Aquinas on the Lord’s Prayer
Excerpt
The Lord’s Prayer is most perfect, because, as Augustine says to Proba (Ep. cxxx.), if we pray rightly and fittingly, we can say nothing else but what is contained in this prayer of Our Lord. For since prayer interprets our desires, as it were, before God, then alone is it right to ask for something in our prayers when it is right that we should desire it. Now in the Lord’s Prayer not only do we ask for all that we may rightly desire but also in the order wherein we ought to desire them so that this prayer not only teaches us to ask but also directs all our affections. More
Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologica. Trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. London: Burns Oates & Washbourne. Print.
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