9. But what matters of deep moment21 Sacramenta. are contained in the Lord’s prayer! How many and how great, briefly collected in the words, but spiritually abundant in virtue! so that there is absolutely nothing passed over that is not comprehended in these our prayers and petitions, as in a compendium of heavenly doctrine. “After this manner,” says He, “pray ye: Our Father, which art in heaven.” The new man, born again and restored to his God by His grace, says “Father,” in the first place because he has now begun to be a son. “He came,” He says, “to His own, and His own received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in His name.”22 John i. 11. The man, therefore, who has believed in His name, and has become God’s son, ought from this point to begin both to give thanks and to profess himself God’s son, by declaring that God is his Father in heaven; and also to bear witness, among the very first words of his new birth, that he has renounced an earthly and carnal father, and that he has begun to know as well as to have as a father Him only who is in heaven, as it is written: “They who say unto their father and their mother, I have not known thee, and who have not acknowledged their own children; these have observed Thy precepts and have kept Thy covenant.”23 Deut. xxxiii. 9. Also the Lord in His Gospel has bidden us to call “no man our father upon earth, because there is to us one Father, who is in heaven.”24 Matt. xxiii. 9. And to the disciple who had made mention of his dead father, He replied, “Let the dead bury their dead;”25 Matt. viii. 22. for he had said that his father was dead, while the Father of believers is living.
0525A IX. Qualia autem sunt, fratres dilectissimi, orationis Dominicae sacramenta, quam multa, quam magna , breviter in sermone collecta, sed in virtute spiritaliter copiosa, ut nihil omnino praetermissum sit quod non in precibus atque orationibus nostris coelestis doctrinae compendio comprehendatur. Sic, ait, crate: PATER NOSTER QUI ES IN COELIS. Homo, novus, renatus, et Deo suo per gratiam ejus restitutus, Pater primo in loco dicit, quia filius esse jam coepit. In sua, inquit, propria venit, et sui eum non receperunt. Quotquot autem eum receperunt, dedit illis potestatem ut filii Dei fierent, his qui credunt in nomine ejus (Joan. I, 11, 12). Qui ergo credidit in nomine ejus, et factus est Dei filius, hinc debet incipere ut et gratias agat et profiteatur se Dei filium, dum nominat patrem sibi esse in 0525B coelis Deum; contestetur quoque inter prima statim nativitatis suae verba renuntiasse se terreno et carnali patri, et patrem solum nosse se et habere coepisse qui sit in coelis, sicut scriptum est: Qui dicunt patri et matri: Non novi te, et filios suos non agnoverunt, hi custodierunt praecepta tua et testamentum tuum servaverunt (Deut. XXXIII, 9). Item Dominus in Evangelio suo praecepit ne vocemus nobis patrem in terra, quod sit scilicet nobis unus pater qui est in coelis (Matth. XXIII, 9). Et discipulo qui mentionem defuncti patris fecerat respondit: Sine mortui mortuos suos sepeliant (Matth. VIII, 22). Dixerat enim patrem suum mortuum, cum sit credentium Pater vivus.