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February 5, 2012

Prayer:  Talking to God

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This is from Wikipedia, about the song "The Prayer"

"The Prayer" is most commonly known as a duet between Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli. This duet is the second single from Dion's Christmas album These Are Special Times and first from Bocelli's album Sogno, and was released as a promotional single on March 1, 1999.[1]

"The Prayer" won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song from the Quest for Camelot movie in 1999, the second win in a row for a Celine Dion song. It was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1999 and a Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals in 2000. Dion performed it with Bocelli at both ceremonies.

First, "The Prayer" was recorded as two separate solo versions, Dion's in English and Bocelli's in Italian. They appeared on the Quest for Camelot soundtrack in May 1998. The duet was included on both artists albums, released a few months later. It was also featured on Dion's compilation The Collector's Series, Volume One (2000) and greatest hits My Love: Ultimate Essential Collection (2008). A re-recorded solo version by Celine Dion (re-named "A Mother's Prayer") appeared on her 2004 album Miracle. Dion performed "The Prayer" live during her Taking Chances Tour as a virtual duet with Bocelli on the screen; the performance was released in the Taking Chances World Tour: The Concert CD/DVD. The song appeared also on Bocelli's 2007 compilation The Best of Andrea Bocelli: Vivere. A live version by Bocelli and Heather Headley was included on his Under the Desert Sky DVD/CD and Vivere Live in Tuscany DVD/CD.

"The Prayer" was popular on the adult contemporary charts in Canada and the United States, peaking at number 8 and number 22 respectively.



This is from New Church Life:
NEW CHURCH LIFE
VOL. XCVIII JANUARY, 1978 No. 1

STORY OF THE LORD'S PRAYER Rev. DONALD L. ROSE 1978

This year the New Church version of the Lord's Prayer is 150 years old. Why do we say the prayer a little differently from our neighbors? How did we come to have the version of the Lord's Prayer that we now use? It is an interesting story. Of course the Prayer itself is 19th centuries old. (The dates in this article will be rounded approximations.)

Because we speak English our experience brings us into contact with three versions of the Lord's Prayer. (1) The one we use every day. (2) The King James version. (3) The version used by our Protestant neighbors. We bear in mind that the Prayer is being used in dozens of other languages. Our New Church friends in Scandinavia, Western Europe, South America and other parts of the world are saying the same prayer but with different words.

The actual words of the Prayer spoken by the Lord are not known to us. Perhaps they were Aramaic words. But they are recorded by Divine inspiration in the Greek words of the New Testament. They are written twice in slightly different ways, and it is because the Matthew version differs somewhat from the Luke version that people have had to make choices in what they would say when they say "the Lord's Prayer." One must either take one of the two versions in the Bible (and the choice would go to Matthew as the more complete), or else endeavor in one Prayer to reflect something of both Matthew and Luke.

The Lord's Prayer is intended for people to use, and therefore where the common people do not speak Greek there must be translations undertaken by fallible men. The first "common language" or "vulgate" version was done in Latin in 400 AD. This version is still significant for Catholic people today. Of course there was at that time no English language or other modern tongues as we know them. The Vulgate version of the Prayer did not use the phrase, "For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever." (This phrase is not in Luke and is absent from some of the ancient Greek manuscripts of Matthew.)

We cannot say that the Vulgate is THE Latin version, because translation is not an exact science. There are several Latin versions. The one that interests us most was published when Swedenborg was eight years old. This was the Schmidius Bible, a version very faithful to the original tongues, a version adopted by Swedenborg in his study of the Bible.
The first English version was not a translation from the original language of the Word. Wycliffe in 1380 rendered the Latin of the Vulgate into English.
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And even today your Catholic friends who say the Prayer in English do not say the "For thine is the kingdom . . ." part at the end, although in very recent years it is being included in services of the Mass.
Wycliffe's rendition of the Lord's Prayer looked like this.

