Hallowed Be Thy Name

Someone told me to try praying the Lord’s Prayer, and pausing to take a breath and reflect after every word. I thought I couldn’t do it, and I was right, but for the opposite reason I thought. I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it because some of those words wouldn’t be enough to fill a meditation. In fact I wasn’t able to do it, because I couldn’t even manage to get through the first line. There wasn’t time.

Our

Not “my.” Not “your.” Our. The Father we share, with one another and even with God the Son. To recite the Lord’s Prayer is to profess, right here in the first word, that you and I are connected and our well-being is each other’s business, because we share the same Father. To recite the Lord’s Prayer is to place an obligation on yourself from the very first word– the obligation to view your neighbor as one who shares a Father with you. To recite the Lord’s Prayer is to renounce Satan and all his pomps and works and empty promises, right here with the first breath, and to recognize that you and Christ and your neighbor are one, under one Father.

Our Father 

Not “Master,” Father. Not even “Creator,” but Father. He who is above the Firmament is in relation to you and I, Father. What is a Father? A Father is not just someone who makes a thing. A Father is Someone Who begets Someone like Himself. The mystery of Christianity, is that we are made one with Christ the sole-begotten Son, and our Creator is our Father. To pray the Lord’s Prayer is to profess this in the second breath.

Our Father Who 

Not “what,” but Who. The Father  is not a something but a Somebody, a Person and a Person you can know, because He reveals Himself.  We profess that the Father is a Person in the third breath.

Our Father Who Art

Our Father Who art. Not our Father Who was. Not Our Father we wish could be, but we don’t dare hope. Not our Father Who may be someday, if we wait long enough. Not Our Father Who will be as soon as we believe hard enough. Our Father Who is, right now, at this moment. God is Our Father, and His name is He Who Is.

Our Father Who Art In 

Our Father is in. How can He be in, anything? He is greater than everything. There is no possible universe that could contain the Father, but by His mercy the Father is in. He is in you. He is in me. He is in heart and in mind. He is in us already whenever we cry out to Him. This is impossible, but with God all things are possible. The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost wish to dwell in me.

Our Father Who Art In Heaven

He is in me. He is in you. He is also in Heaven, awaiting us. The Father is here in our day-to-day life and He also sits enthroned in Paradise, calling to us. We must follow the way to Paradise to find our Father. We know that the Way to Paradise is the Son, and the way lies through the mystery of our day-to-day life.

Our Father Who Art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name! 

Hallowed be thy name. Hallowed, blessed, be God. Blessed be the Name of God. Blessed be the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed are we who call God, Father. Blessed is the one who calls upon His Holy Name, because the Father will surely answer. Blessed are we, for if we love Him, we will keep His word, and the Father will love us, and the Father and the Son will come to us.

All hallowed be the Name of God the Father. Hallowed be the Father Who revealed Himself to His children, orphaned and exiled to all corners of the fallen earth. Hallowed be the Father who sent His only Son, so that we might become sons and daughters.

May all hearts from one end of the Earth to the other hallow the name of the Father. May we Hallow His name by seeing in our neighbor our sister and brother, and in our day-to-day life the Way to Heaven which is the Son. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

That was as far as I got.

(image via Pixabay)