This has been a book on morality, or how we live our lives. It is a book on Christian morality, explaining how the Christian faith infuses and transforms innerworldly life. Yet thus far, the core of Christian life— worship, prayer, and the sacraments—has been barely mentioned! Though the climactic chapter 16 on grace noted how crucial the sacraments and prayer are in receiving God’s grace, there has been no sustained attention to the moral importance of liturgical life. This is primarily because the book explores how people do practical reasoning by explaining the hydraulics of human practical reasoning, the relation of such reasoning to our belief commitments, and the manifestation of those commitments in practices. In doing so, the hope has been that we can think and act more intentionally, and more in accordance with the way things really are, as people of faith.

Nonetheless, there is an accurate criticism in noting the lack of attention to prayer and sacraments. Christians are increasingly aware of how liturgical practices are crucially formative for our practical reasoning, and so saying this book is focused on practical reasoning does not adequately justify this omission, which is acknowledged here: the practices we need to consider that manifest and in turn shape what we believe are obviously not only those where we find contested ethical issues, such as drinking alcohol, warfare, sexuality and end-of-life decision making. It stands to reason that for Christians, some of the most important practices are those that explicitly engage God. But rather than quickly summarize why prayer, liturgy, and the sacraments are so morally important, this last chapter has a far more modest goal.

The purpose of this chapter is to look closely at one of the foundations of Christian prayer life—the Our Father, or Lord’s Prayer—and explore how its words reveal and further illuminate the life of virtue described in this book. If prayer is part of the good life, and the virtues are a most helpful tool in living and understanding the good life, it should not surprise us that there are clear connections between the virtues and Christian prayer. One of the main organizing principles of this text has been the seven—four cardinal and three theological—virtues of the Christian life. Upon close examination, each of these virtues is readily apparent in the Our Father. The task of this chapter is to look closely at that prayer, with the work of this book in mind, and see what connections can be made between the life of virtue described thus far and the Lord’s words in the Our Father. This will serve both as a helpful summary of this book’s treatment of the seven main virtues, and a fitting demonstration of the intimate connection between prayer and the life of virtue.

The Our Father is perhaps the most familiar prayer in the Christian tradition. It is one of the first things learned by children who are taught the Christian faith, said in the celebration of the eucharist, and relied on at other liturgical events (funerals, weddings, etc.). As a prayer, you can count on all Christians knowing it no matter how well formed they have been in their faith or what their current practices are. It is also an ecumenical prayer, cherished by all Christians of any tradition.

Why is this prayer such a foundational part of the Christian tradition? What makes this prayer so special is its origin in the gospels, its context in the gospels, and who offers its words. The prayer appears in both Matthew and Luke.The Lord’s Prayer is found at Matt. 6:9–13 and Luke 11:2–4. The forms are quite similar, though there are differences. Since the Catholic liturgy (and the form commonly recited by Christians) follows Matthew’s text, that version is given here. In Matthew it appears in that charter text of the Christian life, the Sermon on the Mount. In the Gospel according to Luke, it appears in a passage where the disciples ask Jesus to show them how to pray. There is something comforting in the Luke passage for those of us who have struggled with how to pray, and wondered if we were doing it right. Here we have Jesus’s closest friends, those who have been called by him, who have left everything to follow him, and who have spent countless hours with Jesus during his earthly life. And even they wondered how to pray! Jesus offers no secrets, but rather a straightforward and simple prayer that is nonetheless extraordinarily rich in its content. So here we have, in the words of the Savior himself, direct instruction on how to pray to the Father:

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors;
and do not subject us to the final test, but deliver us from the evil one.Matt. 6:9–13. This is the translation of the New American Bible, used for scripture readings in Catholic liturgies in the United States. When the prayer is further analyzed below, the more common form used by English-speaking Christians (the same form found in Catholic mass) will be used.