Oure fadir that art in heuences halowid be thi name
Thi kyngdom come to be thi wille don in erthe as in heuene
Geue to us this day our breed ouir other substances;
forgive to us oure dettis, as we forgeuen to oure dettouris,
Lede us not in to temtacioun; but delyvuer us from yue!. Amen.

In the early fifteen hundreds there appeared the first English versions taken from the original languages of the Word. Tydndale and Coverdale did the groundwork which led eventually to the King James Version of 1611.
Remember that quite apart from translation of the Greek, one must make choices in adopting a version of the Lord's Prayer. The Book of Common Prayer for use in Christian services is older than the King James version. The Book of Common Prayer speaks of forgiving "trespasses." (Tydndale used this word in translating Matt. 6:12). The original word in the Greek of Matthew is "debts" and in Luke "sins." But since the word "trespasses" is used in the phrases just after the Lord's Prayer (Matt. 6:14, 15) you can see how men came to choose "trespasses" within the Prayer, almost as a compromise between "debts" and "sins."

When New Church students turned their attention to the Lord's Prayer there were two English versions to consider. These were the King James rendition of Matthew and the version men had put together in the Book of Common Prayer. To make a long story short, they decided to go to the words in Matthew with close attention to the original Greek.
For the New Church student looking at the Greek some choices are obvious. It says "in the heavens" not "in heaven." And the word order later in the Prayer is "as in heaven so upon the earth", not "on earth as it is in heaven." But translating is not an exact science. Human decisions have to be made. What we get when there is room for difference of opinion is delay, often long delay.

The story of the New Church version is longer than most people realize. In 1790 at the 2nd General Conference in London it was agreed that we should have "a literal translation of the Lord's Prayer from the original Greek."* It took thirty-eight years for an agreed form to be published. It is difficult for committees and conferences to come to conclusions when there is a strong desire that the conclusion shall be as near perfect as possible.
* The Rise and Progress of the New Church, by Robert Hindmarsh, p. 111.

While the discussion was going on over the years, people had to use some words. In 1797 some New Church people were saying "sanctified by Thy name" rather than "hallowed." This was evidently influenced by the way the Prayer appears in Latin. They also said "for ages" instead of "forever."

Thirty-three years after the decision to produce a literal translation of the Greek of Matthew 6, the following resolution was passed. "That the translation be not considered definitively settled, but that it be referred to a Committee to revise it, having due regard to what is felt to be the wish of the Conference."*
* Ibid., p. 404

That resolution was passed at the 16th Conference of 1823. A committee of six men, including Hindmarsh and Noble, had reported to the Conference that they had directed "their first attention to the version of the Decalogue and Lord's Prayer,. . . that the sense of the original should be expressed in the versions as closely as the difference between the idiom of the English language, and those of the Hebrew and Greek, will permit, but so as not to violate the idiom of the English: that they had afterwards gone through the Decalogue and the Lord's Prayer, making corrections in the spirit of the above maxim, in some of which corrections they were unanimous, but in others not."*
* Ibid, p. 404

It is the part of wisdom to realize that somewhere a decision has to be made, even if it is not perfect. Indeed the wise man knows that there are no perfect decisions in matters such as translation. And so the matter was wisely settled. The Liturgy of 1828 contained the Prayer in the form in which it is now used by English speaking New Church people.
What we have is a Matthew version (hence the word "debts"), and it reflects the original Greek more than does the King James Version of Matthew. Perhaps in the future we will add to this a version from Luke 11, which might be used on occasions when the Prayer is said more than once, as in the Holy Supper.

Because it is useful for us to be aware of the Prayer in the original Greek, it has been published in the children's Hymnal (number 99). We continue to infill our understanding of the words and the concepts behind the words. And especially do we look to the remarkable teachings in the Writings about the Lord's Prayer. Your attention is invited to the booklet by H. L. Odhner produced by the General Publication Committee entitled "THE LORD'S PRAYER."

