The greatest Christian prayer, the “Our Father”, the one that Jesus taught us, can serve as a support for our supplication for peace in the world.
Our father.
God, Father of all men, send your Spirit so that it strengthens in them the feeling of their brotherhood inscribed in their beings and convinces them that it is unnatural for brothers to wage war among themselves.
Who are in heaven.
May your Spirit reveal to us that our brotherhood is founded on and in You, You who are God and Father of heaven, and that as such this brotherhood transcends all earthly (real) differences between us. The unity of the human race is indeed anchored in your supereminent fatherhood, celestial because divine.
Hallowed be thy name.
May your Name, Father, never be used to endorse a warlike enterprise. Your holiness is profaned each time men take advantage of You to carry out their evil deeds.
Let your kingdom come.
Father, You can only reign over hearts at peace with themselves, others and You. Therefore, every heart that belongs to you must relentlessly seek peace.ADVERTISING
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Earthly peaces are always precarious, unstable, burdened with injustice and therefore shaky. Father, the will for peace that your Spirit inspires in us must always lean on yours to persevere, that is to say on the source of divine life which is found “in heaven”, in You.
Give us today our daily bread.
No peace without justice. We also ask You for bread for us but also for others because elementary justice consists of ensuring subsistence and dignified living conditions for all men.
Forgive us our trespasses as we also forgive those who trespass against us.
All people have grievances against each other. Without mutual forgiveness, peace cannot be established between them. Peace requires clearing memories of feelings of resentment and resentment accumulated over centuries. In this regard, Franco-German reconciliation is an exemplary model.
Do not let us enter into temptation.
Father, may your Spirit keep us from responding to provocations and make us masters of ourselves in order to silence our susceptibilities. May Your wisdom make us consider peace as a good immeasurably superior to the satisfaction of avenging our self-esteem.
But deliver us from evil.
Evil, or the demon, is the divider who fuels hatred. Father, deliver us from him. May your Spirit give us the wisdom and strength to listen only to You, as Jesus did in the desert when he was tempted by the devil, and not to his suggestions which blow on the embers of our resentments and our jealousies.
A word about the author
To conclude, a word about the author of this prayer: Jesus. The first word he had for his apostles after his resurrection, on Easter Sunday in the upper room, was not a word of reproach for having let him down three days earlier, on Good Friday, but a completely divine word: “ Peace on you ! » ( Jn 20:19 ). Not a polite formula but a performative word which achieves what it means: messianic and divine peace between men. It is Shalom who will preside over the eschatological banquet in the heavenly Jerusalem: “The Lord will make death disappear forever and wipe away tears from all faces” ( Is 25:8 ).
