The Fathers of the Church and the greatest authors of mystical prayer have taken great pleasure in commenting on the Our Father. We should now better understand why.

There is a Carmelite monastery built near the top of the Mount of Olives. The walls of its cloisters are covered with marble plaques on which the words of the Pater Noster are engraved in each of the world’s principal languages. Now that we have contemplated God’s love, does not such a display seem normal and reasonable?

And so it is that the very peak of our souls, in the very center of all that we think and do, the Lord’s Prayer ought to be inscribed in living letters:

Our Father
Who art in heaven,
Hallowed by 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;
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.

If this retreat has helped us simply to recite the Our Father with more faith in our understanding and more love in our heart, its purpose has been achieved. We are more the “sons of God”.