Insight into the Lord's Prayer

In Greek class, we start our classes reading the Lord's Prayer (or the "Our Father") in Greek. Just reading it and hearing it out loud made me realize something. Now, this may be in Greek, but I promise, you do not need to understand any Greek to understand this.

Look at the opening phrases of the Lord's prayer in Greek:

Πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς·
ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου·
ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου·
γενηθήτω τὸ θέλημά σου, 
ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς·

Look after the first line, "Our Father who art in heaven". Do you see the first word in the next three lines? See how the ending is the same: --τω? Well, that means those three words are all doing the same thing in the sentence. Those three words are "hallowing", "coming", and "coming about / becoming". And notice, also, how the ends of those three lines are also all similar? See the σου? That is "Thy" or "Your".

If those three phrases are put together so identically and functioning in the same way, that means they are all tied together, working together in one idea. So, think of the Lord's Prayer like this (punctuation very intentional here):

Our Father who art in heaven:
Thy name being hallowed,
Thy kingdom coming,
Thy will coming about,
On earth as it is in heaven.

We tend to break those phrases up in odd ways, and usually in ways that very much obscure the overall idea and flow of that prayer. And just to add one more element to the Lord's Prayer, which is something that was mentioned in Spirituality class, and something that has very much changed the way I pray this prayer: Elder Sophrony of Essex said that the "on earth" portion of this prayer is more than just "in this world", but also "in me".

From what was man formed? Earth, clay, dirt. I don't think I need to say much more--it was not my idea anyway. Just pray the Lord's Prayer with that in mind. Thy name being hallowed, Thy kingdom coming, Thy will coming about, in this humble clump of clay, just as it is in heaven.

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