Father Help Us, Send Some Guidance from Above - Part III

Let’s just get right into it (if you’re lost, go back a few posts and get caught up).

Hallowed be thy name…

First of all, let’s clear this up:  we’re not saying “hollowed”—we’re saying “hallowed.”  That second letter’s an “a”…not an “o.”  “Hollowed” (with the “o”) means that something is made empty, which is the exact opposite of the infinite nature of God.  “Hallowed” (with the “a”) means that something is made holy.  “Hallowed be thy name” is pretty self-explanatory once you clear up that confusion.  The other confusion is that crazy word “thy.”  We see words like this a good bit in our traditional Catholic prayers.  Basically, these words translate like this:

Thy/Thine: your

Thee/Thou: you

Some people like to translate these to the more common English words of “you” and “your”…nothing wrong with that.  The only “problem” comes in when one person is saying “you” and “your” while praying with a group where everyone else is saying “thy” or “thee.”  Remember, if you have a strong conviction about some aspect of prayer, be sure that your strong conviction doesn’t distract others from the focus of their prayers.

Now we’re looking at this phrase meaning “May your name be made Holy.”  Great…now we have to clear up another issue:  Isn’t God the only one who can make things holy?  In short, yes.  This isn’t really meant in the “causative” sense, as if we are praying these words in hopes that God’s name will be holy—I mean, come on…seriously?  How are WE going to make God holy?  Not really possible since he’s already the perfection of holiness by his very nature.  This is meant as more of a recognition of the holiness of God’s name, although, it is also a petition (i.e. a prayer asking for something in particular) of sorts that draws us into the greater plan of God by asking—albeit (that’s a weird word) a circular request—that his name be perpetually holy.  By the way (*Tangent Alert*) that little “i.e.” thing you sometimes see in writing just before something that was just said is better explained…yeah, that’s Latin, too.  Go figure, huh?  It stands for id est, i.e. “that is.”  (See what I did there, using “i.e.” to further explain “i.e.”?  Don’t think about that too long…you might hurt yourself.)  Now back to the show…As the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it, this petition “draws us into his plan of loving kindness for the fullness of time, ‘according to his purpose that he set forth in Christ,’ that we might ‘be holy and blameless before him in love.’” (CCC 2807)  There are seven petitions in all wrapped up into the Lord’s Prayer, and this “Hallowed be thy name” line is the first one.

Now I’m SURE after reading that last sentence you’re asking yourself, “Why SEVEN peititions?”  If you weren’t, you probably are now.  If you’re STILL not, get up, go get a cup of coffee or some nice, hot herbal tea, come sit back down, and once you re-read that sentence and have your “A-ha!” moment, you can continue reading…

Seven is used throughout the Bible to signify “Spiritual Perfection.”  Think about it: seven days to create the world, seven days between loading Noah’s ark to the flood, seven parables of Matthew’s Gospel, seven miracles in John’s Gospel, seven years in Tibet…wait, nevermind—that was a Brad Pitt movie.  It seems fitting that if Jesus is teaching us how to pray, he would teach us the “perfect” prayer, and so would have a spiritually perfect number of things to ask for in that prayer, right?  I thought so, too.  Next time we’ll continue unraveling this perfect prayer.