Why does the Lord’s Prayer begin with “Our Father”?
Our Father joins trust in God with prayer for others. Explore the opening of the Lord’s Prayer while recognising that family experiences differ.
You can pray the Lord’s Prayer alone, yet its opening word is Our. The prayer Jesus teaches gives us words that include other people before we have named a single need.
Our
In Matthew 6:5–13, Jesus warns against prayer performed for an audience and against empty repetition. Then comes a prayer of shared petitions: our bread, our forgiveness, our deliverance.
Those words can enlarge what we bring to God. Asking for daily bread includes needs beyond the contents of our own cupboards. Praying alone does not require us to imagine that we stand apart from everyone else.
The 1662 Catechism’s explanation likewise speaks of asking for grace for ourselves and others. The plural is part of the prayer’s substance.
Father
We use this address because Jesus gives it to us. In Matthew’s surrounding teaching, the Father knows what is needed before the request is made. The address invites trust; the words that follow also honour God’s holiness and ask for God’s will to be done.
Father is a theological name in the prayer, not a claim that God has a male human body. Nor should we assume that everyone’s experience of a human father makes the word easy to say. Some hear it through affection; others through absence, fear or hurt.
If the address is difficult, that difficulty need not be hidden. A conversation with a priest may help you explore the prayer without pretending your own history was different. The measure of God’s character is not the conduct of a harmful parent.
When you next begin the prayer, pause after its opening address. Remember someone whose needs might otherwise be absent from your prayers. Then continue with the words Jesus gives us, asking together for bread, forgiveness and deliverance.
For a way to place the prayer within a daily office, see Morning Prayer at home.
