28. The Lord’s Prayer

There are only a few people who try to clarify to themselves what they actually want when they say the prayer “Our Father”. Even fewer really know what the meaning of the sentences they recite is. Reciting is probably the only correct term for the process that people call praying in this case.
 
Anyone who examines himself ruthlessly in this must admit it, or else he bears witness to the fact that he spends his whole life in the same way... superficially, and is incapable of deep thought, never has been. There are enough of them on this earth who take themselves seriously, but who, with the best intentions in the world, cannot be taken seriously by others.
 
The very beginning of this prayer has always been taken wrongly, albeit in different ways. People who try to take this prayer seriously, that is, approach it with a certain good intention, feel a certain feeling of security, of spiritual reassurance, rising up within themselves after or during these first words! And this feeling remains with them until a few seconds after the prayer.
 
This explains two things. Firstly, that the person praying can only hold out his earnestness for the first few words, which is what triggers this feeling in him, and secondly, that it is precisely the triggering of this feeling that proves how far removed he is from grasping what he is saying with it!
 
He clearly shows his inability to sustain deeper thought, or also his superficiality; for otherwise, a different feeling would immediately arise again make themselves aware with the further words, corresponding to the changed content of the words, as soon as these really come alive in him.
 
So what remains in him is what only the first words awaken. But if he were to grasp the correct meaning and the true significance of the words, this must trigger a completely different feeling in him than that of a cosy feeling of security.
 
More presumptuous people, on the other hand, see in the word “Father” the confirmation that they are directly descended from God and thus, with the right development, will ultimately become divine themselves, but at the present time necessarily already carry divinity within themselves. And so there are still many misunderstandings among people about this sentence. Most, however, simply take it as the address in prayer, an invocation! This is the least they need to think about. And accordingly, it is also spoken thoughtlessly, although it is precisely in the call to God that all the fervour, of which a human soul can become capable, should lie.
 
But this first sentence is not meant to say or be all that. Rather, the Son of God, in His choice of words, gave an explanation or the indication as to how a human soul should proceed to prayer, how it may and must approach its God, if its prayer is to be heard. He says exactly what state it must be in at that moment, what its state of pure intuition must be, if it wants to place its petition on the steps of the Throne of God.
 
Thus the whole prayer is divided into three parts. The first part is the soul’s complete self-offering, giving of itself to God entirely. Figuratively speaking, it spreads itself open before Him before it comes with a request, and first bears witness to its own pure volition. The Son of God wants to make it clear which intuition alone may form the basis for an approach to God! That is why it is like a great, holy vow when the words are at the beginning: “Our Father, who art in heaven!” Remember that prayer is not synonymous with petition! Otherwise there would be no prayer of thanksgiving that did not contain a request. To pray is not to ask. In this respect alone, the Our Father has always been misunderstood, because of man’s bad habit of never coming before God if he does not at the same time expect or even demand something from Him; for in the expectation always the desire. And man does indeed always expects something, he cannot deny that! Even if, spoken in broad strokes, it is only the vague feeling in him that one day he will receive a place in heaven. Man does not know jubilant thanksgiving in the joyful enjoyment in the conscious existence granted him in the co-operation in the great Creation for the good of his surroundings, which God wants or rightly expects! Nor does he realize that it is precisely this, and only this, that contains his own real well-being, and his progress, his ascent.
 
But in truth, the prayer “Our Father” is based on such a foundation willed by God! Otherwise, the Son of God could not have given it at all, Who only wanted the good of mankind, which alone rests in the correct observance and fulfilment of God’s Will!
 
The prayer He gave is therefore nothing less than a petition, but a great, all-encompassing vow of the human being who lays himself at the feet of his God in it! Jesus gave it to His Disciples, who were at the time ready to live in the pure worship of God, to serve God through their lives in Creation, and in this service to honour His Holy Will!
 
Man should consider carefully whether he may dare to use and say this prayer at all, should seriously examine himself whether in using it he is not trying to lie to his God!
 
The introductory sentences admonish clearly enough that each one should examine himself to see whether he is really as he says in it! Whether he dares to go before God’s Throne without falsehood!
 
But if you experience the first three sentences of the prayer within you, they will lead you before the steps of the Throne of God. They are the way to It, if they come to be experienced in one’s soul! No other way leads there. But this one certainly does! If you do not experience these sentences, however, none of your petitions can get there.
 
Let it be a humble yet joyful exclamation when you dare to say, “Our Father Who art in heaven!"
 
In this call lies your sincere affirmation: “I give you, O God, all fatherly rights over me, to which I want to submit in childlikeness! With this I also acknowledge Your Omniscience, God, in all that Your purpose brings, and ask You to have charge of me as a father must have charge of his children! Here I am, Lord, to listen to You and to obey You like a child!"
 