What we get from the Writings does not bear very much on questions of word choices but on the limitless spiritual contents of the Prayer. The Prayer is not rendered completely in any one passage of the Writings, but the following shows how the wording may be put together from several passages:
While the discussion was going on over the years, people had to use some words. In 1797 some New Church people were saying "sanctified by Thy name" rather than "hallowed." This was evidently influenced by the way the Prayer appears in Latin. They also said "for ages" instead of "forever."

Thirty-three years after the decision to produce a literal translation of the Greek of Matthew 6, the following resolution was passed. "That the translation be not considered definitively settled, but that it be referred to a Committee to revise it, having due regardto what is felt to be the wish of the Conference."*
* Ibid., p. 404

That resolution was passed at the 16th Conference of 1823. A committee of six men, including Hindmarsh and Noble, had reported to the Conference that they had directed "their first attention to the version of the Decalogue and Lord's Prayer,. . . that the sense of the original should be expressed in the versions as closely as the difference between the idiom of the English language, and those of the Hebrew and Greek, will permit, but so as not to violate the idiom of the English: that they had afterwards gone through the Decalogue and the Lord's Prayer, making corrections in the spirit of the above maxim, in some of which corrections they were unanimous, but in others not."*
* Ibid, p. 404

It is the part of wisdom to realize that somewhere a decision has to be made, even if it is not perfect. Indeed the wise man knows that there are no perfect decisions in matters such as translation. And so the matter was wisely settled. The Liturgy of 1828 contained the Prayer in the form in which it is now used by English speaking New Church people.
What we have is a Matthew version (hence the word "debts"), and it reflects the original Greek more than does the King James Version of Matthew. Perhaps in the future we will add to this a version from Luke 11, which might be used on occasions when the Prayer is said more than once, as in the Holy Supper.

Because it is useful for us to be aware of the Prayer in the original Greek, it has been published in the children's Hymnal (number 99). We continue to infill our understanding of the words and the concepts behind the words. And especially do we look to the remarkable teachings in the Writings about the Lord's Prayer. Your attention is invited to the booklet by H. L. Odhner produced by the General Publication Committee entitled "THE LORD'S PRAYER."

What we get from the Writings does not bear very much on questions of word choices but on the limitless spiritual contents of the Prayer. The Prayer is not rendered completely in any one passage of the Writings, but the following shows how the wording may be put together from several passages:
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THE LORD'S PRAYER IN THE WRITINGS

Although no single passage in the Writings gives the entire Lord's Prayer we can put passages together as follows:

"Our Father who art in the heavens Pater nester qui es in coelis
hallowed be Thy name Sanctificetur nomen Tuum

Thy kingdom come Adveniat regnum Tuum
Thy will be done Fiat voluntas Tua
as in heaven so also upon the earth." Sicut in caelo etiam in terra
(AR 839)

"Give us this day our daily bread." Panem nostrum quotidianum
(AC 2838e) da nobis hodie

". . .forgive us our trespasses . . . remitte nobis delicta
nostra
as we forgive those who trespass sicut nos remittimus
deliquentibus
against us." (TCR 459:12) contra nos.

"Lead us not into temptation Ne inducas nos in tentationem,
but deliver us from evil" sed libera nos a mala
(AC 1875)

"Thine is the kingdom, the power Tuum est regnum, potentia
and the glory, forever." et gloria in saecula.
(AC 5922:17)

There are two instances prior to the Writings in which Swedenborg renders the entire Prayer. The rendition in the Philosopher's Notebook may well be his own translation.

In the Word Explained (no. 6857) the version of Matthew is given, but for some reason instead of "debts" (debita) the word from Luke, which is "sins" (peccata) is used.
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This is from New Church Life in 1912, about the Lord's Prayer

Title Unspecified Editor 1912

THE LORD'S PRAYER

A STUDY

"And it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He had ceased, one of His disciples said unto Him, Lord, teach us to pray." (Luke 11:1.)

"When ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do; for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

"Be not ye therefore like unto them, for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him.

