desire; in fulfillment of the Father’s will, He makes us co-servants of the Angels, so that even in this life, imitating the Angels, we demonstrate in our lives heavenly pleasing to God. Then He raises us to the highest levels of the Divine, leading to the Father of lights Himself (James 1:17) and makes us, through grace-filled communication with the Holy Spirit, partakers of the Divine nature, thanks to which we will all, without limitation, be called children of God and will bear the most pure to ourselves the whole Son of God by nature, the very perfecter of this grace, from whom, through whom and in whom we have and will have being, and movement, and life.
So, let the purpose of this Prayer be for us to contemplate the sacrament of deification, so that we may know instead of what and what kind of exhaustion through the flesh of the Only Begotten has made us, and also from where and where we, who have taken the lowest place in the universe, into which the weight of sin has cast us, has elevated us The Lord by the power of His humane hand. And let us love even more the One who so wisely prepared this salvation for us. Let us show by our deeds that this Prayer is fulfilled and we will be preachers of God, [our] true Father, by grace. And let us not have the passions of dishonor, which show that we have the evil one as the father of our life, always attempting to tyrannically rule over human nature. And we will not exchange life for death without noticing it. For each of them is in the habit of rewarding those who join him. One gives eternal life to those who love Him, and the other, through the instillation of voluntary temptations, brings about death in those who approach Him.
For temptations, as can be seen from the Holy Scriptures, are of two kinds: one kind is pleasant, and the other is painful; one is voluntary and the other is involuntary. The first of these is the parent of sin, and therefore we must pray so as not to be subject to it, according to the instructions of the Lord, who says: And do not lead us into temptation And Watch and pray so that you do not fall into temptation(Matt. 26:41). And the second type of temptation, punishing love of sin by inducing involuntary suffering, is the punisher of sin. If anyone endures such a temptation and if he is not nailed down by the nails of vice, he will hear the great Jacob clearly crying: Count it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into various temptations, knowing that the testing of your faith produces perseverance; patience must have its perfect effect. From patience to experience(James 1:2-4; Rom. 5:4). The evil one maliciously watches these and other temptations: voluntary and involuntary. In the case of the first, he, sowing seeds of bodily pleasures in the soul and irritating it with them, plots to distract it from the desire for Divine love. Temptations of the second kind he himself (sometimes) slyly asks for, wanting to destroy [human] nature with torments and sorrows and force the soul, exhausted in suffering, to raise its thoughts to enmity with the Creator.
But we, knowing the plans of the evil one, abhor free temptation, so as not to distract our desire from Divine love; and we will bravely endure the involuntary temptation that happens by God’s permission, in order to show that we prefer the Creator of nature to nature itself. And let all of us who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ get rid of the present pleasures that come from the evil one, and avoid future torments, becoming partakers of the visible essence of future blessings, revealed to us in Christ our Lord Himself, one with the Father and the Holy Spirit, glorified by all creatures. Amen.
Our Father,
When the skies roar and the oceans roar, they call to You: Our Lord of hosts, Lord of the powers of heaven!
When the stars fall and fire bursts out of the earth, they say to You: Our Creator!
When in the spring the flowers open their buds and the larks collect dry blades of grass to build a nest for their chicks, they sing to you: Our lord!
And when I raise my eyes to Your throne, I whisper to You: Our Father!
There was a time, a long and terrible time, when people called You Lord of Hosts, or Creator, or Mister! Yes, then man felt that he was only a creature among creatures. But now, thanks to Your Only Begotten and Greatest Son, we have learned Your real name. Therefore, I, together with Jesus Christ, decide to call You: Father!
If I call you: Vladyko, I fall on my face in fear before You, like a slave in a crowd of slaves.
If I call you: Creator, I am moving away from You, as the night is separated from the day, or as a leaf is torn from its tree.
If I look at You and tell You: Mister, then I am like a stone among stones or a camel among camels.
But if I open my mouth and whisper: Father, love will take the place of fear, the earth will seem to become closer to heaven, and I will go for a walk with You, as with a friend, in the garden of this light and will share Your glory, Your strength, Your suffering.
