Redeemer and Advocate with the Father, we should offer them in His Name. Thereby they acquire the weight and influence which make them pleasing to the Father. It is also useful to invoke the intercession of the Blessed Virgin and the saints, who are God’s special friends, and as such enjoy not only great power with the Almighty, but are deeply interested in our welfare and we address our prayers to them requesting their intercession with God in our behalf for favors both temporal and spiritual.
For What We Should Pray
THAT most perfect of prayers, the Our Father, contains all the things for which we should pray, and also indicates the order of importance according to which our requests should be made. Therefore, in the first of the seven petitions which constitute this the best of prayers we say, “Hallowed be Thy Name,” thus asking that God be acknowledged and glorified and praised throughout the earth. In the second petition we say, “Thy kingdom come,” that is, may we one day possess the kingdom of heaven, which God has prepared for us. And since this great kingdom can only be entered and enjoyed by those who do God’s will here on earth, we say in the third petition, “Thy will be done,” begging that we may be enabled at all times to keep His commandments. In the fourth petition we ask for our daily bread, that is, we beg of God those temporal and spiritual necessities without which