Given the special context in the gospels, the Lord’s Prayer has been a central part of Christian tradition from the very beginning. In the Didache, an important early Christian text written around the year 100 AD, the prayer is written out in its entirety, followed by the instruction to pray this three times a day.Didache, in Early Christian Writings, ed. Andrew Louth (New York: Penguin, 1968), 194. It has been part of Christian liturgical life from the beginnings of the church. It also quickly became a favorite topic for Christian theologians to write about. Commentaries on the Lord’s Prayer number in the hundreds or more. Well-known Christian thinkers like Thomas Aquinas have written entire works on the prayer, and others like Augustine have written extensively on the prayer, even if not devoting an entire book to it.See Aquinas’s sermons on the Our Father in J. B. Collin’s Catechetical Instructions of St. Thomas Aquinas (New York: J. F. Wagner, 1939). See also Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae, English Dominican trans. (New York: Benziger, 1948), II–II 83,9. See Augustine, Commentary on the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount (New York: Fathers of the Church Series, 1951). See also his Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love (Washington, DC: Regnery Gateway, 1961), cxv. This practice continues today, as evidenced in Fr. Servais Pinckaers, OP’s Sources of Christian Ethics, where he, following Augustine and Aquinas, aligns different petitions of the Our Father to the Beatitudes (from Matt. 5) and gifts of the Holy Spirit (from Isa. 11).Servais Pincakers, OP, Sources of Christian Ethics (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1995), 155–58. Indeed, one of the four pillars structuring the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “Christian prayer,” contains an introduction to prayer in general, followed by an extensive commentary on the Our Father.Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), 2759–2865. The Catechism calls the Our Father the “quintessential prayer of the Church,”and notes it has been called “the summary of the whole gospel” (by Tertul-lian) and the “most perfect of prayers” (by Aquinas).Ibid., 2774–76. Indeed, this epilogue chapter is an attempt to continue in this church tradition of commentating on the words of the Our Father.

The claim here is clearly not to offer the explanation of what the prayer means. For millennia people have plumbed it for limitless wisdom and grace. The more modest goal here is to closely examine the words of the prayer for what insight they might offer into the topic of this book. After all, if this book uses the concept of virtue to explain what is meant by a good life in the context of the Christian story, and if this prayer is the summary of the whole gospel, we should be unsurprised to find close parallels between the virtues and the Lord’s Prayer. And that is exactly what we find.

The Our Father is such a familiar prayer that it is easy to forget about its words when reciting it. But if we slowly say the prayer, and break from the routine cadence we use in speaking it words, those words reward prayerful analysis and reflection. The first observation to make about the prayer as a whole is that in the Christian tradition since Augustine, thinkers have always recognized that there are seven different petitions, or requests, in the prayer. This should not surprise us; after all, if we are praying, it makes sense to ask for something! Indeed, it is comforting to know, should we ever feel odd about continually asking God for things in prayer, that this is exactly what Jesus instructed us to do in the prayer he gave us.See, for instance, Matt. 7:7–11, where Jesus instructs his disciples to “ask and it will be given to you,” and “how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him.” See also Matt 6:6, where Jesus says the Father knows what we need even before we ask. But though the familiarity of the prayer may prevent us from noticing it, attending to its sentence structure reveals that there are seven distinct petitions in the prayer, along with several phrases and dependent clauses modifying them. It may help to write the prayer according to these petitions, as follows:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.

The fact that the last four lines are petitions is more obvious: “give us,” “forgive us,” “lead us,” and “deliver us” are all clear requests. Yet the first three are less clear: “hallowed be,” “thy kingdom come,” and “thy will be done.” Understanding these petitions requires a discussion of grammar, which is rarely someone’s favorite subject. Those who have studied foreign languages, such as Latin or the Romance languages, are familiar with the subjunctive mood for verbs. Though the first three petitions appear to be indicative (i.e., simply indicating something is the case), they are actually in the subjunctive mood, which is rarely used in contemporary English, and when it is we often do not notice it. This particular use of the subjective in Latin is called jussive. It is used not to say something is the case, but as an exhortation that it may be the case. English-speaking students of Latin are commonly instructed to translate the jussive subjective using the word “let,” and that may be of help here: “let they name be hallowed,” “let thy kingdom come,” and “let they will be done.” Thus the first three petitions could be rendered in English:

Our Father who are in heaven, let your name be hallowed
Let your kingdom come,
Let your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

The addition of “let” underscores the fact that these first three lines are indeed petitions.

