Thy Kingdom Come

I'm sure you all have had a moment while praying the Our Father when you wondered, "What am I even saying?" So many times this happens to me. I'll be at mass praying the Our Father, and before you know it, the prayer will be over and I will have no idea what I actually just said. This seems to happen a lot with learned prayers, some other examples would be the Hail Mary or the Glory Be.

If we really break down these prayers, it is amazing all the things they say.

Our Father, who art in heaven hallowed be Thy name,
In the beginning of the prayer we are simply calling upon the name of the Lord. We are inviting Him into our prayer.

Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Here, we are putting all of our trust in the Lord. In other words, we are saying, "Do as you will in my life and in the lives of everyone around me." This can be a scary thing to say to the Lord because we don't know where He is going to lead us or what He is going to do in our lives, but that is what faith is about. It is the daily recognition of our brokenness and the asking for God's healing grace. It takes a lot of trust in God to be able to do this, but His Kingdom is the only place that will ever make us whole and happy. There can be no My Kingdom, only Thy Kingdom come.

Give us this day our daily bread,
In this part of the prayer we are not only asking for the true Bread of Life, Jesus, but for all of our daily intentions. We must always remember that everything we ask the Lord in prayer, He will grant to us. He is a God of love and self-giving; there is nothing He would do to abandon us. He made this fully known with the death of His Son. So, tell Him what's on your mind. If you're mad, tell Him; if you're depressed, tell Him. If you're anxious, questioning, happy, or alone TELL HIM. Whatever it is, the Lord can take it. We can only recieve our daily bread if we allow the Lord to give it to us.

And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us
This might be the hardest part of the prayer to get through. When someone hurts us in any way, it is so easy to want to hold hate for them in our hearts. We do this as a way of revenge on that person, but it does just the opposite. Not forgiving someone is just like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies. All it does is hurt us. The only way to get over hurt that another person has caused you is to forgive and let God handle the rest. Once you forgive them the pain will start to vanish, and you can rest easy in knowing that God is handling the rest. God can only forgive you if you forgive those who hurt you. It is simply God taking His own lesson into practice: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you forgive, He forgives. If you don't forgive, neither can He. So, let the foriveness of the Lord wash over you and create you anew.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.
The wiles of the devil are working on earth, but that does not mean that we need to be subject to them. By calling on the power of God we are saved from the grasp of the devil on our lives. Yes, there will be times of temptation and trial, but by putting God on your side you will always come out on top. This is because Christ already won the war with the cross; we simply need to fight the battle during our time here on earth. The Lord is always on your side - go to Him.