---
title: "What is the Our Father?"
url: "https://seekabove.com/answers/what-is-the-our-father"
description: "The Our Father, also called the Lord’s Prayer, is the prayer Jesus taught his disciples when they asked him how to pray. In a handful of lines it gives us the whole shape of Christian prayer — first…"
published: "2026-06-05"
updated: "2026-06-05"
category: "Prayer"
scripture: ["Matthew 6:9-13", "Luke 11:1-4", "Romans 8:15", "Matthew 6:14-15", "John 17:1-26"]
catechism: "CCC 2759, 2761, 2765–2766, 2768, 2772"
---

# What is the Our Father?

## Short answer

The Our Father, also called the Lord's Prayer, is the prayer Jesus taught his
disciples when they asked him how to pray. In a handful of lines it gives us the
whole shape of Christian prayer — first turning toward God, then bringing him our
needs. Because Jesus gave it to us himself, the Church treasures it as the model
for every other prayer.

## Full explanation

When the disciples watched Jesus pray and asked him to teach them, he didn't hand
them a long technique. He gave them a short, dense prayer that has been on
Christian lips ever since: "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; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." Every
word repays slow attention.

Notice it begins with **"Our Father."** That's already a startling claim. Jesus
invites us to address the maker of the universe with the intimacy a child uses
with a loving dad — and to say "our," not "my," so that we never pray as
isolated individuals but as part of one family. We pray as brothers and sisters,
which means even alone in your room you are praying alongside everyone else who
calls God Father.

The prayer then unfolds in two movements, like leaning toward God before turning
to ourselves. The **first three petitions** are about him: that his name be held
holy, that his kingdom come, that his will be done. We start by wanting what he
wants, which quietly reorders our hearts before we ask for anything. The **last
four petitions** are about us: daily bread for our real bodily and spiritual
needs; forgiveness, tied tightly to our forgiving others; protection from the
trials that would pull us under; and rescue from evil. Together they cover the
whole of human need — to be fed, forgiven, guarded, and freed.

What makes this prayer endlessly deep is that it never wears out. A child can mean
every word of it, and a saint of eighty years can still discover new depths in the
same lines. The early Church called it a summary of the entire Gospel, because if
you understood and lived every petition you would have understood the Christian
life. That is why it sits at the heart of the Mass and of daily prayer: it is the
prayer of Jesus, prayed in his words, drawing us into his own relationship with
the Father.

## Why this matters

The Our Father is a gift that solves the beginner's biggest problem — not knowing
what to say. You are never without words, because the perfect words were given to
you. But it's more than a script: it's a teacher. Praying it slowly trains you to
want God's will before your own, to depend on him for daily needs, and to forgive,
which is why Jesus circled back to that one petition and warned that our own
forgiveness is bound up with how we forgive others. Pray it attentively over years
and it forms the kind of person you become.

## Common misunderstanding

Some treat the Our Father as a quick prayer to rush through, words to recite on
autopilot before moving on. But Jesus explicitly warned against heaping up empty
phrases, and the Our Father is the opposite of that — each petition is meant to be
prayed, not merely said. Slowing down on a single line ("thy will be done," or
"forgive us as we forgive") often turns a routine recitation into real prayer.

## Scripture connections

- **Matthew 6:9-13** — Jesus gives the Our Father within the Sermon on the Mount,
  the fuller form the Church prays.
- **Luke 11:1-4** — a shorter version, given in answer to "Lord, teach us to
  pray."
- **Romans 8:15** — through the Spirit we cry "Abba, Father," the intimacy behind
  the prayer's opening word.
- **Matthew 6:14-15** — immediately after the prayer, Jesus underlines the link
  between our forgiving others and being forgiven.
- **John 17:1-26** — Jesus' own prayer to the Father, showing the relationship the
  Our Father draws us into.

## Church teaching references

- CCC 2759, 2761, 2765, 2766, 2768, 2772
- The early Christian writer Tertullian called the Lord's Prayer a summary of the
  whole Gospel — an ancient witness to how the Church has always treasured it.

## Reflection question

Which single petition of the Our Father do you find hardest to mean — "thy will be
done," or "forgive us as we forgive" — and what might it look like to pray that one
line honestly this week?