The Interior Liturgy of the Our Father

The Interior Liturgy of the Our Father

The prayer given us by Jesus - the Our Father - is the perfect and complete prayer, and more. It is the standard; it is the norm for all our prayers and our life of prayer. And still more. The prayer, the Our Father, prayed and lived in the Holy Spirit, guides us step by step in the spiritual, interior journey to Eternal Life. The Our Father leads us from our very beginning, first awakened as Christians, to the summit of the maturity of Christian discipleship - to blessed communion in God the Holy Trinity. We need such a prayer, because we need to truly encounter, and meet, with God. This prayer is simple enough for a child and yet deep, intense and profound enough for a saint. It is easily kept in memory! Yet it cannot be exhausted of its meaning and significance to us in a million lifetimes. The Our Father deserves a lifetime of meditation and it bears fruit for those willing to be open to its wisdom. The Our Father reveals, in its brief form, correspondence with the holy wisdom of traditional Catholic spirituality. This traditional spirituality has been followed for centuries in the Church by her saints, and is known as the "Three Ways" - the Purgative, the Illuminative and the Unitive stages of the interior life. The spiritual insights of Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Bernard of Clairvaux, and many other saints are found enclosed in this simple prayer. The structure of the Our Father, further, is seen to correspond with the structure of our Holy Mass - the very "source and summit of the Christian life." Thus the Our Father is a guide into perfect worship of the Holy Trinity. The Our Father reveals the will and the work of God in us - and as His divine work, inviting us to a saving participation and cooperation with Him, it is rightly called "a liturgy" - an Interior Liturgy at work in the praying human soul. REVIEW: Thomas,I can now finally tell you my opinions ... about your beautiful book. My reading confirmed my first feeling, that you manage to give a full picture of Christian life, with a very useful concern for the daily life of common Christians - this shared preoccupation was in fact the reason of our first contact. I actually think you propose a complete spiritual voyage, taking into account the main moments of every personal configuration to Christ. I'm really glad to know that your apostolic activity may diffuse those ideals, at the same time wide and practical. I'm discovering the strength and vitality of Catholicism in America, so many personal and collective activities, faithful to God and His Church, and I'm thankful to have been able to know your apostolate and your book. Many praises, you will say, but it is how I feel. .... Your parallelism between Saint Theresa of Avila and the petitions of the Our Father is illuminating - we have already spoken on this .... Fr. Laurent Touze Theologian, Lecturer in Spiritual Theology Pontifical University of the Holy CrossRome REVIEW: Drawing from St. Thomas Aquinas, St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila, Dr. R. Thomas Richard provides a banquet of doctrinal insights for the spiritual life in The Interior Liturgy of the Our Father. He presents a glimpse of what God is about in the depths of the soul, what he calls the interior liturgy, through synthesizing the petitions of the Lord's Prayer, the structure of the Mass, and the traditional stages of spiritual growth. In addition to this, he sprinkles his work with practical spiritual exercises so that readers have an opportunity to internalize the truths he elucidates. Dr. Richard's explanation of our spiritual journey in the Trinity would benefit especially those well catechized Catholics seeking a more extensive integration of the Our Father into their prayer life. Anthony Lilles, S.T.D. Theology Professor and Academic Dean, St. John Vianney Theological Seminary Archdiocese of Denver You will never pray the Our Father again in the same way - not after reading this book!  If someone offered you a map, showing the safest, most direct route to the very place you most needed to go - would you be interested? The simple and very familiar prayer, the Our Father, shows us that route. The Our Father is the very pathway in prayer to holiness, a guide to the Presence of the eternal and loving God, to the One who is Truth.  The Our Father is probably the most poorly prayed of prayers, while in truth it is the most profound and beautiful of prayers. The Our Father is complete; it is the perfect prayer. It is from God, who would gather and guide us into loving prayer-communion with Himself.  We are too familiar with this prayer! We have prayed it too often, for too many years, with far too little attention or real personal investment. But the Our Father quietly invites us into a full, deep and most intimate encounter with God the Holy Trinity. The Our Father glows; it is luminous with the humble unction of Christ Himself. He gave us this treasure! When teaching His Church to pray, He sai