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We’ve been talking about how we can develop self-control, and in the last episode we talked about how the Lord’s Prayer can help us with our self-control. You see, the Lord’s Prayer focuses on some of the most important, pressing parts of life, and learning what we should pray for will help us better understand specifically where in our lives we most need self-control. So, let’s get right back to it.

We left off with the phrase, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven…” In this phrase we pray that God will lead us in His will, just as the heavenly hosts exist to serve and praise God. Sergei Nilus applies this to our lives when he says,

Let us love God’s will alone — then earth will be for us like heaven…Let us pray to God that His will might be fulfilled in us, that we might love His will, that we might delight in it, that it would root out our self-will and become the sole ruler of our hearts. For God’s will alone is all good, pleasing, and perfect-and it is our duty to fulfill it.

St. John Chrysostom notes that this phrase is not only directed to us as individuals, but asks that the whole earth live in accordance with God’s will:

For He did not at all say, ‘Thy will be done’ in me, or in us, but everywhere on the earth; so that error may be destroyed, and truth implanted, and all wickedness cast out, and virtue return, and no difference in this respect be henceforth between heaven and earth. ‘For if this come to pass,’ says He, ‘there will be no difference between things below and above, separated as they are in nature; the earth exhibiting to us another set of angels.’

The next phrase in the prayer is“Give us this day our daily bread…” In this phrase we pray to God for our daily provisions; implied is not only food, but also the other necessities of life. Alluding to Christ’s admonition to not worry about the necessities of life because God will provide for them, St. John Chrysostom states,

For it is neither for riches, nor for delicate living, nor for costly raiment, nor for any other such thing, but for bread only, that He has commanded us to make our prayer. And for ‘daily bread,’ so as not to ‘take thought for the morrow.’ Because of this He added, ‘daily bread,’ that is, bread for one day. And not even with this expression is He satisfied, but adds another too afterwards, saying, ‘Give us this day;’ so that we may not, beyond this, wear ourselves out with the care of the following day.

St. Cyprian of Carthage, who states that this phrase can be understood literally to refer to physical sustenance, also teaches that the phrase can be understood spiritually to refer to the Holy Eucharist:

For Christ is the bread of life; and this bread does not belong to all men, but it is ours. And according as we say, ‘Our Father,’ because He is the Father of those who understand and believe; so also we call it ‘our bread,’ because Christ is the bread of those who are in union with His body. And we ask that this bread should be given to us daily, that we who are in Christ, and daily receive the Eucharist for the food of salvation, may not, by the interposition of some heinous sin, by being prevented, as withheld and not communicating, from partaking of the heavenly bread, be separated from Christ’s body.

The last phrase we’re going to discuss in this episode is, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors…” In our series on being longsuffering we talked about the importance of forgiveness. Our Lord tells us that, when someone sins against us, we should forgive “up to seventy times seven” times, meaning that we should be infinitely patient and forgiving. In this phrase we are forced to be as forgiving of others as we ask God to be with us. Blessed Augustine puts it like this,

We daily beg, daily knock at the ears of God by prayer, daily prostrate ourselves and say, ‘Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.’ What debts of thine? All, or a certain part? Thou wilt answer, All. So then do thou with thy debtor. This then is the rule thou layest down, this the condition thou speakest of; this the covenant and agreement thou dost mention when thou prayest, saying, ‘Forgive us, as we forgive our debtors.’

St. John Chrysostom relates the phrase about forgiving debts to the previous parts of the prayer:

What we should most observe is this, that whereas in each of the clauses He had made mention of the whole of virtue, and in this way had included also the forgetfulness of injuries…still He was not satisfied with these, but meaning to signify how earnest He is in the matter, He sets it down also in particular, and after the prayer, He makes mention of no other commandment than this, saying thus: ‘For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you.’