Pater Noster †🕊 †

Video clips: Ben Hur (2016)
Audio clips: Ben Hur (1959)
Music: Patrick Lenk: Kyrie eleison. Dan Gibson: Gradual and Alleluia. Original motion picture score by Marco Beltrami.

Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name; Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily Bread; and Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

“Lord, Teach us to pray,” The Oratio Dominica, the Lord’s Prayer is the summary of the whole Gospel. The full meaning of the Our Father is revealed in the Blessed Sacrament.

***
Endeavour to act as becomes a Child of God; that is to say, see that your prayers and actions are never unworthy of that Divine origin with which He has been pleased in His infinite bounty to ennoble you. It is to the discharge of this duty that the Apostle exhorts us when he says: Be ye therefore imitators of God as most dear children, so that what the Apostle wrote to the Thessalonians may be truly said of us: You are all the Children of Light, and the Children of the Day. - Roman Catechism

***
The Sixth Petition: And lead us not into temptation: It is one thing to be led into temptation, another to be tempted; for without temptation none can be approved, either to himself or to another; but every man is fully known to God before all trial. Therefore we do not here pray that we may not be tempted, but that we may not be led into temptation. For God does not of Himself lead a man, but suffer him to be led from whom He has withdrawn His aid. What we ask is, that we may not, deserted by His aid, either consent through the subtle snares, or yield to the forcible might, or any temptation; therefore it is God that turns men to the Faith, giving them Perseverance even unto the end. - St. Augustine

***
Our Lord used the word forgive because He was innocent and knew all, but we must use it for other reasons. Firstly, because we have been forgiven greater sins by God. Secondly, because only by forgiving can hate be banished from the world. And thirdly, because our own pardon is conditioned by the pardon we extend to others. Firstly, we must forgive others because God has Forgiven us. And if we do not forgive the sins of our enemies, it is very likely because we have never cast up our accounts with God. A second reason for forgiving those who make us suffer unjustly is that if we do not forgive, hate will multiply until the whole world is hateful. "I forgive; I refuse to hate you. If I hate you, I will add my quota to the sum total of hate. This I refuse to do. I will kill your hate; I will drive it from the earth. I will Love you." Finally, we must forgive others, for on no other condition will our own sins be forgiven. In fact, it is almost a moral impossibility for God to Forgive us unless we, in turn, forgive. Has He not said: “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain Mercy” ...“forgive, and you shall be Forgiven...give, and it shall be Given unto you. . . . For with the same measure that you shall mete withal, it shall be measured to you again." The Law is inescapable. Unless we sow, we shall not reap; unless we show mercy to our fellow men, God will revoke His Mercy toward us. As in the parable, the master canceled the forgiveness of the servant because he refused to show a smaller mercy to his fellowman, “so also shall my Heavenly Father do to you, if you forgive not every one his brother from your hearts." If a box is filled with salt, it cannot be filled with sand, and if our hearts are filled with hatred of our neighbor, how can God fill them with His Love? It is just as simple as that. There can be, and there will be, no Mercy toward us unless we ourselves are merciful. The real test of the Christian, then, is not how much he Loves his friends, but how much he Loves his enemies. - Ven. Fulton J. Sheen

He hath set water and fire before thee: stretch forth thy hand to which thou wilt. Before man is Life and death, Good and evil, that which he shall choose shall be given him: For the Wisdom of God is Great, and He is Strong in Power, seeing All men without ceasing. The eyes of the Lord are towards them that Fear Him, and He knoweth All the work of man. He hath commanded no man to do wickedly, and he hath given no man license to sin.
~ Ecclesiasticus XV