Our Father! You Father for all of us, and I would humiliate both You and myself if I called You: My father!
Our Father! You care not only about me, one single blade of grass, but about everyone and everything in the world. Your goal is Your Kingdom, not one person. Selfishness in me calls to You: My father, but love cries: Our Father!
In the name of all people, my brothers, I pray: Our Father!
In the name of all the creatures that surround me and with whom You have woven my life, I pray to You: Our Father!
I pray to You, Father of the Universe, for only one thing I pray to You: may the dawn of the day come soon when all people, living and dead, together with angels and stars, animals and stones, will call You by Your true name: Our Father!
Who is in heaven!
We raise our eyes to heaven every time we cry to You, and lower our eyes to the ground when we remember our sins. We are always below, at the very bottom because of our weakness and our sins. You are always on top, as befits Your greatness and Your holiness.
You are in heaven when we are not worthy to receive You. But You joyfully descend to us, into our earthly abodes, when we greedily strive for You and open the doors to You.
Although You condescend to us, You still remain in heaven. You live in heaven, you walk in heaven, and together with heaven you descend into our valleys.
Heaven is far, too far from the person who rejects You in spirit and heart, or who laughs when Your name is mentioned. However, heaven is close, very close to a person who has opened the gates of his soul and is waiting for You, our dearest Guest, to come.
If we compare the most righteous person with You, then You rise above him like the heavens above the valley of the earth, like eternal life above the kingdom of death.
We are made of corruptible, perishable material - how could we stand on the same peak with You, Immortal Youth and Strength!
Our Father Who is always above us, bow down to us and lift us up to Himself. What are we if not tongues created from the dust of Your glory! The dust would be forever mute and would not be able to pronounce Your name without us, Lord. How could the dust know You if not through us? How could You work miracles if not through us?
Oh, Our Father!
Hallowed be Thy name;
You do not become holier from our praises, however, by glorifying You, we make ourselves holier. Your name is wonderful! People bicker about names - whose name is better? It is good that Your name is sometimes remembered in these disputes, for at that very moment the speaking tongues become silent in indecision because all the great human names, woven into a beautiful wreath, cannot compare with Your name, Holy God, Most Holy!
When people want to glorify Your name, they ask nature to help them. They take stone and wood and build temples. People decorate altars with pearls and flowers and light fire with plants, their sisters; and they take incense from the cedars, their brothers; and give strength to their voices by the ringing of bells; and call the animals to glorify Your name. Nature is pure as Your stars and innocent as Your angels, Lord! Have mercy on us for the sake of pure and innocent nature, which sings Your holy name with us, Holy God, Most Holy!
How can we glorify Your name?
Maybe innocent joy? - then have mercy on us for the sake of our innocent children.
Maybe suffering? - then look at our graves.
Or self-sacrifice? - then remember the torment of the Mother, Lord!
Your name is stronger than steel and brighter than light. Good is the man who places his hope in You and becomes wiser through Your name.
Fools say: "We are armed with steel, so who can fight us back?" And You destroy kingdoms with tiny insects!
Your name is terrible, Lord! It illuminates and burns like a huge cloud of fire. There is nothing holy or terrible in the world that is not associated with Your name. Oh, Holy God, give me as friends those who have Your name engraved in their hearts, and as enemies those who do not even want to know about You. For such friends will remain my friends until death, and such enemies will fall to their knees before me and submit as soon as their swords are broken.
Holy and terrible is Your name, Holy God, Most Holy! May we remember Your name in every moment of our life, both in moments of joy and in moments of weakness, and let us remember it in our hour of death, our Heavenly Father, Holy God!
Thy kingdom come;
May Your Kingdom come, O Great King!
We are sick of kings who only imagined themselves to be greater than other people, and who now lie in their graves next to beggars and slaves.
We are sick of the kings who yesterday declared their power over countries and peoples, and today are crying from toothache!
They are disgusting, like clouds that bring ashes instead of rain.
