[A few months ago, on another mailing list, there was a discussion on prayer in public
schools, triggered by passing of a bill the U.S. House of Representatives calling for the
posting of the Ten Commandments in schools. Someone mentioned remembering the praying of
the Lord’s Prayer (Our Father) in school. The following was my contribution. Much
church/state water has gone over the dam since the time mentioned in the first paragraph
below.]

AGAINST THE "LORD’S PRAYER" AS A PUBLIC SCHOOL PRAYER

Edward Pothier July 1999

I am old enough (almost 53) to remember the praying of the Lord’s Prayer (Our Father)
at the start of the school day in public elementary school in Massachusetts. It, of
course, was done with the "Protestant" doxology ending ("For thine is the
kingdom …) from which we Catholics abstained.

Later in my theological education (mostly informal, but with some graduate courses) I
learned how aghast and flabbergasted some of our early theological ancestors would have
been that *any* Christians would pray this prayer before and with any Tom, Dick, and Harry
(or Thomasina, Dorothy?, and Harriet). They would have thought it a horrible blasphemy. It
was just not said before unbelievers, i.e. non-Christians. To pray the Lord’s Prayer was
not quite as restricted as receiving the Eucharist, but almost. The Lord’s Prayer (Our
Father) was only given to catechumens preparing to baptized very late in their
preparation, and the first time they could pray it with the church was at the first
Eucharist after their Baptism.

I hardly wish to re-establish a _disciplina arcana_ in which all the sacred prayers and
rites of our religion are done in secret. In the early church the first Mass in which a
new person could fully attend, was the one at which he or she was baptized. Catechumens
were dismissed before the Liturgy of the Eucharist, after the Liturgy of the Word (in our
present nomenclature). In pre-Vatican II days the first part of the Mass was called the
Mass of the Catechumens (although hardly anyone had ever seen a catechumen!); the second
part was the Mass of the Faithful. Now we even televise Masses so anyone can see! Anyone
can buy biblical and liturgical books. Anyone can attend a public Mass. Thus the current
practice in some places of dismissing the catechumens in the revised RCIA is really a
spurious archaism.

Without wanting to go back to those early days, we still could stand thinking about the
dangers of the promiscuous use of the Lord’s Prayer (Our Father), e.g. as it was used in
some public schools not that long ago. We may not be sufficiently aware of the intrinsic
connectedness of this prayer with *Christian* discipleship. It is *not* just a nice bland
and generic prayer! To treat it as such may be a real disservice both to non-Christians
and to Christians.

In the introduction to the Our Father in the current Roman Catholic Mass the priest
says (if in Latin) "Praeceptis salutaribus moniti, et divina institutione formati,
audemus dicere:". The first, and probably most commonly used, ICEL English version
rather weakly says "Let us pray with confidence to the Father in the words our Savior
gave us:" One of the alternatives is only slightly better, "Jesus taught us to
call God our Father and so we have the courage to say:".

But neither of these does justice to the strength of the "audemus dicere". We
should pray that prayer boldly or even audaciously. An un-official English translation
from pre-Vatican II days used "we dare to say". It is really pretty bold and
daring to call God "Our Father"; and strictly speaking Christians would hold
that only proper for disciples.

The use of the term "Lord’s Prayer" (oratio Dominica) is a tradition,
although Catholics are probably more likely to call it the "Our Father" in
English (Pater Noster in Latin).

To call it the Lord’s Prayer, while not incorrect, could be misleading. It is not a
prayer *to* the Lord, as usually used for Jesus Christ. It is a prayer to the Father. In
the fuller Trinitarian sense in which "Lord" can be used for all the persons of
the Trinity, it can be said that it is to the Lord. [Consider, for example, the Athanasian
Creed’s "The Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, and the Holy Spirit is Lord. But there
are not three Lords, but one Lord.] Nor is the Lord’s Prayer a prayer prayed *by* the Lord
[Jesus]. Many people mistakenly think it is presented as a prayer which Jesus prayed
*with* his disciples. That does not appear to be the case. It is a prayer which the Bible
and tradition hold is the Lord’s Prayer in the sense of a prayer *from* the Lord, given to
his disciples in order to teach them how to pray. [We leave aside the important
consideration of how this prayer may also have been shaped by the liturgical traditions of
the earliest church.]

Look at the two places in the New Testament where the Lord’s Prayer is given — in the
Gospel according Matthew (chapter 6) and the Gospel according to Luke (chapter 11). The
two versions, while similar, are actually also quite different .The Matthean one is by far
the more commonly known, the Lukan one very much less so. In both cases, although the
setting is different, it is in the context of Jesus teaching his disciples how to pray. In
Matthew it is part of the teaching on prayer in Sermon on the Mount and in Luke it is in
response to a direct request from his disciples to teach them how to pray as John [the
Baptist] taught his disciples. [Only Matthew’s version starts with the familiar "Our
Father in heaven"; Luke’s starts abruptly "Father" and then goes
immediately to the first petition.] The Matthean version, which does have the "our
Father" beginning, does not in any way suggest that Jesus himself prayed that prayer!
It is a characteristic of Jesus’ prayer (and some other language of Jesus) in the Gospels
to use the word "Father", sometimes even in the familar Aramaic
"Abba". But it is almost always "my Father". It is only by extension
that Jesus authorizes us to call God "our Father" and the text does not have
Jesus praying it with the disciples. [For us later disciples it is important to keep that
first person plural (our). Although it should be personal, the language (especially in
Liturgy) is plural.]

Although it is from a different gospel than the one which includes the Our Father, this
distinction (Jesus not identifying with us in calling God "our" Father with us)
is strongly shown in the Gospel according to John where, after the Resurrection, the risen
Jesus tells Mary Magdalene to go to his brothers and tell them "I am going to my
Father and your Father, to my God and your God"(end of John 20:17). Of course, the
"my" and "your" Father and God *are* the same, but it instructive that
in this Johannine verse the distinction is still maintained. Jesus does not say
"our" Father.

When I want to be pedantic (or even more pedantic than usual), I will claim that we
should not use as synonyms the "Our Father" and the "Lord’s Prayer". I
then suggest that the term "Lord’s Prayer" be used for the major and longest
prayer which the New Testament *does* present as being prayed by Jesus, the so-called High
Priestly Prayer in the seventeenth chapter of the Gospel according to John.

The above comments on the Our Father may have gone on too long. It was an attempt to
connect that important prayer with the idea of explicit Christian discipleship, thus
denying the appropriateness of using it in a more secular setting such as school prayer.

= Edward L. Pothier