Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.” So He said to them, “When you pray, say: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” (Luke 11:1–4)

The Spirit of God, and the Word of God, and the Reason of God—Word of Reason, and Reason of Word, and Spirit of both—Jesus Christ our Lord has ordained for us, the disciples of the New Testament, a new form of Prayer. For it was meet that, in this kind also, new wine should be laid up in new bottles, and a new piece sewn to a new garment. But whatever had been in time past, has been either changed, as circumcision; or fulfilled, as the rest of the law; or accomplished, as prophecy; or perfected, as Faith itself. The new grace of God has fashioned anew all things from carnal to spiritual, in bringing in, over all, the Gospel, the abolisher of all the ancient bygone things. In which our Lord Jesus Christ has been approved as the Spirit of God, and the Word of God, and the Reason of God: the Spirit, by which He prevailed; the Word, by which He taught; the Reason, by which He came. Thus, therefore, the Prayer framed by Christ has been framed out of three things—the Word, by which it is expressed; the Spirit, by which alone it has power; the Reason, by which it is conceived.… For it has embraced not only the proper offices of Prayer, or reverence of God, or the petition of man, but almost every discourse of the Lord, every record of His rule of life, so that, in truth, there is comprehended in the Prayer a summary of the whole Gospel.

In the brief summary of a few words, how many sayings of the Prophets, Gospels, Apostles, discourses of the Lord, parables, examples, precepts, are touched upon! How many duties are at once discharged! The honoring of God in the Father, the testimony of Faith in the Name, the offering of obedience in the Will, the remembrance of hope in the Kingdom, the petition for life in the Bread, the confession of debts in the prayer to forgive, the anxious care about temptations in the call for defense. What wonder? God alone could teach how He would have Himself prayed to. The sacred duty therefore of Prayer, ordained by Himself, and animated by His own Spirit, even at the time when it proceeded from the Divine mouth, ascends, of its own right, unto Heaven, commending to the Father what the Son has taught.

Tertullian, On Prayer 1, 9