The First Three Petitions

• The first three petitions of the Our Father respect the priority of praise over petitions in our own behalf.

• It is characteristic of love to think first of the one whom we love.

• In none of the first three petitions do we mention ourselves.

Hallowed be thy name...

• To hallow is to make holy and only God can make holy. In begging him that his name be hallowed, we are asking him that we ourselves might be made more holy. (CCC 2807, 2839)
• God's holiness is revealed in creation and history, and Scripture calls this holiness 'Glory.' In making man in his image and likeness, God crowned him with glory, but by sinning, man fell short of the glory of God. (CCC 2809)
• In his promise to Abraham, God commits himself without disclosing his name. From then on, God was to manifest his holiness by revealing and giving his name, in order to restore man to the image of his Creator. God begins to reveal his name to Moses, and from Sinai on, the Israelite nation is holy because the name of God dwells in it. "You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy." (CCC 2810, 2811)
• Finally, in Jesus, the name of the Holy God is revealed and given to us. God's holiness is revealed in Christ, and we share in this call to holiness through baptism. The path to holiness is clear but difficult; it is to love and put aside selfishness. (CCC 2812)(Huebsch)
• The sanctification of his name depends inseparably on our life and our prayer. "We ask that this name of God should be hallowed in us through our actions. For God's name is blessed when we live well, but it is blasphemed when we live wickedly." St. Peter Chrysologus

Thy Kingdom come...

• In the Lord's prayer, "thy kingdom come" refers primarily to the final coming of the reign of God through Christ's return, [or his second coming]. (CCC 2818)
• While the [fullness of the] kingdom lies ahead of us, the kingdom has been coming since the Last Supper and, in the Eucharist, it is in our midst. (CCC 2816) The kingdom is coming but it is already here.
• The kingdom of Heaven parables in Matthew (chap. 13) have this present and future dimension. The kingdom is present now even in a small way...like the seed and the yeast. The hidden treasure and the pearl stress the extraordinary value of the coming kingdom and the total commitment that it deserves and demands. The wheat and weeds and fishing net indicate that the full coming of God's Kingdom will be accompanied by a divine judgment that will separate the good from the bad and give them their appropriate rewards and punishments. While Jesus shared the hopes of his contemporaries for the fullness of God's Kingdom in the future, he also wanted to alert people to the presence of God's Kingdom already among them. (Harrington)
• That the kingdom is already here doesn't detract from the present mission of the Church in the world, but commits her to it all the more strongly.
• Christians have to distinguish between the growth of the Reign of God and the progress of the culture and society in which they are involved. They are not separate. (CCC 2820) What we pray for we must be willing to work for insofar as we are able.
• Jesus tells us the Kingdom comes in unexpected ways. It doesn't just come with a great clap of thunder at the end of time, it grows in our midst. It comes through in quirky little moments when people do extraordinary things and little things, and you say...yes, that's God showing through. We're praying that the world show God...let God come through.

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven...

• Our Father desires all men to be saved...he is patient...not wishing that any shall perish. His commandment is that you love one another which summarizes all other commandments and expresses his entire will. (CCC 2822)
• Jesus said on entering the world, "I have come to do your will, O God." (Heb 10:7) In the prayer of his agony, he consents totally to this will: "not my will, but yours be done" (Lk 22:42)(CCC 2824)
• Although he was a Son, Jesus learned obedience through what he suffered. (Heb 5:8) How much more reason have we sinful creatures to learn obedience. We ask our Father to unite our will to his Son's in order to fulfill his will, his plan of salvation for the life of the world. We are radically incapable of this, but united with Jesus and the power of his Holy Spirit, we can surrender our will to him and decide to choose what his Son has always chosen: to do what is pleasing to the Father. (CCC 2825)
• "Jesus commands each of the faithful who prays to do so universally, for the whole world. For he did not say 'thy will be done' in me or in us, but 'on earth,' the whole earth, so that truth take root in it, all vice be destroyed on it, virtue flourish on it, and earth no longer different from heaven." St. John Chrysostom. (CCC 2825)
• By prayer we can discern "what is the will of God" and obtain the endurance to do it. Jesus teaches us that one enters the kingdom of heaven not by speaking words, but by doing "the will of my Father in heaven." (CCC 2826)

Huebsch. What is the Lord's Prayer. 23rd Pub.,2005.
Libreria Editrice Vaticana.Catechism of the Catholic Church.New York:William H. Sadler, Inc, 1994.
United States Catholic Catechism for Adults.Washington, DC:United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2006.