by Archimandrite Vassileios,
ex Abbot of the Iveron Monastery
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 transgressions, as we forgive
those who transgress against us, and lead us not into temptation, but
deliver us from the evil one. Amen.
I have selected a passage from the Gospel,
the prayer known as ‘The Lord’s Prayer’, since I believe it is the most
representative prayer - the prayer handed down to us by the Lord Jesus
Christ.
I believe that the Lord has taught us the prayer He has created; He
gave us the life He has lived and taught us how He was. And this is
Jesus’ truth. He had said once: “I am the vine; you are the branches”
(John 15, 5). Just as the relationship between the vine and the branches
is organic and the juice flows easily from the vine to the branches, in
the same way Jesus flows in our existence by giving us His entire
being. Therefore, I believe that through this prayer we live in Jesus
Christ, provided we consciously pray and experience the prayer.
Let us begin by reciting this prayer and studying it piece by piece.
The first phrase says:
“Our Father who art in heaven”
I believe we commit one major sin. We sometimes become demoralized and
forget one thing: the Lord loves us even though we are weak. If we hold
on to just one thought this is it: that the Lord loves us and that the
Lord is our Father.
We normally say that the parents love their child not because it is a
good child but because it is their child. Therefore it is a major
consolation to us if we manage to consciously accept and feel that we
too could call the Lord “Father”. This
word says everything. It places us immediately into the Church. Someone
could be an orphan, his own people may have abandoned him; he may have
lost everything and feel completely alone. Nevertheless, as soon as he
considers that the Lord is his Father, he feels sheltered and secure and
the entire world becomes his home.
I could even dare say this: Wouldn’t it be better if everybody abandoned
us in order to experience the love of the Lord? Yes, I believe it would
be. You see the Lord says in His Beatitudes: ‘Blessed are those who
mourn, blessed are the thirsty, the hungry the weeping…etc” In other
words, it would be better if we were to lose all human affection along
with everything else, if only we would feel that the Lord is our Father.
I remember once that I had asked an old lady in Paris- she was Russian-
to tell us what a monk is and she replied without thinking that “a monk
is someone who is hanging from a string; the string is the love of the
Lord”. I believe that this is true of every person. Man is strong in
this life; his strength is the fact that the Lord loves him. We were
born and we continue to live in hope, because Someone loves us. This
Someone is strong even though we are weak.
“Our Father who art in heaven’’. So, our Father is not just someone whom
we may see but is a heavenly Father, Who lives in heaven. Therefore,
the whole heaven becomes our home. Thus we ought to feel free and at
ease. Once, when they informed Evagrios Pontikos- one of the great
ascetics in Nitria- that his father had died, he replied without
thinking: “Do not blaspheme. My Father has never died!”
Thus in this first line of the prayer, our Lord gives us courage, turns
us into His siblings and incites us to call His Father “our” Father. We
call the Lord “our” Father, not “my” Father. Therefore the Lord is
everyone’s Father and we are all brothers.
“Hallowed be Thy name,
Thy kingdom come”
The Holy Fathers of our Church see the presence of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit in these two lines. Along with the first line, the Holy
Trinity in its entirety is present. The Name of God the Father is the
Word of God the Father, the Son of God, and the kingdom of the Lord is
the Holy Spirit. (There is an earlier version of the Gospel in which the
prayer instead of saying ‘Thy Kingdom come’says: ‘Thy Holy Spirit come
on us and cleanse us’). Here therefore the Holy Trinity is present as in
the Creed of Faith, where we declare: “I believe in one God, Father
Almighty…and in Jesus Christ… and in the Holy Spirit…”
“Hallowed by Thy Name”. We pray that the Lord’s name is hallowed. If
according to the Holy Fathers the name of God the Father is the Son and
Word of God, then “hallowed by thy name” may be related to what Jesus
said in John 17, 19: “And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they
also might be sanctified in truth”. ‘Sanctify myself’ means: the Lord
sacrifices Himself so that they are sanctified in truth; so that the
faithful are sanctified indeed. Thus, when we are praying “Hallowed by
thy Name”, it is as if we are saying: let the sacrifice of the Son and
Word of God be sanctified. Thus, the Lord is our sanctification, our
deliverance and our justice. By ‘Thy kingdom come’ we beg for the Holy
Spirit to come during Pentecost. The Holy Spirit always comes and the
Church is the continuing Pentecost.