"Look, here is a wise man. Give him the crown!" - the crowd shouts. The crown doesn't care whose head it's on. But You, Lord, know the value of the wisdom of the wise and the power of mortals. Do I need to repeat to You what You know? Need I say that the wisest among us ruled over us madly?
"Look, here is a strong man. Give him the crown!" - the crowd shouts again; This is a different time, another generation. The crown silently moves from head to head, but You, Omnipotent, you know the price of the spiritual power of the exalted and the power of the strong. You know about the weakness of the strong and those in power.
We finally understood, after suffering, that there is no other king but You. Our soul passionately desires T your kingdom and your power. Wandering everywhere, haven’t we, living descendants, received enough insults and wounds on the graves of small kings and the ruins of kingdoms? Now we pray to You for help.
Let Your Kingdom appear on the horizon! Your Kingdom of Wisdom, Fatherland and Strength! Let this land, which has been a battlefield for thousands of years, become a home where You are the master and we are the guests. Come, King, an empty throne awaits You! With You will come harmony, and with harmony comes beauty. All other kingdoms are disgusting to us, so we are waiting now You, Great King, You and Your Kingdom!
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven;
Heaven and earth are Your fields, Father. In one field You sow stars and angels, in another you sow thorns and people. The stars move according to Your will. The angels play the stars like a harp, according to Your will. However, a man meets a man and asks: "What is God's will?"
How long does a person not want to know? Your will? How long will he humble himself before the thorns under his feet? You created man to be equal to the angels and stars, but look - even thorns surpass him.
But you see, Father, a person, if he wants, can glorify Your name better than thorns, just like angels and stars. Oh, You, Spirit-Giver and Voled-Giver, give man Your Will.
Your will wise, clear and holy. Your will moves the heavens, so why not the same will move the earth, which in comparison with the heavens is like a drop before the ocean?
You never get tired, working with wisdom, Our Father. There is no place for any stupidity in Your plan. Now You are as fresh in wisdom and goodness now as on the first day of creation, and tomorrow you will be the same as today.
Your will holy because she is wise and fresh. Holiness is inseparable from You, like air from us.
Anything unholy may ascend to heaven, but nothing unholy will ever come down from heaven, from Your throne, Father.
We pray to You, our Holy Father: make the day come quickly when the will of all people will be wise, fresh and holy, like Your will, and when all creatures on earth will move in harmony with the stars in the sky; and when our planet will sing in choir with all Your amazing stars:
God, teach us!
God, lead us!
Father, save us!
Give us this day our daily bread;
He who gives the body also gives the soul; and He who gives air also gives bread. Your children, merciful Gifter, expect from You everything they need.
Who will brighten their faces in the morning if not You with Your light?
Who will watch over their breath at night while they sleep, if not You, the most tireless of all watchmen?
Where would we sow our daily bread if not in Your field? How could we refresh ourselves if not Your morning dew? How would we live without Your light and Your air? How could we eat if not with the lips that You have given us?
How could we rejoice and thank You for being full, if not for the spirit that You breathed into lifeless dust and created a miracle out of it, You, the most amazing Creator?
I pray to you not for my bread, but for our bread. What good would it do if I had bread, and my brothers starved next to me? It would be better and more just if You took away from me the bitter bread of the selfish, for satisfied hunger is sweeter if shared with a brother. Your will cannot be such that one person thanks You, and hundreds curse You.
Our Father, give us our bread, so that we glorify You in a harmonious choir and so that we joyfully remember our Heavenly Father. Today we pray for today.
This day is great, many new beings were born today. Thousands of new creations, which did not exist yesterday and which will no longer exist tomorrow, are born today under the same sunlight, fly with us on one of Your stars and together with us say to You: our bread.
O great Master! We are Your guests from morning to evening, we are invited to Your meal and wait for Your bread. No one except You has the right to say: my bread. He is yours.
No one except You has the right to tomorrow and to tomorrow’s bread, only You and those of today’s guests whom You invite.
If it is Your will that the end of today be the dividing line between my life and death, I will bow to Your holy will.
