My dear Parishioners,
Peace! There are nineteen (19) In Brief articles in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which treat the Lord’s Prayer or “Our Father.” The following reflection considers CCC, 2860.
The third request or petition or demand of the Lord’s prayer asks God to unite our will to that of the Eternal Son so that the divine design of salvation in the life of the world might be accomplished. Here we consider two things: What does it mean to unite our wills to that of Jesus Christ? What does our will and our prayer have to do with the accomplishment of the salvation of the world?
As followers of Jesus Christ, we know Him to be true God and true man. The Monothelite heresy (condemned by the Third Council of Constantinople 680-681AD) denied that the Lord Jesus has two wills, one human and one divine. In praying that our wills be united to His, it is important to remember how He Himself prayed in His agony “Father, if You are wiling, let this cup pass from Me; however not My will but Thine be done”(cf. Matthew 26:39; Luke 22:42). The will of God has been made clear to us in His Commandments (1 John 5:2-3) and we show our love for God and neighbor by keeping the Commandments by God’s grace (cf. Matthew 22:37-39; Mark 12:30-31; John 14:15, 23; 15:5b). Our human will is a power of our rational spiritual soul, which before the Incarnation made us most like God who is a spirit (cf. John 4:24). Saint Thomas Aquinas, OP (+1274) treats the will generally in Summa Theologiae I. Q. 82, A. 1-5.
Jesus Christ, by His death on the Cross and glorious resurrection has definitively accomplished the salvation of the world, yet we are to still work out our salvation with fear and trembling (cf, 1 /Corinthians 1:18; Philippians 2:12). While He has saved us, we are still being saved by His grace at work in us whenever we reject sin, and Satan, and the glamor of evil. Our hope of salvation is no less than that of Saint Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:8.
When we pray the Lord’s Prayer we join the Lord in asking that our wills be conformed to His human will which while distinct from His divine will was nevertheless in perfect harmony with that of the Eternal Father. God wills our salvation and so should we (cf. Isaiah 12:2; 1 Thessalonians 4:3). God does not will the death of us sinners, but that we be converted and live (cf. Jeremiah 36:3; Ezekiel 18:23; Acts 3:19). The more and more we are converted to the Lord and His holy will, which is our salvation, the more we will be able to lead others to the same good and noble desire, namely, to lead Godly lives (cf. 1 Peter 2:12, 15). The Lord’s Prayer forms and educates our will and disposes us to God’s grace.
God bless you!
Father John Arthur Orr