P R A Y I N G wi th Benedict XVI 106 • BENEDICT XVI BENEDICT XVI • 107 Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen. Man can be understood only in light of God, and…his life is made righteous only when he lives it in relationship to God. But God is not some distant stranger. He shows us his face in Jesus. In what Jesus does and wills, we come to know the mind and will of God himself. If being human is essentially about relation to God, it is clear that speaking with, and listening to, God is an essential part of it. This is why the Sermon on the Mount also includes a teaching about prayer. The Lord tells us how we are to pray.... The Our Father begins by establishing the primacy of God, which then leads naturally to a consideration of the right way of being human. Here, too, the primary concern is the path of love, which is at the same time a path of conversion. If man is to petition God in the right way, he must stand in the truth. And the truth is: first God, first his Kingdom (cf. Mt 6:33). The first thing we must do is step outside ourselves and open ourselves to God. Nothing can turn out right if our relation to God is not rightly ordered. For this reason, the Our Father begins with God and then, from that starting point, shows us the way toward being human.181 181 Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, New York: Doubleday, 2007, pp. 128, 134. © Bridgeman Our Father The Return of the Prodigal Son (1668-69), Rembrandt (1606-69), Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia. P R A Y I N G wi th Benedict XVI
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