OUR FATHER...

By Archimandrite Vassilios, the Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Iviron

I chose a part from the Gospel, from the Bible, "Our Father", which is I think the most characteristic prayer as it is the "Lord's prayer", the prayer given to us by the Lord.

I think that the Lord taught us the prayer He said, He gave us the life He led and taught us His own self; and this is the truth of Jesus Christ. And as He said another time: "I am the vine, ye are the branches" (John 15:5); as the relationship of the vine and the branches is an organic one and the vine's juice goes silently to the branches, in the same way the Lord gave all His existence to us. I believe that within this prayer, if we say it consciously and experience it, we live in Jesus Christ.

Let us start reading this prayer and follow it phrase by phrase.

The first phrase says:

" Our father who art in heaven "

I think that our most serious sin is one; many times we despair and forget one thing: not that we are weak but that God loves us. Our capital, the capital of the weak, is that God loves us and that God is our Father.

We say that the father or the mother love their child not because the child is good, but because it is their child. It is a great thing if we can acquire this consciousness and feel that we can call God our Father. Everything is included in this word. It immediately places us in the environment of the Church. Someone can be an orphan, abandoned by their own parents, having lost everything and feeling alone. From the moment, though, that God is their Father, they feel secure, safe and the whole world is their home.

I would dare say the following: wouldn't it be better if we were abandoned by everybody in order to experience this love of God? I believe that we can say this as well. This is why the Lord says in His blessings: Blessed are those who mourn, blessed are those who hunger and thirst, blessed are those who weep and cry..." That is: May we be deprived of human affection, lose everything, in order to feel that God is our Father.

I remember that once we asked an old woman, a Russian, in Paris , what a monk is and she spontaneously replied that a monk is a man hanging from a rope and this rope is the love of God. I think that this is what we can say in the end about everyone: men have a power in their lives and this power is that God loves them. We came into this life and hope because someone loves us; this someone is strong regardless of the fact that we are weak.

" Our father who art in heaven ". Our father is not just someone that can be found in various places, but is the heavenly Father living in heaven and, therefore, the entire world, heaven becomes our home. We can feel comfortable and free. This is why it is said that when they told Evagrius Ponticus, one of the first ascetics of Nitria, that his father died, he reacted spontaneously saying: "Do not swear. My Father never died!"

With the first phrase, therefore, the Lord gives us courage, makes us His own brethren and says that we can call His own Father our Father. The Fathers add something more: We call God "Our Father" - we do not simply say my Father - therefore God is the Father of all of us and all of us are brethren.

The next phrase says: " Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come... "

The Fathers of our Church see in these two phrases the presence of the Son and the Holy Spirit. Consequently, the presence of the Holy Trinity exists in these three phrases "Our Father... thy kingdom come..." The Name of the God Father is the Logos of the God Father, the Son of God, and the kingdom of God is the Holy Spirit. (There is an older version of the Gospel that instead of saying "thy kingdom come..." it says: "thy Spirit the Holy may cometh onto us and cleanse us"). Therefore, we have here the presence of the Holy Trinity. It is what we say: "I believe in one God the Father Almighty... and one Lord Jesus Christ... and in the Holy Spirit..."

"Hallowed be thy name..." We beg for the name of God to be hallowed. If we see here what the Fathers say -that the name of God Father is the Son and Logos of God, this phrase "hallowed by thy name" can be connected with what the Lord says: " And for them do I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth (John 17:19). And these words: "sanctify myself" that the Lord says mean that I sacrifice myself so that in reality the faithful can be sanctified in truth. When we say, therefore, "hallowed by thy name", it is as if we say "let the sacrifice of the Son and Logos of God be sanctified". This is why the Lord is our blessing, our salvation and justice. And "thy kingdom come..." means the Holy Spirit may come to the Pentecost. The Holy Spirit always comes and the Church is a continuous Pentecost.

Within these three phrases, we see, therefore the Holy Trinity. We can also see in these three phrases the reality of the main prayer of the Divine Liturgy: the priest begs the Heavenly Father, to send the Spirit the most holy and transform the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.