If it be Your will, tomorrow I will again be a companion of the great sun and a guest at Your table, and I will repeat my gratitude to You, as I constantly repeat day after day.
And I will bow before Your will again and again, as the angels in heaven do, the Giver of all gifts, physical and spiritual!
and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors;
It is easier for a person to sin and break Your laws, Father, than to understand them. However, it is not easy for You to forgive us our sins if we do not forgive those who sin against us. For You founded the world on measure and order. How can there be balance in the world if You have one measure for us, and we have another for our neighbors? Or if You give us bread, and we give our neighbors a stone? Or if You forgive us our sins, and we execute our neighbors for their sins? How then would measure and order be maintained in the world, O Lawgiver?
And yet You forgive us more than we can forgive our brothers. We defile the earth every day and every night with our crimes, and You greet us every morning with the clear eye of Your sun and every night You send Your merciful forgiveness through the stars, which stand as holy guards at the gates of Your Kingdom, Our Father!
You shame us every day, Most Merciful, for when we expect punishment, You send us mercy. When we wait for Your thunder, You send us a peaceful evening, and when we expect darkness, You give us sunlight.
You are eternally exalted above our sins and always great in Your silent patience.
It’s hard for a fool who thinks that he will alarm You with crazy speeches! He is like a child who angrily throws a pebble into the waves to drive the sea away from the shore. But the sea will only wrinkle the surface of the waters and continue to irritate weakness with its enormous strength.
Look, our sins are common sins, we are all together responsible for the sins of everyone. Therefore, there are no pure righteous people on earth, for all righteous people must take upon themselves some of the sins of sinners. It is hard to be an immaculately righteous person, for there is not a single righteous person who does not bear the burden of at least one sinner on his shoulders. However, Father, the more a righteous person bears the sins of sinners, the more righteous he is.
Our heavenly Father, You, Who send bread from morning to evening to your children and accept their sins as payment, lighten the burden of the righteous and dispel the darkness of sinners!
The earth is full of sins, but also full of prayers; it is full of the prayers of the righteous and the despair of sinners. But isn't despair the beginning of prayer?
And in the end you will be the winner. Your Kingdom will stand on the prayers of the righteous. Your will will become a law for people, just as Your will is a law for angels.
Otherwise, why would You, our Father, hesitate to forgive the sins of mortals, because by doing so You give us an example of forgiveness and mercy?
and do not lead us into temptation,
Oh, how little it takes for a person to turn away from You and turn to idols!
He is surrounded by temptations like storms, and he is weak as foam on the crest of a stormy mountain stream.
If he is rich, he immediately begins to think that he is equal to You, or places You after himself, or even decorates his house with Your faces as luxury items.
When evil knocks at his gates, he falls into the temptation to bargain with You or throw You away completely.
If You call him to sacrifice himself, he becomes indignant. If You send him to death, he trembles.
If You offer him all earthly pleasures, in temptation he poisons and kills his own soul.
If You reveal to his eyes the laws of Your care, he grumbles: “The world is wonderful in itself, and without a Creator.”
We are embarrassed by Your holiness, O our Holy God. When You call us to the light, we, like moths at night, rush into the darkness, but, rushing into the darkness, we seek the light.
A network of many roads stretches out before us, but we are afraid to reach the end of any of them, because temptation awaits and beckons us at any edge.
And the path that leads to You is blocked by many temptations and many, many failures. Before temptation comes, it seems to us that You accompany us like a bright cloud. However, when temptation begins, You disappear. We turn around in concern and silently ask ourselves: what is our mistake, where are you, are you there or are you not?
In all our temptations we ask ourselves: “Are You really our Father?” All our temptations throw into our minds the same questions that the whole world around us asks us day after day and night after night:
"What do you think about the Lord?"
"Where is He and who is He?"
"Are you with Him or without Him?"
Give me strength Father and Creator mine, so that at any moment of my life I can correctly respond to every possible temptation.
The Lord is the Lord. He is where I am and where I am not.
I give Him my passionate heart and stretch out my hands to His holy robes, I reach out to Him like a child to its beloved Father.
