Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name;
Thy kingdom come;
Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those
who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.
Pater noster, qui es in caelis,
sanctificetur nomen tuum.
Adveniat regnum tuum.
Fiat voluntas tua,
sicut in caelo et in terra.
Panem nostrum quotidianum
da nobis hodie,
et dimitte nobis debita nostra
sicut et nos dimittimus
debitoribus nostris.
Et ne nos inducas in tentationem,
sed libera nos a malo.
Amen.
Pater noster, qui es in caelis,
sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo. Amen.
PAH-tehr NOS-tehr, kwee es in CHEH-lees,
sahn-tee-fee-CHEH-toor NOH-men TOO-oom.
Ahd-VEH-nee-aht REG-noom TOO-oom.
Fee-AHT voh-LOON-tahs TOO-ah,
SEE-koot in CHEH-loh et in TEH-rah.
PAH-nem NOS-troom kwoh-tee-dee-AH-noom
dah NOH-bees HOH-dee-eh,
et dee-MIT-teh NOH-bees DEH-bee-tah NOS-trah
SEE-koot et nos dee-MIT-tee-moos
deh-bee-TOH-ree-boos NOS-trees.
Et neh nos in-DOO-kahs in ten-tah-tsee-OH-nem,
sed LEE-beh-rah nos ah MAH-loh.
Ah-MEN.
The Scriptural Source
The Our Father was given to us by Jesus Christ Himself. It appears twice in the Gospels. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches it as part of His instruction on prayer: "This is how you are to pray: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name..." (Matthew 6:9-13). In Luke's Gospel, a disciple asks Jesus to teach them to pray as John taught his disciples, and Jesus responds with a slightly shorter form (Luke 11:2-4). The Matthean form — longer and beginning with "Our Father" — is the version used in Christian tradition and in the Rosary.
The prayer is the perfect prayer because it was composed by God Himself in human language, spoken out of the depths of the eternal relationship between Father and Son. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that it contains all that we can rightly desire: the glory of God ("hallowed be Thy name"), the coming of His Kingdom, the fulfilment of His will, and every human need — for bread, for forgiveness, for protection against evil.
Phrase by Phrase
"Our Father, who art in heaven"
The opening word "Our" — not "my" — places the prayer immediately in a communal context. Even when prayed alone, the Our Father is a prayer of the whole Church. "Father" names God as Father — a relationship, not merely a title. Jesus taught us to pray to God as Father because He has made us children of God in Baptism. "Who art in heaven" distinguishes God from earthly fathers — He is not a creature but the source of all things. The Latin Pater noster, qui es in caelis.
"Hallowed be Thy name"
The first petition of the prayer is not a request for ourselves but an act of worship — that God's name be holy, treated as holy, recognised as holy, by the world. The word "hallowed" (sanctificetur) means "made holy" or "reverenced as holy." The Catechism (CCC 2807-2812) says this petition asks both that we recognise God's holiness and that we live in a way worthy of it.
"Thy kingdom come"
Adveniat regnum tuum. The Kingdom of God is the central theme of Jesus's preaching. This petition asks for its full coming — in our hearts, in the Church, and in the world at the end of time. The Catechism (CCC 2816) notes that this petition is bound up with the Our Father's third petition and the prayer that God's will be done.
"Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven"
Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra. "Fiat" — let it be done — is the same word Mary used at the Annunciation: "Let it be done to me according to your word" (Luke 1:38). This petition asks that our wills be conformed to God's will with the same completeness with which the angels and saints do His will in heaven. Jesus prayed these same words in the Garden of Gethsemane: "Not my will, but thine be done" (Luke 22:42).
"Give us this day our daily bread"
Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie. The petition for "daily bread" (panem quotidianum) is a petition for all that sustains bodily life — but the Church Fathers also saw in it a petition for the Eucharist, the Bread of Life. "Give us this day" (da nobis hodie) expresses our dependence on God moment by moment — we do not pray for bread for the year, but for today, acknowledging that all we have comes from God's hand.
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us"
Dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. This is the only petition with a condition attached: we ask God to forgive us as we forgive others. The Greek of Matthew uses opheilema (debt) and the Latin Vulgate says debita (debts). Traditional English has used "trespasses" — drawn from the verb paraptoma that appears in Matthew 6:14-15 immediately after the prayer. Both words convey the same truth: our moral failures create a debt or offence that we cannot settle ourselves, and we need God's forgiveness. The condition is sobering: the standard of forgiveness we extend to others is the standard by which we ask to be forgiven.
"Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil"
Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo. The final double petition asks for God's protection — first from temptation (the trials that might lead us away from Him), then from evil itself. "Deliver us from evil" (libera nos a malo) can be read as "deliver us from the Evil One" — from Satan himself. The Catechism (CCC 2850-2854) explains that this final petition encompasses our whole spiritual struggle and asks God to bring us safely to the end.