And we reach the fourth phrase which is a main phrase of "Our Father" and the focal point in the life of the Lord and our lives:

" thy will be done..."

This phrase, "thy will be done", can be compared with the word "Amen" in the prayer. This "thy will be done" is the conclusion and recapitulation of the previous phrases where we say "hallowed by thy name", "thy kingdom come", "thy will be done" . We mention God, we ask His name to be hallowed, His kingdom to come, His will to be done. We give everything to God and this is affirmed and recapitulated with this phrase: "thy will be done".

In order to better understand the importance of "thy will be done", it will be a good idea to remember what the Lord said about his coming down from Heaven: "For I came down from heaven to do the will of the Father that sent me and finish His work." And at another point He says: "my judgement is just...", that is my judgment is fair and correct, "because I seek not my own will but the will of him that sent me." Something else as well: do you remember the meeting of the Lord with the woman of Samaria ? When his disciples came, they said to the Lord: "Master, eat" and he answered "I have meat to eat that you know not of..." I have food to eat that you do not know. "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work."

He says that what feeds me is to do the will of the Father that sent me. I believe that this is the basic thing that determines the life of the Lord and our lives. This is why we see the Lord, later on, in the hour of Gethsemane, the hour of the true agony - one could say the hour of a strong earthquake that everything is tested and the Lord "being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly" - saying " My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will but as thou wilt" (Matthew 26:42). What the Lord told us to say, and he himself said it at the difficult moment and he went to his passion peacefully and with all the strength, "not as I will but as thou wilt". And by saying this he turned inwardly, acquired new strength and went forward.

It would not be a bad idea to look for a moment at our own lives. We fight, we start, we have plans, we have programmes, we do well, but at a specific moment we may suffer hardships. I think that there is no man that does not have their own Gethsemane . When everything falls apart, only then everything is resurrected and only then someone can understand what the Lord said: by doing the will of the Father that sent me and not my will, I get strength. When everything is destroyed and there is no hope anywhere, when everything is covered with darkness, if man says: My God, thy will be done, they immediately acquire new strength, they are resurrected and move forward with all the power and modesty towards the path, the passage, the Pasch which is Christ, in an evolution that never stops. And, later on, they will thank God not for the easy things, but for the difficulties brought to their lives and for their Gethsemane which forced them within the elimination of themselves to say their thoughts freely, to end up saying: "My God, as thou wilt".

I think that this phrase "thy will be done" is similar to the phrase "let there be" of creation (what the Lord said: "He said and were born, he commanded and were created") and the liturgical "let there be" (when the priest officiates the sacrament of the Divine Eucharist and begs the Father to send the Holy Spirit and transform the bread into the Body of Christ and the wine in the Chalice into the Blood of Christ and says Amen, Amen, Amen, which means that the sacrament has been performed. There is a relationship between the "let there be" of creation and the liturgy). When man consciously says: My God, thy will be done by me as well, it is similar to what the Virgin Mary said to Archangel Gabriel "be unto me according to thy word" which means to be done to me, in my existence, inside me according to what you say; my God, to be done according to your will. Hence, man is sanctified and acquires another kind of power.

Abba Isaac says somewhere that man, through his obedience to God, can become God by grace and create new worlds that do not exist: man becomes absolutely new, the weak acquires a new power and the dead acquires a new life and advances. It is then that he understands that it is real food to end up saying calmly: "My God, not as I will but as thou wilt."

This is why the true theologian is not the one that attends university courses and excels due to remembering some dates and names or writing a thesis. The true theologian is the one that knows which is the power and the truth of the Lord's teaching; the one that at the difficult moment says: not as I will but as thou wilt. It is then that God enters within this man, makes him a theologian, a god by grace and man can advance in another way in Jesus Christ. As the Lord resurrected advanced with the doors closed, in the same way this man, this weak and at the same time almighty man advances through the grace of God regardless of whether the problems are solved or not. This is why if we should suffer difficulties, let us express our thoughts freely, each one express themselves as they want, because God is our Father. But afterwards we should say: My God, I do not know, you know, you love me more than I love them and everyone belongs to you more than they belong to me. Therefore, let thy will be done. If your will should seem to be a disaster, let it be a disaster. It is better to have a disaster from God's will than any success with human will which is a real doom and disaster. Then the phrase "let thy will be done" is the phrase that feeds and resurrects us in another place.