How could I live without Him? This means that I could live without myself.
How can I be against Him? This means that I will be against myself.
A righteous son follows his father with honor, peace and joy.
Blow Your inspiration into our souls, Our Father, so that we may become Your righteous sons.
but deliver us from evil.
Who will free us from evil if not You, our Father?
Who will reach out to drowning children if not their father?
Who cares more about the cleanliness and beauty of the house, if not its owner?
You created us from nothing and made something out of us, but we are drawn to evil and again turn into nothing.
We warm to our hearts the snake that we fear more than anything in the world.
With all our strength we rebel against darkness, but still darkness lives in our souls, sowing the germs of death.
We are all unanimously against evil, but evil is slowly creeping into our home and, while we scream and protest against evil, it takes one position after another, getting closer and closer to our hearts.
Oh, Almighty Father, stand between us and evil, and we will lift up our hearts, and evil will dry up like a puddle on the road under the hot sun.
You are high above us and do not know how evil grows, but we are suffocating under it. Look, evil is growing in us day after day, spreading its abundant fruits everywhere.
The sun greets us every day with "Good morning!" and asks what can we show our great King? And we demonstrate only the old, broken fruits of evil. Oh, God, truly dust, motionless and inanimate, is purer than a person who is in the service of evil!
Look, we built our homes in the valleys and hid in caves. It is not at all difficult for You to command Your rivers to flood all our valleys and caves and wipe out humanity from the face of the earth, washing it away from our dirty deeds.
But You are above our anger and our advice. If you had listened to human advice, You would have already destroyed the world to the ground and You Yourself would have perished under the ruins.
O wisest among fathers! You smile forever in Your divine beauty and immortality. Look, the stars grow from Your smile! With a smile You turn our evil into good, and graft the Tree of Good onto the tree of evil, and with endless patience you ennoble our uncultivated Garden of Eden. You patiently heal and patiently create. You are patiently building Your Kingdom of goodness, Our King and Our Father. We pray to You: free us from evil and fill us with good, for You abolish evil and fill us with good.
For Thine is the Kingdom,
The stars and the sun are citizens of Your Kingdom, Our Father. Enroll us in Your shining army.
Our planet is small and dark, but it is Your work, Your creation and Your inspiration. What else can come out of Your hands but something great? But still, with our insignificance and darkness, we make our habitat small and gloomy. Yes, the earth is small and gloomy every time we call it our kingdom and when we say in madness that we are its kings.
Look how many among us are those who were kings on earth and who now, standing on the ruins of their thrones, are surprised and ask: “Where are all our kingdoms?” There are many kingdoms that do not know what happened to their kings. Blessed and happy is the man who looks into the sky-high heights and whispers the words that I hear: Yours is the Kingdom!
What we call our earthly kingdom is full of worms and fleeting, like bubbles in deep water, like clouds of dust on the wings of the wind! Only You have the true Kingdom, and only Your Kingdom has a King. Take us off the wings of the wind and take us to You, merciful King! Save us from the wind! And make us citizens of Your eternal Kingdom near Your stars and the sun, among Your angels and archangels, let us be close to You, Our Father!
and strength,
Yours is the power, for Yours is the kingdom. False kings are weak. Their royal power lies only in their royal titles, which are truly Your titles. They are wandering dust, and dust flies wherever the wind blows. We are just wanderers, shadows and flying dust. But even when we wander and wander, we are moved by Your power. By Your power we were created and by Your power we will live. If a person does good, he does it with Your power through You, but if a person does evil, he does it with Your power, but through himself. Everything that is done is done by Your power, used for good or abused. If a man, Father, uses Your power according to Your will, then Your power will be Yours, but if a man uses Your power according to His own will, then Your power is called his power and will be evil.
I think, Lord, that when You yourself have Your strength at your disposal, then it is good, but when the beggars who borrowed strength from You proudly dispose of it as their own, it becomes evil. Therefore, there is one Owner, but there are many evil stewards and users of Your power, which You graciously distribute at Your rich table to these unfortunate mortals on earth.
