A visitor to the Abbey Church this week may have noticed small piles of slips of white paper left on the side tables at each entrance. These were the product of a recent student Church Talk, given by Klara, a senior and an international student from Hungary. In her talk, Klara spoke of her developing Catholic faith. She highlighted the Lord’s Prayer, as an important expression of that faith: “… I would like to invite you to pray the ‘Our Father'’ with me. It was the first prayer I learned; I use it almost every single day. It is a simple prayer that almost every Christian knows, and I hope it can mean as much to you as it does for me. I will pray in Hungarian, and you can follow along in either Hungarian, English, or in your own first language.” Klara’s appeal to the Our Father is well rooted in Christian practice. And her appeal to the variety of languages in which it may be prayed elicits its universal appeal. Taught by Our Lord himself, it is still shared across all Christian denominations and remains central to Christian life. The “Church of the Pater Noster,” located on the Mount of Olives near Jerusalem, includes beautiful tiles containing the prayer in over 100 languages. Our conventual Sunday Mass typically includes the “Pater Noster” sung in Gregorian chant. The Latin chanting of the prayer has been embraced remarkably by the student body, and their a capella rendition of the chant is one of the most audible of all the singing done in the church.

Pater Noster Church Tiles in Jerusalem

The Catechism of the Catholic Church commits an entire section to prayer, as one of the four pillars of Christian life, and emphasizes the importance of the Lord’s Prayer. It teaches: “Prayer is the life of the new heart. It ought to animate us at every moment. But we tend to forget him who is our life and our all. This is why the Fathers of the spiritual life in the Deuteronomic and prophetic traditions insist that prayer is a remembrance of God often awakened by the memory of the heart: ‘We must remember God more often than we draw breath.’ But we cannot pray ‘at all times’ if we do not pray at specific times, consciously willing it.” (CCC 2697) It goes on later to say: “Prayer is both a gift of grace and a determined response on our part. It always presupposes effort.” (2725) In the exercising of such effort, the Lord’s Prayer is a vital: “The Lord's Prayer ‘is truly the summary of the whole gospel.’ ‘Since the Lord . . . after handing over the practice of prayer, said elsewhere, Ask and you will receive, and since everyone has petitions which are peculiar to his circumstances, the regular and appropriate prayer – the Lord's Prayer – is said first, as the foundation of further desires.’” (2761) “After showing how the psalms are the principal food of Christian prayer and flow together in the petitions of the Our Father, St. Augustine concludes: Run through all the words of the holy prayers [in Scripture], and I do not think that you will find anything in them that is not contained and included in the Lord's Prayer.” (2762)

We thank Klara for her reminder of this hallmark of Christian faith, and include the Hungarian and English versions of the Our Father, together with the Pater Noster.