From the Compendium:
582. Why can we dare to draw near to God in full confidence?
Because Jesus, our Redeemer, brings us into the Father’s presence and his Spirit makes us his children. We are thus able to pray the Our Father with simple and filial trust, with joyful assurance and humble boldness, with the certainty of being loved and heard.
583. How is it possible to address God as “Father”?
We can invoke the “Father” because the Son of God made man has revealed him to us and because his Spirit makes him known to us. The invocation, Father, lets us enter into his mystery with an ever new sense of wonder and awakens in us the desire to act as his children. When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we are therefore aware of our being sons of the Father in the Son.
584. Why do we say “our” Father?
“Our” expresses a totally new relationship with God. When we pray to the Father, we adore and glorify him with the Son and the Holy Spirit. In Christ we are “his” people and he is “our” God now and for eternity. In fact, we also say “our” Father because the Church of Christ is the communion of a multitude of brothers and sisters who have but “one heart and mind” (Acts 4:32).
585. With what spirit of communion and mission do we pray to God as “our” Father?
Since praying to “our” Father is a common blessing for the baptized, we feel an urgent summons to join in Jesus’ prayer for the unity of his disciples. To pray the “Our Father” is to pray with all people and for all people that they may know the one true God and be gathered into unity.
586. What does the phrase “Who art in heaven” mean?
This biblical expression does not indicate a place but a way of being: God transcends everything. The expression refers to the majesty, the holiness of God, and also to his presence in the hearts of the just. Heaven, or the Father’s house, constitutes our true homeland toward which we are moving in hope while we are still on earth. “Hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3), we live already in this homeland.
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#582-586
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| part 4, section 2, chapter 2 English, Español, Português |
