Exploring our faith’s great tradition on this prayer, we discover one virtue repeatedly associated with it: hope. Saint Augustine teaches: “Of all things that must be faithfully believed, the only ones that concern hope are those that are contained in the Lord’s Prayer.” 4 Saint Thomas Aquinas writes that our Savior “thought it well to carry us on to a living hope by giving us a form of prayer that mightily raises up our hope to God.” 5 In a particular way, then, this book takes hope as its theme. As we travel on our life’s pilgrimage to our Father, we want to walk with ever-growing hope. But what does hope have to do with the Our Father? How is this a prayer for those who hope? To enrich our meditation on the virtue of hope in the Lord’s Prayer, we have chosen to interweave two themes: Exodus to the Promised Land and the Eucharist. The Exodus was the journey of the Israelites, God’s Chosen People, from slavery in Egypt into the freedom of the Promised Land. Our life, too, is a pilgrimage, a journey through this valley of tears towards our heavenly fatherland— towards our Father, who is in heaven. And we need food for this long journey! Every time we pray this prayer, we beg the Father for “our daily bread,” something emphasized when we pray the Our Father at every Mass. In tasting the depths of the Lord’s Prayer, we want you to see that its most natural place is in the Sacrifice of the Mass, where the pilgrim Church asks for and receives her daily bread, before being sent out on mission. The Eucharist is both our food during this life and “the pledge of future glory” 6 for the life to come. Pope Francis encourages us to be “opened to receive the outpouring of God’s grace and to make the ‘Our Father,’ the prayer Jesus taught us, the life program of each of his disciples. ”7 Each phrase of the prayer Jesus taught us offers guidance as we make our way through life. This book walks through the prayer step by step in the form of a series of retreat conferences, showing how the words Jesus taught his disciples bring light and hope to our lives. The journey through the opening address and the following seven petitions of this perfect prayer can be 8 INTRODUCTION
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NzMzNzY=