In case you are wondering why we do not say it this way, I would suggest two reasons. First, we do! The verbs are indeed in the subjunctive here, and have this meaning, whether we recognize it or not. In fact, that is why we say “be”in the first and third petitions rather than “is.” Most people probably think the use of “be” is a reflection of an older use of language (much as we often say “thy name” rather than “your name”), but in English “be” is the subjective form of “to be,” rather than “is.” Thus, if you have been praying this prayer you have already been asking our Father that his name may be hallowed, that his kingdom may come, and that his will may be done, whether you know it or not! Second, though we could insert “let” with no violence to the meaning of the prayer, old habits do die hard, especially in such important things as a prayer said for so long, and in just such a way in English. Furthermore, given the first point, people are still saying the prayer accurately and can easily be brought to understand that.

Therefore, the first observation on the prayer as a whole is that we have seven distinct petitions. The second observation is related to the first. The seven are divided into two groups: the first three (which use the jussive subjunctive), and the last four (which use the imperative mood). All seven petitions are made to God. But the first three ask in the subjunctive mood things that concern God directly: that God’s name be hallowed, his kingdom come, and his will be done. The next four are again addressed to God, but in the imperative mood, concerning things and events that are innerworldly: our bread, our sins, our temptations, and evils that may befall us. Thus the first three petitions beseech God concerning things that concern God directly, while the last four request of God help with things that are innerworldly.

At this point in the book, the significance of this distinction should be clear. If you did not guess where this chapter was going when it was pointed out there are seven petitions in the Our Father, perhaps you can guess now when it is observed that of the seven, three concern God directly and four concern innerworldly activities in relation to God! The main claim of this chapter is that the Lord’s own words in the Our Father both neatly correspond to, and further illuminate, the seven virtues that have been consistently described in the Christian tradition as encapsulating a holy life. The rest of this chapter will examine each of the seven petitions separately, to see how each one corresponds with a virtue, and what it further reveals about that virtue. But before turning to that task an important disclaimer is in order.

Is the claim here that the real meaning of the Lord’s Prayer is uncovered by attention to the seven virtues, and that the prayer can now finally be rightly understood after this reflection on it in that context? Absolutely not. A perusal of the scores of commentaries on the Lord’s Prayer throughout the Christian tradition reveals an inexhaustible supply of wisdom in these words, much of which does not directly address the seven virtues. In fact, it was surprising to learn that no commentary on this prayer that I could find ever grouped the petitions in this way. Even Aquinas, who organized the whole moral part of his famous moral treatise around the seven virtues, did not organize his commentary on the Our Father in this manner.See Aquinas, sermon on the Our Father in Catechetical Instructions of St. Thomas Aquinas. See also his discussion of the Our Father in the Summa Theologiae II–II 89,3.

Does this mean that an understanding of living the Christian life as encapsulated in the seven traditional virtues is really not there in the Our Father? No; as argued in this chapter it seems clear that the content of the Lords’ Prayer does indeed reflect and further illuminate the seven virtues. But the wisdom of God is profound beyond our imagination. So it only makes sense that God’s wisdom, which ultimately is one and thus unified, be grasped by different people at different times in different ways. Christians have always espoused what has been called a theological reading of scripture, where the words of scripture can refer to realities beyond the plain senses of the words themselves. The basis of any theological read of scripture must always be the literal words themselves, which act as an anchor to tether our interpretations in truth. Yet as long as that literal sense is respected, application of the words of scripture to our lives or other parts of the Christian tradition can proceed creatively and reverently, confident not only that God’s revelation is one, but also that it is rich beyond our grasp and thus always inviting and nourishing further interpretations. Thus the claim here is not that Jesus was really intending to teach his followers about the seven virtues, and now we finally got it. Nonetheless, we should not be surprised if Jesus, the word of God incarnate, spoke words that resonate and reverberate with new wisdom for generations to come.

The goal of this section is to examine each of the petitions individually, and reflect on how the particular petition reflects and further illuminates one of the seven main virtues of the Christian tradition. Again, the claim here is neither that each petition offers an exhaustive understanding of one of the virtues, nor that each petition only makes sense in reference to its corresponding virtue. The more modest claim here is that in most cases there is a strikingly clear correspondence between each petition and a virtue, and that we can better understand both the prayer and the virtues by looking at them in relation to each other.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. (FAITH)
Thy kingdom come, (HOPE)
Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. (LOVE)

Give us this day our daily bread, (PRUDENCE)
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. (JUSTICE)

Lead us not into temptation, (TEMPERANCE)

But deliver us from evil. (FORTITUDE)

Faith

The Lord’s Prayer begins, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” The opening, “Our Father, who art in heaven,” applies to the whole prayer, as it is God our Father whom we address in asking what follows. Biblical scholars often comment that the word Jesus used for father, abba, is an affectionate term. The prayer begins with an emphasis on God as a close and loving father. Of course, lest anyone doubt this is the same transcendent God who made heaven and earth, the opening address continues, “who art in heaven.”

