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Understanding "Our Father": Biblical Reflections on the Lord's Prayer

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Depending on who you talk to Scott Hahn is either a hero or a turncoat. He was raised Presbyterian, and was even on the fast track to be a president at a Presbyterian seminary when he began to doubt two protestant main stays: `by scripture alone' and `by faith alone'. So he did what any academically trained person would do, he decided to research and went back to school to do a masters in Roman Catholic thought, eventually converting to Catholicism. Since then he has been a prolific writer and speaker on things Catholic, and why the catholic faith is the one true valid faith.

This book is part academic treatise and part faith discovery. The book will lead you through each of the different petitions in the Lord's Prayer, both in historical perspective and in reflection for what it should mean for us today. The sections are:

Part 1 Contemporary Reflections by Scott Hahn

0. Introduction
1. Our Father
2. Our Father ... In Heaven
3. Hallowed Be Thy Name
4. Thy Kingdom Come
5. Thy Will Be Done
6. On Earth As It Is In Heaven
7. Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread
8. Forgive Us ... As We Forgive
9. Lead Us Not Into Temptation
10. Temptation Part II
11. Deliver Us from Evil
12. The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory
13. Last Words

Part 2 Wisdom From The Fathers Of The Church

14. Saint Cyprian: Treatise on the Lord's Prayer
15. Saint Cyril of Jerusalem: Mystagogic Cathechesis
16. Saint John Chrysostom: Homily XIX o the Gospel of Matthew
17. Saint Augustine: Our Lord's Sermon on the Mount

Hahn open's up this prayer in ways you could never imagine. I have been serious about being a Christian for nearly 20 years and this little book helped me to see this prayer in a whole new light.

"Why Bother?
Still, it's fair to ask, Why Bother to pray, `Thy will be done'? Isn't it presumptuous, or even redundant? Isn't God's will what happens anyway? Why pray for God's will? It Seems like praying for gravity to continue.
The answer is simple. When we pray. `Thy will be done,' we do not change or strengthen the will of God, but we do change and strengthen ourselves. Such prayer disposes our hearts to de the will of the Father." p31,32

Hahn goes on to say later: "Often, it seems that people pray in order to change God's mind. But God is eternal, perfect, unchanging, and unchangeable. We pray so that God can change our minds." p74 what would our lives be like is we truly prayed for the fathers will to be done. Later Hahn states: "First in importance is the centrality of divine fatherhood and our share - our real participation - in Christ's divine sonship.
Next, notice how the Fathers insist that our goal is virtue, and not mere learning." p75 That is why the second part of the book goes into the writings of the church fathers. To show us that intellectual understanding is not enough, it must impact our hearts and move us to action and a deeper relationship with God. This book will help you move from your head to your heart, but it will feed both mind and spirit.

Scott Hahn has helped so many of us grow in our appreciation of Scripture in Catholic life. He has done so again in a very practical way. His book on the Our Father will assist people not only in their personal spiritual life, but also in their praying together. I hope that this book will become part of a prayer movement in the Church to lead us to reform and renewal.

Scott Hahn's "Understanding 'Our Father'" has arrived just as John Paul II has given the world another set of mysteries for the rosary, the Luminous Mysteries. The timing could not be better for a deeper understanding of the prayer of all prayers, the "Our Father," the prayer given to us by Our Lord, and the prayer which initiates each mystery of the rosary.

Why is Hahn's book so important? Don't we know the "Our Father" all too well? As Hahn quickly shows, there is nothing more unfamiliar as the all-too-familiar. Rather than rattling the "Our Father" off like the Pledge of Allegiance, Hahn has the reader go through it, line by line, and delve into its deep mysteries and alarming truths. By the end of the book, we realize why the "Our Father" is an ever-vibrant, fathomless source of theological reflection, and even more important, the prayer of all prayers.

If that weren't enough, Dr. Hahn appends some of the deepest theological reflections of the early fathers upon this great prayer--St. Cyprian, St. Cyril, St. John Chrysostom, and of course, St. Augustine.

In sum, just the book to fire up Catholics and Protestants alike, with the prayer which binds us all.