The Our Father in the Rosary
The Our Father is prayed at the beginning of the Rosary, on the first large bead after the Apostles' Creed, and then before each of the five decades. In a five-decade Rosary it is prayed six times — more than any prayer except the Hail Mary. Each Our Father opens a new decade and turns the heart toward the Mystery to be meditated. The USCCB's guide notes that "the Our Father, which introduces each Mystery, is from the Gospels." Orabimus provides audio narration of the Our Father in both English and Latin with each decade.
Related prayers: Hail Mary Prayer — the heart of each decade; Glory Be Prayer — closes each decade; Apostles' Creed — prayed at the opening of the Rosary.
The Pater Noster — Phrase by Phrase
The Catechism of the Catholic Church devotes its longest single treatment of any prayer to the Our Father — eighty-eight numbered paragraphs (CCC 2759–2865), comprising the whole of Part Four's final article. What follows draws directly from that official commentary.
CCC 2777: "We cannot invoke the Father 'our Father' unless we really mean it — and this requires the grace of adoption." Behind the Latin Pater is the Aramaic Abba — the intimate address Jesus used in Gethsemane (Mark 14:36) and which the Holy Spirit enables believers to cry within their hearts (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6). CCC 2786: "The Lord's Prayer is truly the summary of the whole gospel." Noster (our, not my) places the prayer immediately in an ecclesial context: even in private recitation, the Christian prays with and for the whole Church. CCC 2792: "We can adore the Father because he has caused us to be reborn to his life by adopting us as his children in his only Son."
CCC 2794: "This biblical expression does not mean a place ('space') but a way of being; it does not mean that God is distant, but majestic." The phrase qualifies Pater not geographically but ontologically — distinguishing God from all earthly fathers while preserving the intimacy of Abba. CCC 2796: "When the Church prays 'our Father who art in heaven,' she is professing that we are the People of God, already seated 'with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.'" Heaven is not a location away from us but a mode of transcendent being toward which our adoption in Christ already orients us.
CCC 2807: "The word 'sanctified' here should be understood not primarily in its causative sense (to make holy) but above all in an evaluative sense: to recognize as holy, to treat as holy." The petition echoes Ezekiel 36:23 ("I will show the holiness of my great name") and asks both that we recognise God's holiness and that our lives make it visible to the world. CCC 2814: "The sanctification of his name among the nations depends inseparably on our life and our prayer. We ask God to hallow his name, which means, above all, that we ourselves be made holy." The first petition is therefore simultaneously an act of praise and a commitment of the person praying.
CCC 2816: "In the New Testament, the word basileia can be translated by 'kingship' (abstract noun), 'kingdom' (concrete noun) or 'reign' (action noun). The Kingdom of God lies ahead of us." The verb adveniat (present subjunctive of advenire) carries the urgency of eschatological longing — "let it come!" — with the same spirit as Maranatha, "Come, Lord Jesus" (1 Corinthians 16:22; Revelation 22:20). CCC 2818: "The Lord's Prayer is the prayer of the end-time. It is the prayer 'until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.'" The petition holds together what is already present (the Kingdom inaugurated by Christ) and what is yet to come (its eschatological fulfilment).
CCC 2825: "Jesus's filial acceptance of this petition is fulfilled in his agony in the garden, by his 'Fiat' to the Father's will." The Latin fiat — "let it be done" — is the same word as Mary's at the Annunciation (Luke 1:38) and Jesus's prayer in Gethsemane (Luke 22:42). CCC 2827: "We ask our Father to unite our will to his Son's, in order to fulfill his will, his plan of salvation for the life of the world." The petition asks for nothing less than the conforming of the human will to the divine will, not by coercion but by love — praying to want what God wants, as completely as the angels and saints in heaven want it.
CCC 2837: "The Greek word epiousios (translated quotidianum — daily) occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. As a temporal adjective, it would mean 'the bread of tomorrow,' but it could also mean 'supersubstantial.'" Two readings coexist within authoritative Catholic tradition: (1) material bread — every form of sustenance, acknowledging daily total dependence on God; (2) the Eucharistic Bread of Life — the supersubstantial bread that surpasses all other bread. The Catechism holds both: "The petition cannot be isolated from the parables of the Kingdom, the sign of the multiplication of the loaves... or the eucharistic presence of Christ" (CCC 2835). Hodie (today) is also an expression of trust — sufficient for today, without anxious accumulation.
CCC 2838: "This petition is astonishing. If it consisted only of the first part — 'And forgive us our trespasses' — it might have been included tacitly among the first three petitions of the Lord's Prayer, since Christ's sacrifice accomplishes 'redemption from transgressions.' But... the extension of our prayer cannot be separated from it: 'as we also have forgiven our debtors.'" The condition is radical: we ask God to forgive us by the same measure with which we forgive others — not as an earning but as the inner logic of mercy. CCC 2840: "This outpouring of mercy cannot penetrate our hearts as long as we have not forgiven those who have trespassed against us." Matthew 6:14–15 makes the condition explicit immediately after the prayer.