Therefore the Holy Trinity is present in these three lines. In addition,
we may also find here the reality of the epiclesis made during the
central prayer of the Holy Liturgy. There, the priest begs the heavenly
Father to send the Holy Spirit and make the bread and wine, the Body and
Blood of Christ.
And thus we arrive at the fourth line, which is the central part of the
Lord’s Prayer and the central part of the life of Jesus and of our own
lives. It is this:
“Thy will be done”
This phrase may be compared to the “Amen” of the prayer. Because “Thy
will be done” is the conclusion and the recapitulation of the previous
phrases. Earlier we say “Hallowed by Thy name”, “Thy kingdom come”, “Thy
will be done” and refer to the Lord; we offer everything to the Lord
and this is confirmed and recapitulated by “Thy will be done”.
In order to understand how important this phrase is, it will be good to
consider why Jesus descended from heaven. “I descended from heaven to
fulfill the will of the Father who has sent Me and to accomplish His
work”, He says. And also: “As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just,
because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me” (John 5,
30). Moreover, remember when Jesus met the Samaritan woman? When His
disciples urged Him to eat, He had replied: “I have food to eat that you
do not know about.”(John 4, 32-34) “My food is to do the will of him
who sent me and to accomplish his work”.
I think that this last phrase “my food is to do the will of him who has
sent me” is the most essential element which describes Jesus’ life and
our own lives. Thus during the hour of His real agony at Gethsemane-
the time when an earthquake strikes, so to speak, and everything is
being tested- when He “…being in an agony he prayed more earnestly”, he
said: “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be
done” (Matthew 26, 42). Thus, at His most difficult moment, He was the
first to say the very same thing He had instructed us to say. And then
He proceeds to walk peacefully, in His Almighty way, towards the Passion
precisely because He had said “Not my will be done, but Your will be
done”. As soon as He had said this, He turned inwardly, gained strength
and pressed on.
It wouldn’t be inappropriate to take a look at our own life at this
point. We get on with our lives, we make plans, have prospects, have a
good time but suddenly we may meet with trouble. I believe that there is
no man who has not gone through his own Gethsemane. When everything
collapses, then and only then everything rises; only then does man
comprehend Jesus’ words “My food is to do the will of him who sent me
and to accomplish his work”. When everything turns upside down and there
is no hope, no light to be seen; when everything is covered in
darkness, if this person says “My Lord, thy will be done” he suddenly
receives new strength; he rises and walks humbly towards the path,
towards the passage, towards the Resurrection, who is Jesus, in a never
ending process. Then in hindsight he will be grateful to the Lord not
for the happy but for the difficult times of his life, for his personal
Gethsemane. These have forced him, through the dismantling of his ego,
to freely admit and say “My Lord, thy will be done”.
I believe that the phrase: “Thy will be done” relates to what the Lord
said at the beginning of the creation: “let there be… and it was so” as
well as to the epiclesis during the Holy Liturgy when the priest begs
the Father to send the Holy Spirit and make the bread, the Body of
Christ and the wine the Blood of Christ, and ends with “Amen, Amen,
Amen”, when the mystery is already accomplished. When man willingly says
“My Lord, let your will be done to me” resembles what the Virgin Mary
said to Archangel Gabriel: “let it be to me according to your word”
(Luke 1, 38). Namely, let it be to me, in me, in my entire existence
according to your words; Lord let it be according to Your will. From
then on, man becomes sanctified and receives a different kind of
strength.
Abba Isaac says somewhere that man can become God through Grace, if he
obeys the Lord. He can become God and truly create new worlds out of
nothing; He can become totally regenerated; the weak gains strength and
he who is dead is revived and lives on. He then comprehends that to say
calmly “Lord, thy will be done and not mine” is the real food indeed.
Thus, a true theologian is not the one who goes to the university and
gets honors because he remembered a couple of dates and some names and
wrote a dissertation. A true theologian, who comprehends the power and
the truth in our Lord’s teachings, is the one who says when in trouble:
‘not mine, but your will be done’. Then the entire Lord enters in him,
makes him a theologian, makes him God through Grace and enables him to
walk forward in Jesus Christ. And just as the risen Lord walked through
closed doors, similarly this weak man, who has become all powerful with
the Grace of the Lord, gets on with his life irrespective of whether the
problems have been solved or not.
