What Do the Words of the Lord’s Prayer Mean?

Today we’re learning about how God would like us to pray. Even Jesus’ closest friends, the disciples, wanted to know how to pray. They were with Jesus all the time and heard his prayers to God, yet they still weren’t sure how they were supposed to do it.

Before Jesus teaches the prayer he has a few things to say. He says that we should keep our prayers simple. God listens to us no matter if our prayers are long or short and even if you don’t have the right words God knows what we mean. We don’t need to use fancy words either!

Jesus also mentions that we shouldn’t show off when we pray. He said this to the people who used to stand on the street corners praying so that everyone would see how “great” they were. God doesn’t want us to pray so people can see us or to hear how great we can pray. He wants us to pray in a quiet place with our needs, thanks, praise, and what we’re sorry for.

Jesus gave us the words of the Our Father in the Gospels. (Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4).

This prayer can seem tough to understand because it uses language from 2,000 years ago that isn’t familiar to us, so here is a brief explanation.

Our Father who art in heaven

means we’re praying to our father who is in heaven (and is here with us). Jesus spoke in Aramaic and the word he used was more like saying “Daddy” than Father. So we can think of praying to a God who is like a wonderful Daddy to a little child. Jesus was trying to teach that we can talk to God like we talk to our own parents. The Catechism reminds us that God’s “tenderness can also be expressed by the image of motherhood” (article 239). It is important that the children also understand that we know God is not a human man or woman. The language of faith simply draws on the human experience of parents to help us understand the mystery of God.

Hallowed be thy name

means “holy is your name.” Even though God wants us to call him our father, he is still God. God wants us to remember to treat him with great respect because he is God.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

The Bible says that in heaven there will be no more crying, and there will be no hunger or hurt there. This part of the prayer says, let your kingdom come now, help us make the earth be like heaven. We are praying that people live in peace and love one another the way it is in heaven. It reminds us that we should be living the way God wants us to every day.

Give us this day our daily bread

means give us today all that we need. There are several stories in the Bible of God giving hungry people bread when they didn’t have food for themselves. Keep in mind when we are asking for our daily bread we are asking for those things that we can’t live without. Children don’t need video games and princess dolls and we don’t need iPhones to survive. Those are the things that we may want, but we need food, water and shelter.

God provides everything that is good, but humans are entrusted with sharing that fairly. Some people in the world do not have their “daily bread” but it is not because God has failed to give it. It’s that we have failed to share it.

And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

This is asking for forgiveness for our sins. Forgiveness means that we are sorry for something we’ve done and we don’t want to do it anymore. But we also need to forgive people who have done wrong to us. Sometimes others hurt us very badly, so we need to ask God to help us forgive them because it’s really hard or we don’t want to. If we forgive others, God will forgive us.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Is it sometimes tempting to do something you’re not supposed to? This part of the prayer asks God to help us to know the right thing to do and to protect us against the evil that is in the world.

For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

The last part of the prayer is the best part! “For yours is the kingdom” means that Heaven will last forever. God has all the power and all the glory FOREVER! God will never die and he’s the strongest and greatest. With God we will always win!

Prayer is our way of talking to God so you can pray as often as you think of it. God loves you and is interested in everything about you and how you’re doing.