The second sentence: “Hallowed be Thy name!” This is the assurance of the worshipping soul how serious it is in everything it dares to say to God. That it is fully aware of every word and thought, and does not misuse the name of God through superficiality! Since the name of God is far too sacred for that! Consider, you who pray, what you are vowing! If you want to be completely honest with yourselves, you must confess that you humans have lied to God’s Face in this way, for you have never been as serious in prayer as the Son of God presupposed in these words as a condition.
 
The third sentence: “Your kingdom come to us!” is again not a request, but only another vow! A declaration of readiness for the human spirit on earth to become as it is in God’s Kingdom! Hence the words: “Thy kingdom come unto us!” That means: We want on earth to reach the point where Your perfect Kingdom can extend all the way here! We shall prepare the ground so that everything lives only in Your Holy Will, thus fully fulfilling Your Laws of Creation, so that it is as it happens in Your Kingdom, the Spiritual Realm, where the matured spirits, freed from all guilt and heaviness, reside, living only to serve the Will of God, because only in Its unconditional fulfilment through the perfection resting in It does good arise. It is therefore the assurance that we want to become like this, so that the earth too becomes a kingdom of the fulfilment of God’s Will through the human soul!
 
This affirmation is reinforced by the next sentence: “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven!” This is not only the declaration of the willingness to submit completely to the Divine Will, but also the promise to act in accordance with this Will, to strive to recognize this Will with all diligence. This striving must indeed precede an assimilation into this Will, for as long as the human being does not know it correctly, he will not be able to direct his intuitions, thoughts, words, and deeds accordingly! What an enormous, punishable recklessness it is for every human being to give these assurances to his God over and over again, while in reality he does not even care about the nature of God’s Will, which rests firmly anchored in Creation. Man lies with every word of prayer that he dares to speak! He stands before God as a hypocrite and a deceiver! He piles up new debts on top of old ones, and in the end feels even more deplorable when he has to collapse under this burden of the Ethereal World beyond. He has already been given three opportunities to recognize God’s Will correctly! Once through Moses, who was inspired to do so. The second time through the Son of God Jesus Himself, Who carried the Truth within Himself, and now the third and thus the last time in the Grail Message, which again is drawn directly from the Truth. –
 
Only when these sentences are really fulfilled by a soul as a precondition, then it can continue to say: “Give us this day our daily bread!” This means as much as: “When I have fulfilled what I promised to be, then let Your blessing rest on my earthly work, so that I may always have time to live according to Your Will in taking care of my gross material necessities!
 
“And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us!” In this lies knowledge of the Incorruptible, Just, reciprocity of Spiritual Laws that give the Will of God. At the same time, it also expresses the assurance of full trust in It, for the request for forgiveness, that is, release from guilt, is conditionally based on the prior fulfilment by the human spirt of its own forgiveness of all wrong done to it by its neighbours. But whoever is capable of this, whoever has already forgiven his neighbours, is also so purified in himself that he himself never intentionally does wrong! In this way he is also free from all guilt before God, since there only that which is done intentionally and with malice of forethought is considered to be wrong. Only then does it become wrong. There is a big difference between this and all the human laws and earth views that exist at present.
 
Thus, in this sentence, too, the basis is again a promise of every soul striving for the Light to its God. A declaration of its true volition, for the fulfilment of which it hopes to receive strength in prayer by deepening and becoming clear about itself, which, with the right attitude, it will also receive according to the Law of Reciprocal Action.
 
“And lead us not into temptation!” It is a wrong concept if man wants to read into the words that he would be tempted by God. God tempts no one! In this case it is only an uncertain transmission that clumsily chose this word temptation. In its proper sense it is to be classed with terms such as straying, losing one’s way, that is, going the wrong way, searching the wrong way towards the Light. It means as much as: “Let us not take wrong paths, let us not seek wrongly, let us not tempt time! Let us not fritter away our time, let us not waste it! But, if necessary, hold us back from it by force, even if such necessity must strike us as suffering and pain.” This meaning must also be heard in the following clause, which, according to the wording, belongs directly to it: “But deliver us from evil!” The “but” shows clearly enough the connection. The meaning is synonymous with: Let us recognize evil, at any cost to us, even at the cost of suffering. Make us capable of this through Your reciprocal actions in every shortcoming. In the recognition lies also redemption, for those who are of good will to do so!
 
This ends the second part, the conversation with God. The third part concludes: “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, for ever and ever! Amen!”
 
As a jubilant confession of feeling secure in the Omnipotence of God in the fulfilment of all that the soul lays at His feet as a vow in prayer! –
 
So this prayer given by the Son of God has two parts. The introduction of the giving of oneself and the conversation. Lastly, Luther added the exultant confession of the knowledge of help for all that the conversation contains, of receiving the strength for the fulfilment of what the soul vows to its God. And the fulfilment must then carry the soul up into the Kingdom of God, the land of eternal joy and light! Thus the Lord’s Prayer, when it is truly experienced, becomes the support and the staff for the ascent into the Spiritual Realm!
 
Man should not forget that in a prayer he actually only has to get the force to be able to realize what he asks for himself! That is how he should pray! And this is also what the prayer that the Son of God gave to the Disciples is meant!