7 “And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words.
Jesus has just told his disciples how not to pray like the hypocrites do, the main focus being that your intent is what matters. Intent relies on the justice of God, those who pray in order to be seen by men, will in fact receive it but there are no supernatural divine rewards for such prayer. Through all the examples he gives he makes the focus the individuals intent. It is of great importance to acknowledge that as his point as it serves as the connection between the Hebrew hypocrites and the Gentiles.
As he directs his disciples to pray in this passage he says when praying do not “heap up empty phrases” as the Gentiles do. This phrase in Greek is battalogeō. Typically Catholic apologists focus on the English translation of “babbling” or “stammering” how scripted prayers or reciting scripture be that?, Protestants in their polemic with the Catholics focus on “vain repetitions”, as this is how they regard the medieval Catholic acts of piety like the Rosary. I think the focus should be on the context of the previous passages, intent. A better way to translate this phrase in English would be “speak idly” or without intent.
In the context of the gentiles, when do they speak idly? Envisioning the supernatural framework of gentile worship as a human one might be helpful. Imagine a violent and tyrannical king and the members of his court. The members of the court are terrified of the king but to save their own lives they heap up idle words like “you’re so gracious” and “you are so wise” in order to not have their head chopped off. This is the angle that gentiles worship from. Fear, the intent of their heart is not inline with the words they speak. All gentiles are under supernatural slavery of the devil and serve demons until they are baptised into God’s family.
This is not how you are to pray to God.
8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
Do not imitate the gentiles because they do not have a familial relationship with an all powerful God, but we do. To make this familial connection clearer, God the Father is referred to as ours. As an all knowing and all powerful God he already knows what you need. Saint Augustine on his commentary on the Lord’s Prayer makes it clear and I’ll summarise. The issue is not aligning God to our needs but aligning ourselves to God’s providence. We should accept it like we accept gravity, no one gets emotionally tumultuous over the rules of physics, nor should we over He who made all of it.
9 Pray then like this: Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
We are to call God “Our Father” as that is what the relationship he invites us into. He is in heaven. God does not need to hear us say this, we say it for our benefit to direct our intent to whom it belongs.
Saint Augustine in his Letter to Proba said:
“Thus, when we say: Hallowed be your name, we are reminding ourselves to desire that his name, which in fact is always holy, should also be considered holy among men. I mean that it should not be held in contempt. But this is a help for men, not for God.“
10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.
“And as for our saying: Your kingdom come, it will surely come whether we will it or not. But we are stirring up our desires for the kingdom so that it can come to us and we can deserve to reign there. When we say: Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, we are asking him to make us obedient so that his will may be done in us as it is done in heaven by his angels.”
11 Give us this day our daily bread;
Now here it sounds odd in English with the repetition of “this day our daily bread” but that is because the Greek for the word “daily bread” is epiousion. There was a common Greek word used in the New Testament for “daily” and it isn’t used here, ir is “hemeran“. Epiousion is a completely unique Greek word not used anywhere else in Greek literature, whatever the Aramaic word was that Jesus used, Matthew felt the need to invent a word for it. Saint Jerome translated it as “super-substantial bread”. Epiousion is a compound of two words “epi” meaning super and “ouisa” which means “substance”. It is easy for Catholics because if you said “super-substantial bread” that we are recommended to take daily, we would just say “Oh yeah, the Eucharist” unfortunately many man-made ecclesial bodies have desired to rip that out of the Christian life because, well, it seems too much like the Catholic Church but that is exactly what Jesus founded for us on Earth.
Saint Augustine thought it had two meanings, one being the one we just mentioned but it also encapsulates normal sustenance.
“When we say: Give us this day our daily bread, in saying this day we mean “in this world”. Here we ask for a sufficiency by specifying the most important part of it; that is, we use the word “bread” to stand for everything. Or else we are asking for the sacrament of the faithful, which is necessary in this world, not to gain temporal happiness but to gain the happiness that is everlasting.“
12 And forgive us our debts, As we also have forgiven our debtors;
Saint Augustine said:
“When we say: Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, we are reminding ourselves of what we must ask and what we must do in order to be worthy in turn to receive.“
Jesus will elaborate later but this is again about our conformation to God’s will. An invitation to be like him. He desires all men to be saved and will forgive any sin that man repents of. We are to forgive others as willingly as God forgives. The condition of our debts being forgiven, rely on our release of debts (forgiveness) of others.
13 And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil.
It’s not that God would lead us into temptation that would cause us to fall, we are only ever given what we can actually cope with but that ability of “ours” to cope is not really our own strength but his. This line is a confession of his power being what saves us.
Saint Augustine said:
“When we say: Lead us not into temptation, we are reminding ourselves to ask that his help may not depart from us; otherwise we could be seduced and consent to some temptation, or despair and yield to it. When we say: Deliver us from evil, we are reminding ourselves to reflect on the fact that we do not yet enjoy the state of blessedness in which we shall suffer no evil. This is the final petition contained in the Lord’s Prayer, and it has a wide application. In this petition the Christian can utter his cries of sorrow, in it he can shed his tears, and through it he can begin, continue and conclude his prayer, whatever the distress in which he finds himself. Yes, it was very appropriate that all these truths should be entrusted to us to remember in these very words.“
14 For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you;
15 but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
And here is Jesus’ elaboration on the debts of sin component, he is repeating himself and elaborating to make it extremely clear. If you are forgiving of us, God will forgive you. If you do not forgive others, God will not forgive you. Keep this in mind at all times.
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