The next phrase is: " on earth as it is in heaven..."

Here, says St. John the Chrysostom, Christ makes us responsible for the salvation of the entire world. He does not say: "My God, your will be done in my life", but your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, be done in the entire world. I remember that once that I were in the island of Kos , I saw an old woman. She said to me: "I am illiterate and I do not know any prayer. I can't say the symbol of faith "I believe in one God..." or "Our Father..." This is why every night before I go to bed, I cross myself and pray to God that everybody is well when they wake up in the morning. Am I doing right?" she asked me. "You are doing the right thing", I said to her.

You see the old woman had realized the secret of this prayer and because she lived in the Church and the grace of Christ was living inside her silently, as the juice of the vine goes to the branches, she did what was proper although she was illiterate: she begged God that everybody is well when they wake up in the morning. This is why we say: "on earth as it is in heaven".

And following that we say: " give us this day our daily bread".

When we reach the time of our Gethsemane and we say "My God, thy will be done," and we do not repine, we do not begrudge, but we accept this difficult time with patience and peace, then, I believe, that our spiritual stomach is ready to digest the real food. And this real food is again the Lord, Jesus Christ. You saw that he said: "I am the living bread which came down from heaven, if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever" (John 6:51). I am the true bread, the living bread, which came down from heaven and if someone eats from this bread, he will live and he will not die. He acquires as of this moment a power and a grace that helps him get over death; he is as of this moment in eternal life although still living.

When the Lord says "give us this day our daily bread", what exactly does He mean? The Fathers say that the expression " τον άρτον τον επιούσιον " in Greek (=the daily bread or the staff of life) is the bread that concerns the essence of man or the bread of the next day . And the next day is the next eon; the kingdom of heaven. We pray, therefore, to God, our Father, to make us worthy of the "next day", of the heavenly b read , of Jesus Christ, to give Him to us as true food as of today. Although we are still in flesh, although we are still living in this world, we are asking the real bread that will feed us to be the bread of the angels, the bread of the "next day", the bread of the future life and kingdom.

" And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us"

Here we remember the Lord's Prayer about those that put him on the cross: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34 ). The Lord forgave them and because there was no excuse for that, He found an excuse: that they did not know what they were doing.

"And forgive us...as we forgive..." This phrase is a bit more demanding. The Lord does not say to ask God, the Father, to help us forgive the others, but we say that we forgive them without any question. Gregory of Nyssa says that this phrase is as if we are saying to God the Father to take us as a model and forgive us as well.

If we do not forgive, however, then nothing happens; the Lord said it clearly: "But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses" (Matthew 6:15 ). We can attend the Sunday school, listen to the homilies, go to church, participate in the communion and advance in spiritual life; we can perform miracles and, yet, not forgive someone. But if we do not forgive, then nothing happens.

Here, I would like us to remember something that St. Kosmas Aetolos used to say to people: "I hurt because I do not have the time to see each one of you separately, to hear your confession and your complaints and tell you whatever God enlightens me to tell you. As I cannot see all of you, I will tell you some things which you must implement. And if you implement them, you will go forward. The first is to forgive your enemies." He gave them an example in order to make them understand what he wanted to say: "Two men came to confession, Peter and Paul. Peter said to me: Saint of God, since my birth I have followed the good path. I have lived according to the church, I have done so many good things; I pray, I give alms to the poor, I have built churches, I have built monasteries. I have, though, a small shortcoming: I do not forgive my enemies." St. Kosmas says: "I judged that he would go to hell and said that when he dies, he would be thrown to the street to be eaten by the dogs." After a while, Paul came and told me: "Since my birth, I have never done anything good, but, I have stolen, I have fornicated, I have committed murders, I have burned down churches, monasteries; as if I were possessed by demons. I have only one good thing: I forgive my enemy." St. Kosmas says: "I stepped down, embraced him, kissed him and told him to receive communion in three days."