Look at us, Almighty Father, look at us and do not rush to bestow Your power on the dust of the earth until the palaces there are ready for it: good will and humility. Good will - to use the received divine gift for good deeds, and humility - to forever remember that all the power in the universe belongs to You, great Power-Giver.
Your power is holy and wise. But in our hands Your power is in danger of being desecrated and can become sinful and insane.
Our Father, who art in heaven, help us to know and do only one thing: to know that all power is Yours, and to use Your power according to Your will. Look, we are unhappy, because we have divided what is indivisible with You. We separated power from holiness, and separated power from love, and separated power from faith, and finally (and this is the first reason for our fall) we separated power from humility. Father, we pray to You, unite all that your children have divided through foolishness.
We pray to You, exalt and protect the honor of Your power, which has been abandoned and dishonored. Forgive us, for although we are like this, we are Your children.
and glory forever.
Your glory is eternal, like You, our King, our Father. It exists in You and does not depend on us. This glory is not from words, like the glory of mortals, but from a true, imperishable essence, such as You. Yes, she is inseparable from You, just as light is inseparable from the hot sun. Who has seen the center and halo of Your glory? Who has become famous without touching Your glory?
Your brilliant glory surrounds us on all sides and looks at us silently, smiling slightly and slightly surprised at our human worries and grumblings. When we fall silent, someone secretly whispers to us: you are the children of the glorious Father.
Oh, how sweet is this secret whisper!
What do we desire more than to be children of Your glory? Isn't that enough? Without a doubt, this is enough for a righteous life. However, people want to be the fathers of fame. And this is the beginning and apogee of their misfortunes. They are not content to be children and participants in Your glory, but they want to be fathers and bearers of Your glory. And yet You alone are the only bearer of Your glory. There are many who abuse Your glory, and many who have fallen into self-deception. There is nothing more dangerous in the hands of mortals than fame.
You show Your glory, and people argue about theirs. Your glory is a fact, but human glory is only a word.
Your glory eternally smiles and comforts, but human glory, separated from You, frightens and kills.
Your glory nourishes the unfortunate and guides the meek, but human glory is separated from You. She is Satan's most terrible weapon.
How ridiculous people are when they try to create their own glory, outside of You and apart from You. They are like some fool who hated the sun and tried to find a place where there was no sunlight. He built himself a shack without windows and, entering it, stood in the darkness and rejoiced that he had escaped from the source of light. Such is the fool and such is the inhabitant of darkness, he who tries to create his glory outside of You and apart from You, Immortal Source of Glory!
There is no human glory, just as there is no human power. Yours is both the power and the glory, Our Father. If we do not receive them from You, we will not have them, and we will wither and be carried away by the will of the wind, like dry leaves falling from a tree.
We are pleased to be called Your children. There is no greater honor on earth or in heaven than this honor.
Take from us our kingdoms, our strength and our glory. Everything we once called ours lies in ruins. Take from us what belonged to You from the very beginning. Our whole history has been a foolish attempt to create our kingdom, our power and our glory. Quickly end our old story where we struggled to become masters in Your house, and begin a new story where we strive to become servants in the house that belongs to You. Truly, it is better and more glorious to be a servant in Your Kingdom than to be the most important king in our kingdom.
Therefore, make us, Father, servants of Your Kingdom, Your power and Your glory in all generations and in oh forever and ever. Amen!
Saint Nicholas of Serbia. Faith of the Saints. - M.: "Pokrov", 2004, pp. 185-208.
Among the many prayers that exist in Christianity, there is one that Jesus Christ himself left for us, and this is the “Our Father” prayer.
Famous theologians gave interpretations to the prayer, but at the same time it left behind a certain mystery, sincerity, inherent only to it. It may seem simple, but it has great meaning.
Of course, each of us guesses what this prayer is about, but at the same time, pronouncing its text, any person puts his own personal and deep meaning into it.
The “Our Father” prayer is unique, it is special in that the Lord Jesus Christ himself left it when he taught his disciples to pray correctly.
