( The ) Lord's Prayer  ( Albert Hay Malotte )

2nd recording 1959

Lord’s Prayer or Our Father, the only formula of prayer attributed to Jesus Christ in the New Testament and the most widely used prayer of Christians. It appears in two forms: A longer form in Matthew 6:9-13 is a part of the teaching on prayer in the Sermon on the Mount; a shorter form in Luke 11:2-4 is given as a response to the disciples' request, "Lord, teach us to pray."

The prayer consists of an introduction and seven petitions in the Matthew version, which seems to be a liturgical expansion of the original utterance of Christ. The Matthaean form, which has been employed liturgically since very early times, is:

A closing doxology, "For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory," was added to the prayer in ancient times, although it does not appear in most manuscripts of the Bible and is only a footnote in the Revised Standard Version. Its incorporation into the Lord's Prayer as early as the 1st century is attested by the version of the prayer in the Didache, a brief manual of instruction for converts to Christianity. Many Protestants ordinarily recite the doxology as part of the Lord's Prayer; Roman Catholics incorporate it into the recitation of the prayer at Mass, but generally do not use it in private recitation.

The seven petitions of the prayer are modeled on the Psalms. The first three petitions are concerned with the glorification of God, and the last four are requests for divine assistance to humankind. The prayer reflects a community based on an eschatological hope, that is, a community praying for the completion of God's final plan. The petitions concerning forgiveness, temptation, and deliverance from evil are, in fact, best understood in relation to the end times. The prayer is actually a synthesis of the Christian faith; its balanced structure makes it an expression of the biblical hierarchy of values: first the things of God, then human concerns.

After baptism, the Lord's Prayer is the best-known bond of unity among Christians of every tradition and is always recited in ecumenical gatherings.

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