The first petition reads, “hallowed by thy name.” What is being asked for here? First consider the word “name.” What is in a name? Names have meanings. A name represents who someone is. Think of the importance of your own family name. Or perhaps there is a story behind your first name, or some nickname that loved ones call you. Other cultures ascribe even more obvious importance to names, as particularly witnessed in Native American cultures. The point is that a name is a representation of who someone is. The Jews so reverenced the name of God that they would not speak it aloud, out of respect. Christians give similar reverence to Jesus’s name, as seen in the Holy Name devotion, and especially in St. Paul’s claim that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Phil. 2:10). Thus, the first petition is not primarily about the three-letter word “God,” but rather about the reality of who God is.

This first petition is asking that who God is, as represented by God’s name, be “hallowed,” or reverenced. In other words, it is asking that who God is be known and appreciated for who he is. This is, of course, what the virtue of faith enables people to do. It is the abiding inclination to know the truth about God and God’s relationship to humanity. It is also the root of the other theological virtues hope and love, since only when you truly know who God is can you long for complete union with him, and seek him in friendship. In making this petition, we are not simply acknowledging the truth that is known in faith: that God’s name is holy. We are also praying that God’s holiness be recognized by all people in faith. As the first word of the prayer reminds us, this is not simply an individual prayer but a communal one.

Hope

The second petition reads, “thy kingdom come.” The kingdom, or reign, of God is a metaphor to describe that state of affairs where all is happening according to God’s will. This is not, of course, to say that anything ever occurs outside of God’s providence. Though God’s providence penetrates, and ultimately conquers, even the greatest of evils, there is plenty in our world that God does not intend, even if he lets it happen, such as sin, suffering, and death. The kingdom of God is God returning all creation to rightful union with him, and thus the cessation of sin, death, and suffering. Other biblical metaphors for this state of affairs include the New Jerusalem, the last day, and the time when the lion will lay down with the lamb. This is the kingdom for which we pray in the second petition.

What does this have to do with hope? It is the full arrival of God’s kingdom for which hope yearns. Upon knowing God and God’s plan for humanity in faith, in hope people long for that true fulfillment in union with God. That fulfillment is available only in the next life. But it is in this life that we are given the hope to keep our eyes fixed toward that destiny, rather than be foolishly sidetracked by other things which may be genuinely good, but never ultimately fulfilling. Of course, hope does not only fix us toward the next life. Equipped with this proper perspective, the person of hope can appreciate those non-ultimate goods most properly, and help further inaugurate God’s kingdom in this life by living in Christ, in whom “the kingdom of God is at hand.” But in the end hope longs for that kingdom referred to by the good thief next to Jesus on the cross: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42).

Love

The next and final petition of the group of three that represents the theological virtues is “thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” What is asked for here is rather straightforward: that God’s will be done on earth just as it is in heaven. What is God’s will? We know in faith that God is love (1 John 4:8; 16), and in this petition we pray that God’s love reign, not simply in heaven but here on earth as well.

Having studied the theological virtue of love, or charity, we know that it is an act of the will, and something that is done rather than simply felt. And so “thy will be done” recalls for us love. God’s love is complete and incessant, and so this petition is in fact asking that we people, created in the image of God and thus able to love, do in fact love one another as God has loved us. Jesus makes it quite clear that his commandment, his will, is that we love one another (John 15:10–17). In this petition we are asking God to infuse us with charity so that we may live this commandment and love God and our neighbor.