Therefore, if we happen to face difficulties, let’s talk to the Lord
honestly, in any way we wish, because the Lord is our Father. But in the
end let us say: “My Lord, I do not know what to do. You do. You love
them more than me and they belong to you more than they belong to me.
Let thy will be done. If your will seems to be like a catastrophe on the
outset, let it be catastrophic”. Any catastrophe from God is better
than any success achieved through human effort. The latter creates a
true mess and a real disaster. Thus ‘thy will be done’ is the phrase
which feeds and elevates us to another place.
“On earth as it is in heaven”
St John Chrysostom says that Jesus makes everyone responsible for the
deliverance of the whole world. It doesn’t say: “Lord, let thy will be
done in my life” but, “let thy will be done on earth as it is in
heaven”.
Once I visited the island of Kos to meet an old lady. She told me: ‘I do
not know how to read and write; I do not even know how to recite the
Lord’s Prayer or the Creed of Faith. Nevertheless, every night before
bed, I cross myself and beg the Lord to let the world wake up well. “Am I
doing well?” “Yes, you are”, I said to her.
See, the old woman had uncovered the essence of this prayer. Because she
lived her life in Church and the Lord’s grace was flowing in her
existence silently, just as the vine juice flows into the branches, she
did what was right without having ever learnt to read or write.
“Give us this day our daily bread”,
When we finally become able to reach our own Gethsemane and say during
our most difficult moment, ‘Lord, thy will be done’ without distress, or
indignation, but calmly and resolutely, then I do believe that our
spiritual stomach is ready to digest the real food. And that is our
Lord, Jesus Christ.” I am the living bread which came down from heaven:
if any man eats of this bread, he shall live forever” (John 6, 51). I am
the real bread, the living bread which came down from heaven. If one
eats it, one will live forever and will not die; He already experiences
eternal life while still living this life.
What does Jesus mean when He says ‘give us this day our daily bread’?
The Holy Fathers explain that ‘daily’ bread means the bread which has to
do with man’s existence or the bread for the next day. ‘Next day’ means
the forthcoming eon, the kingdom of heaven. Thus, we are praying so
that the Lord makes us worthy of the ‘eternal life’, of the heavenly
bread, i.e. Jesus Christ, and to offer Him to us- the real food- from
this life. So, we wish to be able to feed on the bread of the angels,
the bread of ‘the next day’, the bread of the eternal life and of the
kingdom of heaven.
“And forgive us our transgressions, as we forgive those who transgress against us”
Let us remember the prayer the Lord offered for those who crucified Him:
“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23, 34).
There was no excuse for what they did; but the Lord found one for
them.Namely that they do not know what they are doing.
“Forgive us our transgressions, as we forgive those who transgress against us”.
This phrase is somehow more demanding. Jesus does not implore us to beg
the Lord to help us forgive the others; instead, we are telling the Lord
that we have forgiven them anyway. St Gregory of Nyssa says that it is
as if we are asking Lord, the Father, to notice our exemplary behavior
and forgive us too.
If by any chance we do not show forgiveness, there is nothing anymore to
be done; Jesus Christ was clear on this: “if you do not forgive others
their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses”
(Matthew 6, 15). We may be attending religious classes and spiritual
meetings, may go to church, may take the Holy Communion, may have
advanced in spiritual life, may even perform miracles and yet not show
forgiveness. If we do not show forgiveness, everything was done in vain.
Let us remember what St Kosmas Aitolos was preaching to the people: ‘I
am distressed because I do not have the time to see each one of you
individually, so that you can confess to me, tell me your troubles and
to console you with words provided by the Lord. So, because I cannot see
you individually, I have a number of things which you must obey. If you
obey, you will do well. The first thing is: “forgive your enemies”’.
In order to help them understand what he meant, he told them a story.
“Two people came to me to confess, Peter and Paul. Paul said to me:
‘Holy father, I am following the Lord’s path ever since I was a boy. I
have done many good deeds, I am praying, I give alms, I have built
churches and monasteries. I only have one weakness. I cannot forgive my
enemies’. I have decided that this man is to go straight to hell and
gave instructions to throw his body to the dogs when he dies. After a
short while, Paul comes to me and says: ‘I have not followed the
straight path ever since I was young. I have stolen things, I have
dishonored women, I have killed people, and I have burnt down churches
and monasteries. In other words, I have been acting as if I was
possessed. I only do one thing: I forgive my enemies’.
