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Chapter 36. Jesus Taught Us to Pray • 485
scribable intimacy (cf., e.g., Jn 14). “As proof that you are children, God
sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’’ (Gal
4:6).
When we say “Our,” we recognize that we are a people bound
together by the New Covenant that God has made with us through his
Son in the Holy Spirit. While we are indeed individual persons, we are
also persons in communion with each other because we have been bap-
tized into communion with the Holy Trinity. The Our Father is a prayer
of the Church, hence we pray with the Church when we recite these
words, together calling God our Father.
Who Art in Heaven
“Who art in heaven” does not refer to a place but to
God’s majesty and his presence in the hearts of the
just. Heaven, the Father’s house, is the true homeland
toward which we are heading and to which, already,
we belong.
—CCC, no. 2802
Heaven is the culmination of our relationship with the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit begun in Baptism.
The Seven Petitions
In the Our Father, the object of the first three petitions
is the glory of the Father: the sanctification of his name,
the coming of the kingdom, and the fulfillment of his
will. The four others present our wants to him: they ask
that our lives be nourished, healed of sin, and made vic-
torious in the struggle of good over evil.
—CCC, no. 2857
Hallowed Be Thy Name
Hallowed
means “to be made holy.”We do not make God’s name holy;
God is the source of his own holiness that is his perfection and glory.