In the Bible there are two different versions of the Lord's Prayer: St. Luke's and St. Matthew's. St. Luke tells us that the Apostles watching Jesus at prayer, were so impressed by the way He conversed with the Father that they asked Him to teach them how to pray. He told them, "When you pray, say, 'Father, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come! Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us, and lead us not into temptation'." St. Matthew, in the part of the Sermon on the Mount in which he gives the Lord's teaching on prayer, gives a longer and slightly different version, which is the one that we say all of the time. Biblical scholars tell us that St. Luke probably recorded a primitive form of the Our Father which was in use among the early Christians, while St. Matthew records a more solemn one which was used by the Christian community of northern Palestine in its Eucharistic celebration. Both versions, however, express the same ideas.

When Our Lord taught His Apostles the Our Father, He did not suddenly introduce them to a series of ideas which they had never heard before. Instead, He used ideas and phrases that they were accustomed to praying every day. One of the daily prayers of the Jews is called SHEMONETH ESRETH. It consisted of eighteen benedictions. It was said three times a day, silently. This prayer addresses God as "Our Father" in the l8th benediction. Among other things, it asks God for daily bread, special grace and forgiveness for sin. The Our Father is akin to the SHEMONETH ESRETH. The Lord purified this ancient prayer of the rigidly nationalistic ideas and extended the Our Father to apply to all men and women. He condensed the petitions of this ancient prayer into seven simple basic petitions of the Our Father. He added the characteristic Christian note of forgiveness of others as the basic norm of how we are to be forgiven by God.

When Jesus taught the Our Father, however, He was not only giving His followers a formula to use when they prayed, He was also telling them, by means of an example, what ideas they should have in mind when they spoke to God. He was telling them that when they prayed they should speak to God about these subjects - His glory, His kingdom and their needs. During the next several weeks we shall look at each of the petitions of the Our Father in order to understand a little better how we can make our prayer more like the prayer of our Lord.

JESUS SPOKE AGAINST HYPOCRASY and VERBOSITY IN PRAYER: When St. Matthew recounts the origin of the Lord's Prayer, he also gives us two other saying of Our Lord in prayer. Jesus told His followers, "When you pray you shall not be like the hypocrites, who have to pray standing in the synagogue and at the street corner in order to be seen by men....but, when you pray, use not vain repetition as the heathens do, for they think they shall be heard for their much speaking."

First, Our Lord warns us against praying in order that we may be seen by other men and women. Jesus is not warning us against praying in public as we do when we come together in Church. What He warns against is praying in public in order that other people will notice how good and holy we are. Some of the Pharisees were hypocrites, but many of them were good enough men. Their main trouble was that they knew they were good and law-abiding, and they wanted other people to notice this fact. Also, Our Lord does not want us to pray as the pagans, who looked upon prayer as a kind of magic formula.

As I mentioned, I will be speaking about the petitions contained in the Our Father, so that we can better see how we can make our prayer more like the pray of Our Blessed Lord. I will continue doing so in the weeks to come.