And St Kosmas concluded: “I put my arms around his neck and kissed him. I
also instructed him to receive the Holy Communion in three days”.
Peter, who did so many good deeds, has defiled
everything with his refusal to offer forgiveness. Just like a small
piece of dirt taints a hundred kilos of flour. On the other hand, Paul
was forgiving even though he had committed so many atrocities. His
forgiveness acted like the candle which burnt all of his evil deeds.
Occasionally, instead of giving off Christ’s fragrance, our lives seem
to smell badly and we do not know why. Therefore, we ought to offer
forgiveness without holding a grudge against anyone. Unless we do this
all our goodness and our good deeds have been in vain. That’s why the
Lord says: “if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will
your Father forgive your trespasses”. The tiniest thing can help us win
the kingdom of God and the tiniest thing can taint our entire lives.
“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one”
On
the one hand we say ‘lead us not into temptation’ and on the other
James the Apostle implores us thus: ‘Count it all joy, my brothers when
you meet trials of various kinds” (James 1, 2). Our Holy Fathers solved
the riddle for us. St Maximus the Confessor explains that there are two
kinds of temptations: One the one hand, there are the hedonistic
pleasures which are voluntary and lead one to commit a sin. We pray to
the Lord to help us resist such temptations. On the other hand, there
are temptations and tribulations which are involuntary and painful;
these target our hedonistic tendencies and stop us from sinning.
Therefore, we are praying to the Lord to help us resist the first kind
of temptations which are hedonistic and voluntary. On the other hand, we
are asking for help in accepting the second kind of temptations with
pleasure since they cause knowledge and humility and the presence of the
Grace of the Holy Spirit. Remember what the book ‘Gerontiko’ says: Take
away the temptations and no one is saved.
“Deliver
us from the evil one”. This is the last phrase of the prayer. The first
one was ‘Our Father’. The lord is the first and foremost reality and
the evil one is the last. We walk on a tight rope between the Lord and
the devil throughout our lives. The devil did not leave anyone
untouched; neither the first Adam in Paradise, nor the second Adam,
Jesus Christ, when He went out in the desert. Our Lord, speaking of the
devil, said: ‘This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer”
(Mark 9, 29). In other words, we cannot be delivered from the devil save
through prayer and fasting. The devil does not leave us in peace even
if we use reasoning against him, just as cancer is not cured with
aspirin. A monk says that the greatest lawyer cannot win his case
against the devil. That’s why we ought never to start a conversation
with the evil one. We just ignore him.
The
whole issue in spiritual life is to acquire spiritual discernment in
order to be able to differentiate between something which comes from God
and something which doesn’t. Here one might say: I am a weak person.
How can I acquire discernment?
I
believe that things become much simpler if we come to comprehend The
Lord’s Prayer. Let us begin from the last point. If we forgive our
enemies without reservations; if we feed on the heavenly bread; if we
say “Lord, thy will be done” during difficult moments; if we experience
the Lord as our Father, then even though we are weak, we will become
very strong at the same time. If on the contrary, we always do what we
want and we do not give forgiveness, we will turn devil into a lion,
even though he is like a small ant; then he will be impossible to
overcome.
In
other words, a weak man becomes all powerful in the face of the devil
if he constantly prays that the Lord’s will be done and if he offers
forgiveness without a second thought. Such a man forgives those who
trample on him and does not hold a grudge against anyone. Instead he
prays: ‘never mind, the Lord is great. Let His will be done. I myself
know nothing.’ Thus, he is able to walk away from trouble unscathed.
Remember
when Jesus was in agony at Gethsemane and prayed more earnestly, He had
said: ‘not my will, but Thy will be done’. Then as soon as He had
uttered these words “there appeared to him an angel from heaven,
strengthening him” (Luke 22, 43). Similarly, in the desert, as soon as
He had said: “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “‘You shall worship the
Lord your God and him only shall you serve’”, the devil left him, “and
behold, angels came and were ministering to him” (Matthew 4, 10-11). The
same thing happens to us. Spiritual discernment descends upon us and
angels come to our assistance if we pray in this way and if we live this
kind of life. We will be able to perceive the assistance by the
angels. We will be able to experience the kingdom of heaven from this
life. We will also be warranted to say that our lives have become ‘angel
assisted’ ( angeloktisti) and ‘ God protected’ ( Theoskepasti). Man,
even though weak, becomes all powerful with the grace of The Lord.
