LITURGY LESSON: OUR FATHER #2

            (Given:  October 3, 2010   27th Sunday  Ordinary Time)

 

Last week we introduced our Lessons about the Our Father by talking about why there appears to be both a Protestant and Catholic version. This week we want to say something about its place in the Liturgy.

 

“The Lord’s Prayer first entered the Mass in the late fourth century. With its themes of bread, forgiveness, and mutual peace, this prayer was an ideal preparation for communion. . . .”[1]  So it is another one of those hinges of the liturgy.  It comes immediately after the Great Amen, and is the first prayer of the Communion Rite.

 

Oddly, although this is the most well-known prayer in Christianity and familiar to all of us, prior to the reforms of the Vatican Council, this prayer was said only by the priest, and the congregation simply responded “Amen” at the end.   Now we not only pray it together, but we often sing it, which emphasizes its dignity.

 

Perhaps you have noticed that some families join hands during this prayer or individuals raise their hands in a gesture similar to that of the priest. This is a spontaneous development in many parishes throughout the world.   Of all the prayers of the Mass that priest and people say together, such as the Glory to God or the Holy, Holy, the Our Father is the only one which the Sacramentary calls for the priest to extend his hands.[2]     It is not inappropriate then, since the people are also to say this prayer, that they use a similar gesture.

 

Gestures such as this are not, however, part of our tradition and certainly no judgment should be made by anyone of those who choose to use a gesture or not.    The important points to remember are that this is the one prayer that Jesus taught us, and it is the prayer chosen by the Church to help prepare us for Communion.[3] 

 

 

 


[1] Johnson, p. 101,

 

[2] General Instruction of the Roman Missal, #192; Sacramentary, p. 561.

 

[3] With research by Debbie Hansen and Harry Quick.