It is most fitting that this is the final petition of those representing the theological virtues. First of all, love is the crux of the Christian life. It is who God is, why he created all, and how we are called to participate in God’s very nature. Though love is in one sense preceded by faith and hope, in another sense it is love that brings these (and all else) to perfection (see 1 Cor. 13, esp. vs. 7:love “believes all things, hopes all things”). Indeed, all good things in life are nothing without love. Second, though “on earth as it is in heaven” may seem to be a fittingly dramatic conclusion to the previous lines, it is actually most properly a reference to love, and therefore appropriately placed in the third petition. For as important as faith and hope are in this life, they pass away in the next, when we see God face to face and experience full union with him. No need for faith or hope then. But love remains. Love is the very meaning of existence, “on earth as it is in heaven.” That is why despite the importance of the three theological virtues faith, hope, and love, “the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13).

Prudence

One of the dangers of aligning two groups together and grafting them on to each other as related and mutually illuminating is that the effort is always in danger of being forced, driven more by the desire to align two groups (in this case of seven) neatly than see if their content is really related. It must be admitted that this danger is greatest with the first two petitions of this final group of four: “give us this day our daily bread,” and “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Both of these petitions evoke justice, and neither is obviously about prudence. For instance, “give us this day our daily bread” seems to imply the regulated exchange (“give us” and “daily”) that is so importantly a part of justice. It also suggests a crucial emphasis on social justice, begging God that all people have what they need to survive and thrive. Since the point of this chapter is not to claim the only meaning of each petition is fully encapsulated by its corresponding virtue, these insights, and many others, should indeed be kept in mind regarding the fourth petition.

But the petition, “give us this day our daily bread” is aligned here with prudence, for two reasons. First, it is fitting that the first of the four petitions representing cardinal virtues be about prudence, since prudence is the charioteer of, or preeminent among, the virtues. But is the virtue prudence simply imposed on these words, or do the words of the petition themselves have anything to do with prudence? The second reason is that once one has this virtue in mind, the words of the fourth petition do indeed evoke prudence. The priority of prudence makes bread, the basic sustenance for our everyday life, a fitting metaphor for prudence. Thus in this petition we are asking for prudence, the daily bread by which we live out our lives virtuously. After all, it is Christ himself who reminds us that “one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). And of course the word begotten by the Father is the Son, Jesus Christ, who tells us explicitly that “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger” (John 6:35). He is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). In this petition we ask to see things more truthfully—in daily, or innerworldly things—so that we can walk the way of living life to the fullest in our earthly lives. Again, this does not mean we are not also praying for bread in the literal sense, and seeking a more just world where that bread is available. This sense of the petition, and the importance of literal bread for sustaining daily life, is what makes bread an apt metaphor for prudence. For we do not live by bread alone.

Justice

The fifth petition of the Lord’s Prayer is enormously rich: “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” As noted in the previous part, just as one could ascribe justice to the fourth petition, prudence also comes to mind with this petition. After all, reminiscent of Barron’s windshield analogy for sin in chapter 12, it is only through seeing clearly that we are aware of our sinfulness and our need for forgiveness. The prudent person also sees how interconnected our relationships with God and others are, such that the forgiveness of our sins by God is intertwined with how we forgive others. Nevertheless, this petition seems most obviously about justice, and that is the virtue it is aligned with here.

Justice is the virtue that inclines one to right relations with others. And forgiveness is the reestablishment of right relations after some disruption. Therefore, in this petition we are praying that the order of justice (ius) be restored, that right relationship be reestablished between us and God, and between us and other people. It is easy to say this prayer without adequately reflecting on the extent to which these two are bound; we are asking to be forgiven as, or to the extent to which, we forgive others. It should give us pause that we are tying our own forgiveness by God to how well we forgive other people, since so often we are stingy in forgiving.

This petition is a direct repudiation of the attitude of the unforgiving servant in the gospel parable (Matt. 18:21–35). In response to Peter’s question about how often we must forgive, Jesus replies not only with the famous “not seven times, but seventy times seven” (meaning always!), but also with the story of the unforgiving servant, who is graciously forgiven a debt by his king he cannot repay, but then proceeds to refuse to forgive a fellow servant a much smaller debt when it cannot be paid. Upon hearing this, the angry king hands over this unforgiving, and ungrateful, servant to the torturers, and Jesus ends the parable with the stern warning, “So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart” (Matt. 18:35). The point here is not the simplistic “what goes around comes around.” It is rather that our forgiveness of our neighbors, or lack thereof, suggests a standard or rule that we think represents the order of justice (again, ius), by which they should be judged. And as Christ himself reminds us, “the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you” (Luke 6:38).

