A prayer for others and ourselves

So you see the Our Father is a family prayer which we share with all other members of God’s Christian Family.  For this reason we can use it as a prayer, not only for ourselves, but also for other people.  This means that if we want to pray for someone else in trouble and don’t quite know what to say, we cannot do better than say the Our Father for them, knowing that they are included in the words ‘us’ and ‘we’ and ‘ours’: “Give us this day our daily bread; forgive us our trespasses; lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil”.  This is called saying the Our Father with a special intention; and of we can use the Hail Mary in the same way: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death”.

SUMMARY

1. God is our good Father from whom all good things come, and whom we can trust completely.

2. Our Father means that he is the Father of others as well as of ourselves, including people we don’t like.  As all others are his children, we should treat them as our brothers and sisters by being friendly towards them.

3. People from other countries are worth as much to God as we are.  The colour of their skin makes no more difference to their value than does the colour of their eyes.