It is built in a certain way and consists of 3 parts:
- The first part of the prayer is where we praise God.
- The second is our requests to God.
- The third part is the final part of the prayer.
In the prayer left by Christ himself, these parts are clearly visible. The first part begins with “Our Father” and ends with words where the glorification of God is visible - the Holiness of the Name, the will, the Kingdom; in the second part we ask for immediate needs; and the final part begins with the words “For yours is the kingdom.” In the Lord's Prayer you can count seven petitions to the Lord. Seven times we tell God about our need. Let's look at all the parts of the prayer in order.
"Our Father"
We turn to our heavenly Father. Christ said that we must love and approach him with trepidation, as if we were addressing our own dad.
"He who is in heaven"
Next come the words “He who is in heaven.” John Chrysostom believed that on the wings of our faith we soared above the clouds closer to God, not because he is only in heaven, but so that we, so close to the earth, would more often look at the beauty of heaven and turn all our prayers and requests there. God is everywhere, in the soul of the one who believes in him, in the heart of the one who loves and accepts him. Based on this, we can conclude that believers can be called heaven, because they carry God within themselves. The Holy Fathers believed that the phrase “being in heaven” is not a specific place in which God is located. From this we can conclude: in those who believe in God, who believe in Christ, God will be found. Our goal is for God himself to be within us.
"Hallowed be thy name"
The Lord Himself said that people should do such things so that their good deeds would glorify God the Father. You can sanctify God by doing good, not doing evil in life, speaking the truth, being wise and prudent. Glorify our Heavenly Father with your life.
"Thy kingdom come"
Christ believed that the Kingdom of God would come in the future, but at the same time, part of the Kingdom was already revealed to us during the life of Christ, He healed people, cast out demons, performed miracles, and thus a part of the Kingdom was revealed to us, where there are no sick people, hungry. Where people do not die, but live forever. The Gospel says that “Satan is the prince of this world.” The demon has entered human life everywhere, from politics, where greed and malice rule, to the economy, where money rules the world and a culture where feelings are alien. But the elders believe that the Kingdom of God is approaching, and humanity is already at its brink.
"Thy will be done as it is in heaven and on earth"
The Monk Isaac of Skete believed that a true believer knows: great misfortune or, conversely, happiness - the Lord does everything only for our benefit. He cares about the salvation of every person and does it better than we could do ourselves.
"Give us this day our daily bread"
These words made theologians think long and hard about their meaning. The conclusion to which we can be inclined is that believers ask God to take care of them not only today, but also tomorrow, so that God will always be with people.
“And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”
At first glance, it seems that everything is clear here. But it is worth noting that the word Debt means sin. And the Lord said that when we forgive the sins of others, our sins will be forgiven.
"And lead us not into temptation"
We ask God not to allow us to experience trials that we are unable to withstand, such difficulties in life that can break our faith, that will break us and lead us into sin, after which a person will become dishonored. We pray to God to prevent all this from happening.
"But deliver us from evil"
This phrase is also easy to decipher. We ask God to protect us from evil.
“For Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.”
Originally, the Lord's Prayer did not have this concluding phrase. But this phrase was added to give special importance to this prayer.
Now let's look at the text of the prayer in its entirety. It's very easy to remember. You need to start your day with this prayer, before meals it is also read by believers, and it will also be good to end the day with it.
This is how the “Our Father” prayer sounds completely in Russian, and next to it you can see the text as it is presented in the prayer book. And you can visually compare both texts.
Another version of the Lord's Prayer in full. It is practically no different from the text presented above, but will be useful as a separately saved option.
It is advisable to pray correctly, observing the accents. A person who has recently come to faith will find this text of the Lord’s Prayer with emphasis useful.
Prayer is a conversation between a person and his Heavenly Father. We need to pray more often, and then the Lord will hear our requests and will never leave us. We clearly saw the text of the prayer “Our Father” with and without accents. The Orthodox Church advises learning to pray correctly, observing accent and intonation, but do not be upset if reading the prayer is difficult at first. The Lord sees the heart of a person and will not turn away from you, even if you make a mistake.