Temperance

There is an aesthetically pleasing, or beautiful, element to the parallel between the seven virtues and the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer. For example, the neat separation of the first three petitions from the last four (as seen in the grammatical shift) nicely reflects the difference between theological and cardinal virtue. Similarly, the petitions generally proceed in proper order. For instance, as noted in earlier chapters there is an order to faith, hope, and love, and it is fitting that they appear in the Lord’s Prayer in that order. An order is also present in standard treatments of the cardinal virtues. Prudence has a priority, and it is reflected in this interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer. Justice is always treated next in order of importance, again, reflected in the prayer. However, the next two virtues treated are generally fortitude and then temperance, since fortitude has historically been seen as closer to one’s rational capacities. This chapter’s interpretation deviates from that traditional order, and it must, since the last two petitions so obviously represent temperance first and then fortitude. The sixth petition, “lead us not into temptation,” is a prayer for temperance.

Temperance is the virtue by which our sensual desires are well-ordered. Temptation is obviously not simply a matter of sensual desires. Indeed, one can be tempted by money, status, or honor. Nonetheless, sensual desire is a particularly obvious and common arena in our lives where we face temptation. Note that in this petition we do not simply ask that there be no temptations in the world. We ask that we be not lead into temptation. One way to understand this is that we may never encounter anything pleasurable or desirable that may tempt us. But another, and I would say more fruitful, way to understand this is that we be not lead into temptation because our desires are moderated by temperance, such that even in the presence of potentially tempting things we see them for what they truly are. We appreciate their beauty and pleasure, but not in a manner that displaces more important goods of this life. A life with no potential temptation is a life without many beautiful delights: delicious food, delectable drink, and pleasurable sexual activity. Yet a temperate life is one where these are indeed partaken with moderation in accordance with one’s station in life, and thus truly enjoyed.

Fortitude

Much of what should be said about the seventh and final petition, “deliver is from evil,” replicates what was said previously about temperance. First, the traditional order of the cardinal virtues is changed, but the content of the petition so obviously refers to fortitude that this is necessary. Fortitude is the virtue that inclines us to face difficulties well in this life. Evil is certainly one way to describe such difficulties. In the face of sickness and death, social injustice and senseless crime—indeed any such suffering—the virtue of fortitude is required so we may overcome the difficulty at hand (attack), or at least not be overcome by it (endurance).

Furthermore, as was the case with temperance, this petition can be interpreted as asking for two different things concerning evil. We may have always assumed that it means, “let no evil befall us.” That is indeed an appropriate prayer. But the words say “deliver us from evil.” We can be delivered from evil either by not experiencing it, or by not being overcome by it. The first would be nice, but is not fully possible in this life. And so in this petition we pray for fortitude, which allows us to face difficulties well, to be delivered from them by overcoming them, or at least by not being overcome by them.

In closing, it may help to make a few more observations about how the seven petitions of the Our Father as a whole are both better understood in reference to, and in turn further illuminate, the seven virtues of the Christian life. First, the prayer for the most part reconfirms the order of the virtues reiterated consistently in the Christian tradition. The three theological virtues are primary; they are the font of the Christian life and so the prayer naturally begins with them. Within this set of three petitions we see the proper order of faith, hope, and love reflected, while the privileged status of love as central to the entire Christian life is also reaffirmed in the third petition, with the triumphant, “on earth as it is in heaven.”

Yet while accentuating the primacy of the theological virtues in the Christian life, the Our Father does not neglect the importance of innerworldly activities, and thus it also includes petitions that reflect the four cardinal virtues.Augustine makes this point in his Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love, cxv. Again, something about the proper order of the cardinal virtues is revealed in the prayer, as prudence is aligned with the fourth petition, followed by justice with the fifth. There is deviation from the traditional ordering of fortitude and then temperance, but since both of these virtues help us keep our own ships in order, to recall Lewis’s ships analogy, they are closely related to each other.

