“Lead us not into temptation”: Digging deeper into the Our Father (Lord's Prayer)

On a morning walk, my husband said that Pope Francis had mentioned maybe a retranslation of the Our Father was needed because the phrase "lead us not into temptation" sounded as if God would actively tempt us.

Anyone who's pondered the Our Father is familiar with this little puzzle.

My first reaction was "no way, Jose!" Then I recalled that coincidentally (or perhaps providentially!) I'd just that very morning read about that specific line in Seeking Jesus in Everyday Life. (Yes, I read my own devotional. It was, after all, compiled for me first!)

I realized that if I needed three quotes to show the complexity of the Greek verb in the original, then perhaps a retranslation might not be a bad thing.

See what you think.

Lead Us Not Into Temptation ...

It is difficult to translate the Greek verb used by a single English word: the Greek means both “do not allow us to enter into temptation” and “do not let us yield to temptation.”*

Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2846

We are helped a further step along when we recall the words of the Gospel: “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (Matthew 4:1). Temptation comes from the devil, but part of Jesus’ messianic task is to withstand the great temptations that have led man away from God and continue to do so.

Joseph Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth:

From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration

“Lead us not into temptation” often means among other things, “Deny me those gratifying invitations, those highly interesting contacts, that participation in the brilliant movements of our age, which I so often, at such risk, desire.”

C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

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I never could understand this. I couldn’t reconcile God as “all good” with someone who would “lead me into temptation.”

Pope Benedict XVI (Ratzinger) led me to read the Book of Job where temptation is allowed on a massive scale. Those examples have helped mightily with my own trust in God when temptations arise, especially the temptations that I am not equipped to handle.

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Prayer: My hope is in you, dear Father.

* Cf. Mt 26:41.

There's more where that came from. Seeking Jesus in Everyday Life is about growing closer to Jesus and sometimes (as it turns out) helping figure out how I feel about the latest news from the Vatican! It makes a great Christmas gift!

The Lord's Prayer: "Hallowed Be Thy Name" (part 2)

Continuing the contemplation from Monday of God's name.

It remains true, of course, that God did not simply refuse Moses' request. If we want to understand this curious interplay between name and non-name, we have to be clear about what a name actually is. We could put it very simply by saying that the name creates the possibility of address or invocation. It establishes relationship. When Adam names the animals, what this means is not that he indicates their essential natures, but that he fits them into his human world, put them within reach of his call. Having said this, we are now in a position to understand the positive meaning of the divine name: God establishes a relationship between himself and us. He puts himself within reach of our invocation. He enters into relationship with us and enables us to be in relationship with him. Yet this means that in some sense he hands himself over to our human world. He has made himself accessible and, therefore, vulnerable as well. He assumes the risk of relationship, of communion, with us.

Jesus of Nazareth by Joseph Ratzinger (a.k.a. Pope Benedict XVI)

The Lord's Prayer: "Hallowed Be Thy Name" (part 1)

Had someone told me this before? I don't think so and yet, again, this seems one of those very obvious, logical pieces of information that I should know somehow. Thank heavens that Joseph Ratzinger presents these ideas so logically and simply that I can remember and absorb.

But in the world of Moses' time there were many gods. Moses therefore asks the name of this God that will prove his special authority vis-a-vis the gods. In this respect, the idea of the divine name belongs first of all to the polytheistic world, in which this God, too, has to give himself a name. But the God who calls Moses is truly God. and God in the strict and true sense is not plural. God is by essence one. For this reason he cannot enter into the world of the gods as one among many; he cannot have one name among others.

God's answer to Moses is thus at once a refusal and a pledge. He says of himself simply, "I am who I am" -- he is without any qualification. This pledge is a name and a non-name at one and the same time. The Israelites were therefore perfectly right in refusing to utter this self-designation of God, expressed in the word YHWH, so as to avoid degrading it to the level of names of pagan deities. By the same token, recent bible translations were wrong to write out this name -- which Israel always regarded as mysterious and unutterable -- as if it were just any old name. By doing so, they have dragged the mystery of God, which cannot be captured in images or in names lips can utter, down to the level of some familiar item within a common history of religions.

Jesus of Nazareth by Joseph Ratzinger (a.k.a. Pope Benedict XVI)

More of this will follow tomorrow.