On the Lord's Prayer 9

And what are the sacraments of the Lord's Prayer, dearest brothers, how many, how great, briefly gathered in words but spiritually rich in power, so that nothing at all is left out that is not included in our petitions and prayers in this summary of heavenly teaching! "Thus," he says, "pray: Our Father, who are in heaven." The new man, reborn and restored to his God by his grace, says "Father" in the first place, because he has now begun to be a son. "He came," it says, "to his own, and his own did not receive him. As many as received him, he gave them power to become sons of God, who believe in his name." He, then, who has believed in his name and become a son of God ought to begin here, both to give thanks and to profess himself a son of God, since he names God his Father in heaven; and also to bear witness, among the very first words of his new birth, that he has renounced his earthly and fleshly father and has begun to know and have as father only him who is in heaven, as it is written: "Those who say to their father and mother, 'I do not know you,' and have not acknowledged their own children, these have kept your precepts and observed your covenant." Likewise the Lord in his gospel commanded that we call no one on earth our father, because, of course, we have one Father, who is in heaven. And to the disciple who had mentioned his dead father he answered: "Let the dead bury their dead." For he had said that his father was dead, whereas the Father of believers is living.