Furthermore, we should note that there is indeed some overlap among the petitions, which should be unsurprising given the doctrine of the unity of the virtues presented earlier in this book. It is seen most evidently in petitions four and five, each of which seems to suggest both prudence and justice. But it can also be said of other petitions. For instance, the sixth petition’s plea to not be led into temptation is granted not only by being given the virtue of temperance, but also by receiving the virtues of fortitude (to stand fast), justice (so our right relations prevent us from pursing certain temptations), and prudence (so we can see clearly what constitutes temptation). Indeed, receiving the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love also transforms the temperance we receive, since we are bolstered in our resistance to temptation by knowing who God is in faith, remaining fixed on God as the source of our complete happiness in hope, and being in true friendship with God and others in charity. This is not to say all the virtues are interchangeable, or that there is really only one virtue. It is rather to say that in the virtuous person, the living out of any one virtue always relies on the presence and support of the other virtues. Thus, it is unsurprising that each of the seven petitions does not echo only one of the seven virtues, even though it is the case that each petition does reflect one of the seven virtues most clearly.

This last point on the unity of the virtues also recalls the discussion in chapter 16 on the importance of the infused cardinal virtues, a category of virtue too often neglected in moral theology today. Nowhere could the reality and importance of this type of virtue be more clearly expressed than in the last four petitions of the Our Father. Recall that these virtues are cardinal in that they concern innerworldly activities in principle accessible to all persons, no matter what religious faith, or none at all. Yet they are obtained not by being acquired by repeated action, but rather by being infused through the grace of God. As such, they enable us not only to do innerworldly activities well, but also to do them with the help of God’s grace, and in reference to humanity’s supernatural destiny of union with God.

The last four petitions do indeed concern innerworldly activities that may be governed by acquired cardinal virtues. But we know these four are prayers for infused, rather than acquired, cardinal virtues for two reasons. First, we are praying for them! The very fact that we are asking God for the daily bread of prudence, the forgiveness that restores justice, the lack of temptation granted by temperance, and the deliverance from evil that is fortitude indicates that we believe God can indeed give us (or infuse in us) these virtues! That Christians for millennia have been praying in the Lord’s Prayer for what can be understood as the four cardinal virtues offers the clearest of evidence that the cardinal virtues can be and are infused in us by God.

Second, since the Lord’s Prayer is a unified whole, petitioning God for three theological as well as four cardinal virtues, it makes sense that all these virtues sought concern our supernatural destiny of union with God, whether they directly concern either God or innerworldly activities. One of the defining features of infused virtue is not only that it is obtained by God’s grace, but also that it concerns our supernatural destiny of union with God, a destiny that cannot be acquired on our own. As should be clear by the opening “Our Father,” and the very fact that we are beseeching God for each of the petitions, all the things sought in the prayer are sought in the context of our relationship with God. Therefore the cardinal virtues that are sought are infused, rather than acquired, virtues.

One final observation is offered here on how the Our Father reflects and further illuminates the seven virtues of the Christian life. It is a challenging point, and so a bit odd to raise at the very end of a chapter, let alone a book. But it brings us back full circle to the opening chapter’s discussion of virtue in the context of a morality of happiness. What exactly is being asked for in these petitions? Is it that something change in the world around us, or that something change in us? In other words, is the restless human longing for happiness—of which this prayer is an expression—satisfied by some state of affairs in the world around us, or by we ourselves possessing certain qualities regardless of what the world is like around us?

These questions reflect an ancient debate over the role of what are called bodily and external goods in the life of happiness. Such goods include health, friends, good fortune, reputation, and the like. They are not fully under one’s control. External factors influence whether these goods are present or not. Some thinkers (most notably the Stoics) have thought that happiness, or the good life, can be achieved regardless of whether or not such goods are present. Virtue alone grants happiness, and since they say virtue is totally under one’s control, one can be fully happy even when these goods are lacking. Some have quipped that this must mean the Stoic wise person could be “happy on the rack,” that is, while being tortured, which seems ludicrous.

On the one hand, there is an allure to this position. We often counsel friends to do what’s right, no matter what becomes of them (loss of reputation, job, etc.), by this revealing that we do think being virtuous is far more important than losing such external goods. This is certainly true when a person is willing to bravely sacrifice her health, or even life, for a virtuous cause. But on the other hand, we also pray for the health and safety of others. We are thankful to God for external goods that come our way, such as a good job, friends, or some honor. It is for reasons such as these that Aristotle recognized that even the fully virtuous person is somewhat lacking in full happiness when external and bodily goods such as friendship and health are not present.See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon, (New York: Random House, 1941), i.8–11.