The one that had all the good qualities had one shortcoming: he did not forgive his enemies and this contaminated everything. As when we have 100 pounds of dough and we leaven it with a small quantity of sour dough and all of it is destroyed. On the other hand, the person that did so many evil things would forgive his enemy; this acted inside him as the flame of a candle and burned down everything. I think this is the main thing. Many times, our whole life emits a bad smell instead of being Christ's aroma and we do not know why. We should forgive. We should not nurture any bad feeling for anyone. It is only then that our lives will go forward. If we do not do it, then all our theologies and our holiness will be wasted. This is why the Lord says: " And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us ." Such a small thing can open the kingdom of heavens or make our entire life dirty.

" And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil"

We say "lead us not into temptation" and, on the other hand, St. James the Apostle says: "My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations" (James 1:2). The question is solved by the Fathers. St. Maximus the Confessor says that there are two kinds of temptations: on the one hand, we have the hedonic and voluntary ones that lead to sin. These are the temptations that we ask the Lord not to lead us into so as not to be led astray. On the other hand, there are other temptations and adversities, the involuntary and painful ones, which chasten the loving-sin judgement and stop sin. We ask, therefore, not to be led into the first kind of temptations, the hedonic and voluntary ones but should we encounter the other adversities, we must accept them with joy because these temptations bring knowledge, humiliation, and the grace of the Holy Spirit. Remember what is said in the Gerontikon (the sayings of the Desert Fathers): "Take away temptations and no one will be saved." If we take temptations out of our lives, then no one will be saved.

"...but deliver us from evil". The last phrase of this prayer is the evil. The fist phrase of the prayer is "Our Father". God is the first word, the first reality; the last one is the evil. Our lives move between the evil and God. The evil left no one without temptations: neither the first Adam in Paradise nor the second, our Lord Jesus Christ, when he went to the desert. Our Lord says again: "this kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting" (Mark 9:29 ). The only way to be free from the evil is by praying and fasting. The evil does not go away by applying logic, as cancer does not go away by taking aspirins. The devil does not go away with clever things. A monk says that the greatest lawyer cannot deal with the smallest devil. This is why we should never start a dialogue with the evil. Leave him and go away.

The issue in spiritual life is to acquire the spiritual distinction: to distinguish whether something is sent by God or by the devil. One could say: I am a weak man. How can I acquire this distinction? I think that everything is simple if we, consciously, say this prayer that the Lord taught us. We can start now backwards: if we forgive our enemies without any questions; if we are fed with the heavenly bread; if at our difficult moments we say "My God, your will be done" and if we feel God as our Father, then although we are very weak, we will be almighty at the same time. On the contrary, if we do our will and we do not forgive the others, then we transform the devil from an ant into a lion and in no way can we deal with the situation. If, however, we say: God's will shall be done, I know nothing; if we forgive without questions; if at the moment that someone kills us, we, killed, can say that there is no bad feeling for the one that killed us and we say "it does not matter, God will look after me", then this man, this weak being, becomes almighty and can face any situation while the devil in front him is just an ant. And can go forward freely.

Remember that when in Gethsemane the Lord "being in agony prayed more earnestly" and said "not my will be done", the Holy Bible says that "there appeared an angel unto him from heaven strengthening him" (Luke 22:43 )

Remember also that when in the desert he said "Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve", the devil left him and "behold, angels came and ministered unto him" (Matthew 4:10 -11). The same happens to us: if we say this prayer, if we lead this life, the evil goes away, the spiritual distinction comes inside us and angels minister us. We can feel the angels' company; we can live in Heaven as of now; we can use these phrases of the Lord and say that our lives become then "angel-built" and "God-covered". Then the small man becomes almighty through the grace of God...