CCC 2846: "This petition goes to the root of the preceding one, for our sins result from our consenting to temptation." The Greek peirasmos means both "temptation" (an inducement to sin) and "trial/test" (a difficult experience through which faith is purified). CCC 2848: "The Holy Spirit makes us discern between trials, which are necessary for the growth of the inner man, and temptation, which leads to sin and death. We do not ask to be spared from all trials, but to be preserved from the decisive final crisis." Libera nos a malo (deliver us from evil): CCC 2854 notes the Greek poneros can mean both "evil" in general and "the Evil One" — Satan specifically. The Catechism reads both as intended: the petition is simultaneously personal, ecclesial, and cosmic.
A Note on the Doxology
Many Protestant traditions conclude the Our Father with a doxology: "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen." This doxology does not appear in the oldest Greek manuscripts of Matthew's Gospel and is absent from the Vulgate Latin and Catholic liturgical tradition. It first appears in the Didache (a 1st–2nd century Christian text) and entered Protestant use through Reformation translations. The Catholic Mass and Rosary do not include this doxology as part of the prayer itself, though the Mass does contain a similar doxology (Quia tuum est regnum...) as a separate embolism said by the priest.
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"Lead Us Not into Temptation" — The 2017 Controversy
In a December 2017 television interview, Pope Francis stated that the Italian phrase "non ci indurre in tentazione" (lead us not into temptation) is "not a good translation" because it implies that God might lead people into temptation — which contradicts James 1:13: "God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself does not tempt anyone." He suggested a better rendering would be "do not abandon us to temptation" or "do not let us fall into temptation."
In response, the French Catholic Church changed their Lord's Prayer in 2017 from "ne nous soumets pas à la tentation" to "ne nous laisse pas entrer en tentation" (do not let us enter into temptation). The Italian bishops followed in 2020, revising their text to "non abbandonarci alla tentazione" (do not abandon us to temptation).
The Catechism (CCC 2846) addresses the theological question: the Greek word peirasmos translated "temptation" in this petition refers specifically to the decisive final eschatological trial — the great test that precedes the last things — not ordinary daily temptation. So "lead us not into temptation" is more accurately an appeal not to be abandoned to that final overwhelming trial. In the Rosary, the English Catholic text remains "lead us not into temptation" and has not been revised. The underlying theology — asking God to sustain us against the ultimate test — is unchanged across all translations.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do Catholics say "trespasses" but Protestants say "debts"?
The Greek of Matthew 6:12 uses opheilema (debt), which the Latin Vulgate translates as debita (debts). Catholic devotional tradition adopted "trespasses" — drawing from the verb paraptoma (to fall/transgress) used in Matthew 6:14-15, right after the prayer. Both words express the same theological reality: our moral failures before God. The USCCB's official English text for the Rosary uses "trespasses," which is the Catholic devotional standard in the English-speaking world.
How many times is the Our Father prayed in a Rosary?
Six times in a five-decade Rosary: once at the opening (after the Apostles' Creed) and once before each of the five decades. If you pray all four sets of Mysteries — all twenty decades — the Our Father is prayed 21 times.
What does "hallowed be Thy name" mean?
"Hallowed" means "made holy" or "treated as holy." The petition asks that God's name — which expresses His very nature — be recognised and reverenced as holy by all people. It is simultaneously a prayer for the world and a commitment by the one praying to live in a way that honours God's holiness.
Is the Pater Noster the same as the Our Father?
Yes. Pater Noster is simply Latin for "Our Father." The prayer has been prayed in Latin since the earliest centuries of the Church. Orabimus provides audio narration of the Pater Noster in Latin for those who wish to pray the Rosary in the Church's ancient tongue.
Did Pope Francis change the Our Father?
Pope Francis did not change the English Our Father. In 2017 he said the Italian phrase 'lead us not into temptation' is a poor translation that implies God might cause temptation — contradicting James 1:13 ('God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself does not tempt anyone'). The French Catholic Church changed their text in 2017 to 'do not let us enter into temptation,' and the Italian Church followed. The Catechism (CCC 2846) clarifies that 'temptation' here refers to the decisive eschatological trial, not everyday temptation — so the petition asks God not to abandon us when that final test comes. The English Catholic text used in the Rosary remains unchanged.
What is the difference between the Catholic and Protestant Our Father?
The prayer text is identical — both use 'Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name...' through 'but deliver us from evil.' The difference is the doxology. Most Protestant traditions conclude with 'For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen' — drawn from a manuscript tradition and the Didache (1st-2nd century). This doxology does not appear in the oldest Greek manuscripts of Matthew 6 and is absent from the Latin Vulgate, so it was not adopted in Catholic liturgy. At Mass, Catholics do say a related embolism ('For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, now and forever'), but as a separate priestly prayer, not as part of the Our Father itself.