What does the Our Father have to do with any of this? Assuming this prayer is one expression of the human longing for happiness, and a divinely inspired manner of doing so, a look at what exactly we are asking for should illuminate this question of where full human happiness lies—and indeed it does. Nearly all the petitions seek some change in what happens outside of us, in the world around us, thus revealing that human happiness is not fully achieved simply by a change in our interior states.

The first way this is obviously true is that we pray our Father. This is a communal prayer. And complete human happiness in the Christian tradition is not an individual matter. It is the communion of saints in union with God. Therefore, there is an obvious way that events beyond our control are required for the longing expressed in the prayer to be answered.

Second, nearly all of the petitions ask God that something happen in the world around us. We do not just ask for hope in the kingdom, but that it actually come. We ask that God’s will indeed be done, that our daily bread be given, that sins be forgiven, temptations be avoided, and evil not overcome us. All of these things are not fully under our control. Nor is it fully under our control that God’s name is hallowed, since this is given by the infused theological virtue faith. But with this petition we are indeed primarily asking for a human (communal) response, since God’s name is holy, whether we hallow it or not! Thus, except for the first, each petition does indeed ask God that something be changed in the world around us.

However, every one of the petitions is also answered by the possession of a virtue, revealing the importance of internal qualities for living a happy life. In other words, happiness is not simply something that happens to us; it is something we must actively participate in. So we pray not that God’s name is holy (which is certainly is), but that we hallow it. We pray that God’s kingdom come, but also for the hope by which we remain fixed on that arrival as our proper destiny, and with which we begin to help represent that kingdom in this life. We pray for God’s will to be done, which is the reign of God’s love. But we are also praying that we participate in that love, which is the theological virtue of charity. We pray to receive our daily sustenance in the literal sense of bread, but also that we live not just by bread alone, but by the Word of God, which among other things means possessing the virtue of infused prudence. We seek right relations between God and us, and us and others, but clearly that requires we possess the virtue justice to participate in those relations. We seek the avoidance of temptations and evil, but this is achieved in this life as much by possessing temperance and fortitude as it is by not facing occasions of temptation and evil. Therefore, in praying the Our Father we are expressing our longing for happiness. We pray that God make changes in the world that are not dependent upon qualities in us. But we also pray, as rational creatures who can understand and participate freely in such a changed world, that we be given God’s help in obtaining the virtues needed to become God’s friends in inhabiting such a world, in this life or the next.

This last comment suggests an answer to the challenging question of the role of external and bodily goods in human happiness, an answer only available to those who grasp the Christian story of the way things are. For sure, we must actively participate in our complete happiness. Even when faith and hope are no longer needed—when we see face to face, and when the occasion for doing innerworldly activities well has passed—love remains. In the beatific (or happy) vision of heaven, when we partake in the divine nature and see the truth to the fullest extent to which we are capable, and in knowing the truth are fully free, we are accordingly filled with love and joy. But Christians trust that this is not simply a state of mind, an internal disposition, but a reality that the provident God of all ages has brought about. We can participate in supernatural happiness in this life, though it will never be complete given the ongoing presence of sin, suffering, ignorance, and death that remains present in our world. But the future holds a promise not only that we will be made perfect, but also that the completion for which all creation groans in this life will come to pass, and at that point happiness—externally as well as internally—will be complete, and God will be all in all.

1. What evidence is offered for the importance of the Our Father in the Christian tradition? Why has it been consistently afforded that importance?

2. How is the Lord’s Prayer divided into seven distinct petitions? How are these seven further divided into a group of three and a group of four?

3. Which virtue is each of the seven petitions aligned with in the chapter? Be able to state one reason why each petition is aligned with its corresponding virtues

4. Explain how each of the following important topics for this book are addressed in some way by the Our Father: the proper order of certain virtues; the unity of the virtues; the reality of infused cardinal virtues; the role of external goods in complete happiness. Explain the basis for this division into two groups.

petition, external and bodily goods

Look at another common Christian prayer (Hail Mary, Prayer of St. Francis, etc.) with the material of this book in mind. What connections can you find between that material and the prayer?

Since this chapter is largely a summary of the book’s material with reference to the Our Father, there is little to suggest by way of further reading. For those interested in reading other more extensive commentaries on the Our Father, the works cited in the notes below by Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Fr. Servais Pinckaers, OP, are all recommended, along with the Catechism of the Catholic Church.