“Our” expresses a totally new relationship with God. When we pray to the Father, we adore and glorify him with the Son and the Holy Spirit. In Christ we are “his” people and he is “our” God now and for eternity. In fact, we also say “our” Father because the Church of Christ is the communion of a multitude of brothers and sisters who have but “one heart and mind” (Acts 4:32).
Since praying to “our” Father is a common blessing for the baptized, we feel an urgent summons to join in Jesus’ prayer for the unity of his disciples. To pray the “Our Father” is to pray with all people and for all people that they may know the one true God and be gathered into unity.
This biblical expression does not indicate a place but a way of being: God transcends everything. The expression refers to the majesty, the holiness of God, and also to his presence in the hearts of the just. Heaven, or the Father’s house, constitutes our true homeland toward which we are moving in hope while we are still on earth. “Hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3), we live already in this homeland.
It contains seven petitions made to God the Father. The first three, more God-centered, draw us toward him for his glory; it is characteristic of love to think first of the beloved. These petitions suggest in particular what we ought to ask of him: the sanctification of his Name, the coming of his Kingdom, and the fulfillment of his will. The last four petitions present to the Father of mercies our wretchedness and our expectations. They ask him to feed us, to forgive us, to sustain us in temptations, and to free us from the Evil One.
To hallow or make holy the Name of God is above all a prayer of praise that acknowledges God as holy. In fact, God revealed his holy Name to Moses and wanted his people to be consecrated for him as a holy nation in which he would dwell.
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