This is a great book for all Catholics, but it is an essential book for Catholic fathers, like me. At the center of the modern crisis in family life is a crisis of genuine fatherhood. The essence of restoring fatherhood is turning the hearts of fathers back to God the Father. The renewal of family life will proceed from the renewal of our life with the Father. Read this important slowly and prayerfully. It will deepen your faith and transform your family life

My own journey into the Catholic Church involved an exponential increase in praying the Lord's Prayer, from once a week to multiple times every day: the Divine Office, the Rosary, and Mass. But I must admit that too often the busy-ness and distractions of my life have made my recitation of this precious prayer seem almost like "vain repetition". For this reason, Scott Hahn's book is a godsend. His reflections (biblical, theological and spiritual) proceed petition by petition. As a result, readers rediscover this intimate family prayer of the Body of Christ. This book instills new life into our prayer. What an awesome privilege it is now to pray these words as an adopted son of God.

"Understanding 'Our Father'" provides some startling and worthwhile insights that can serve as powerful aids to prayers. This is a book to rouse you from the drone of repetition and guide you into the depths of Christ's own prayer. Scott Hahn has helped to acquaint many a Catholic with the finer points of Bible study. A gifted teacher, he has a knack for making the dull vivid and the complex simple. Here he unpacks the theological and biblical meaning of each phrase of the Lord's Prayer -- and reveals what he terms the "inner logic" of this most fundamental of prayers.

Throughout, Hahn, professor of Theology and Scripture at the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio develops and draws from his trademark brand of covenant theology, according to which the Trinity creates a family bond with us, the members of Christ's Body. Hahn also points to healthy human father-children bonds but doesn't forget those who've had bad experiences with their earthly fathers and now have difficulty accepting the authority of any "father figure" -- including God the Father. Catholic Tradition, he points out, "tells us we must go beyond our earthly experiences and memories of fatherhood. God is more unlike than like any human father, patriarch or paternal figure."

The book is written in Hahn's usual energetic, conversational style. The chapters are peppered with playful subheads -- "Send in the Crowns," "From Heir to Eternity" among them. Sometimes I feel like I shouldn't laugh; it only encourages him. Then again the professor's peculiar penchant for puns does serve a useful purpose: it provides a steady stream of mnemonic doctrine-remembrance devices. It's worth noting here than only the first half of the book is written by Hahn. The rest of the pages offer commentaries on the Lord's Prayer by four Church Fathers: Sts. Augustine, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Cyprian.

In this wonderful exposition of the most beautiful of prayers, which came from the divine lips of Jesus Himself, Dr. Scott Hahn has, once again, provided the Catholic and the Christian with a splendid work of theological research. "Understanding 'Our Father'" will definitely serve to enrich spiritually all who are privileged to read and meditate on it. By coordinating his own commentary and meditation on the Lord's Prayer with those of four great doctors of the Church, Dr. Hahn provides an ongoing connection with the long continuity of Christian tradition. It is a book that the reader will find as intellectually satisfying as it is grace-filled and consoling.

Against the background of contemporary misunderstandings of God and Christian revelation, it is gratifying to see how a modern Scripture scholar, Professor Scott Hahn, contributes concise and profound insights into the most familiar prayer in all history, the Lord's Prayer. His meditations, enriched by covenant theology, will inspire souls with greater knowledge and love of God, and will stimulate in them a greater zeal to spread Christ's Kingdom, the Church, on earth. Readers victimized by a spiritually decadent culture to ignore their supernatural destiny are reminded, "If He who was without sin prayed, how much more ought sinners to pray." The value of this volume is enhanced by inclusion of the texts of timeless commentaries on the Lord's Prayer by Sts. Cyprian, Cyril of Jerusalem, John Chrysostom, and Augustine.

Dr. Hahn has performed yet another great service for the Church (and the whole world, for that matter). The Our Father is Gospel prayer, the prayer that Jesus Himself gave to us. If prayer is oxygen for the soul, then Dr. Hahn has helped to breathe life into our prayer. In the light of four Fathers of the Church, as well as his own excellent insights, Dr. Hahn, a teacher in the Teacher, teaches us how to pray.

In "Understanding 'Our Father'" Dr. Scott Hahn removes the veil and reveals to us the deep significance of the prayer Jesus gave us, the Our Father. With elegance, eloquence and erudite scholarship, Dr. Hahn unpacks each phrase of this perfect prayer and shows us our relationship with God the Father, His providential care for us, and our own call to be divinized by following His holy will. This book has increased my own understanding and enriched my appreciation of the Our Father. I am sure this will be the case for everyone who reads this insightful and inspiring book.