The prayer they all prayed
The Lord's Prayer across two thousand years
Jesus taught it to twelve fishermen and tax collectors on a hillside in Galilee. By the time the earliest church document outside the New Testament — the Didache, written around 100 AD — was compiled, it was already being prayed three times daily.
Polycarp prayed it in a stadium surrounded by a mob. Anthony prayed it in a cave in the Egyptian desert. Monica prayed it on a dock in Carthage. Augustine prayed it in a garden in Milan. Chrysostom prayed it in an Armenian exile. Patrick prayed it on a cold hillside in Connacht.
The Didache says to pray it with fasting. Tertullian wrote a commentary on it. Origen wrote a commentary on it. Augustine wrote a commentary on it. Every major theologian of the first five centuries felt compelled to explain what the prayer they already knew by heart actually meant.
And still it resisted full explanation. Still it contained more than could be said about it.
Our Father. Not my Father — our Father. The first word is singular. The second is plural. Before you have asked for anything, before you have named a need or a sin or a kingdom, you have already located yourself in a community. You are praying with everyone who has ever said these words.
Which is everyone. In every century. In every language. In every circumstance from prison to palace to cold hillside to deathbed.
Hallowed be your name. Thy kingdom come. Give us this day. Forgive us. Lead us not. Deliver us.
The same words. The same voice. The same Father. Across twenty centuries, the prayer holds.
“You shall not pray as the hypocrites do, but as the Lord commanded in his Gospel, pray thus: Our Father, who art in heaven...”
— The Didache, c. 100 AD
“Pray like this. 'Our Father, who is in heaven, may your name be kept holy.”
When you pray the Lord's Prayer, you are praying in the company of every Christian who has ever lived. Every language, every century, every circumstance.
You are praying with Perpetua in her prison cell. With Polycarp before the fire. With Augustine in his garden. With Patrick on his hillside. With Chrysostom on his cold road. With Monica on her dock.
The prayer is a portal. Every time you say our, you are declaring your citizenship in a community that spans two thousand years and every nation on earth.
Pray it today as if you mean that. Because you do.