"After this manner, therefore, pray ye:

"Our Father who art in the heavens, Hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, as in heaven upon the earth. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory. Forever Amen" (Matth. 6:7-13; Luke 11:2-4.)

SOME TEACHINGS CONCERNING PRAYER.

"Prayer is speaking with God." (A. C. 2535.)

"Sincere prayer is an acknowledgment that all good is from the Lord, and that the Lord alone knows what we need, and that we desire to have this done in and for us." (D. P. 119.)

"When a man is in the life of charity he continually prays, not with the lips but with the heart." (A. E. 325)

"The worship of the lips without the worship of the life, avails nothing" (A. C. 7884)

"In prayer, it is the affection itself that speaks, and such as is the affection, such is the prayer." (A. E. 325)

"As long as we live we ought not to omit the practice of external worship, since by external worship internal things are awakened, and by external worship external things are kept in a state of holiness, so that internal things can flow in." (A. C. 1618.)

"The Lord can impart good to us only as we desire it, or are willing to receive it: and our asking indicates this state of willing reception in us." (D. P. 92.)

"The Lord answers every sincere Prayer according to His own perfect wisdom, and not according to our own imperfect knowledge and foresight" (D. P. 482.)

"Whatsoever we ask from the Lord and not from ourselves; that is, whatsoever we ask from the faith of charity or genuine love of use to the neighbor, that we receive." (A. E. 411)

"If from love and faith we pray for celestial and spiritual things, there is given us a kind of revelation, which is felt as hope, consolation, or internal joy." (A C. 2535)

GENERAL TEACHINGS CONCERNING THE LORD'S PRAYER

"The little children in heaven read the Lord's Prayer, and learn prayers from their nurses, by influx from heaven." (S. D. 5668.)

"The angels said, 'We in heaven read that Prayer daily, like men on earth; but we do not then think of God the Father, because He is invisible; but we think of Him in His Divine Human, because in this He is visible." (A. R. 839.)

"The whole of the Lord's Prayer, from beginning to end, regards this that God the Father is to be worshipped in the Human form." (Inv. 37)

"When read the Lord's Prayer, which includes in it all celestial and spiritual things, there can be infused into each thing of it so many things, that heaven is not capable of comprehending them; and this, also, according to the capacity and use of each one" (S. D. 1790)

"There are more things in the contents of the Lord's Prayer than the universal heaven is capable of comprehending.
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And with man there are more things in it, in the proportion that his thought is more open towards heaven; but, on the other hand, there are fewer things, in the proportion that his thought is more closed; for with those with whom the thought is closed, nothing more appears therein than the sense of the letter, or the proximate sense of the words." (A. C. 6619.)

"In the Lord's Prayer all things follow in such a series that they constitute as it were a column, increasing from its top to its bottom, in the interiors of which are the things which precede in the series." (A. C. 8864.)

"At this day a New Church is being instituted by the Lord, which is meant by the New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse, in which there will be worship of the Lord alone, as it is in heaven; and thus everything which is contained in the Lord's Prayer, from beginning to end, will be fulfilled." (A. R. 839.)

A SUMMARY OF THE INTERNAL SENSE

I.

"Our Father who art in the Heavens."

"Our Father in the heavens signifies the Divine in heaven, thus the good from which heaven is Regarded in itself the Divine is above the heavens, but the Divine which is in the heavens is the good which is in the truth that proceeds from the Divine." (A. C. 8328)

"Our Father in the heavens means the Lord as to the Divine Human, and also in one complex all things whereby We is worshiped." (A. C. 6887.)

"In heaven, by 'God the Father' is meant none other than the Lord; and in the new heaven the Lord is also called the Father." (A. R. 613)

II.

"Hallowed be thy Name."

"By the name of God is signified His quality, which, in the first sense, is the Word, Doctrine from the Word, and the worship of mouth and life from the Doctrine. In the second sense, it is the Lord's kingdom on the earth and the Lord's kingdom in the heavens; and, in the third sense, it is the Divine Human of the Lord, for this is the quality of the Divine itself. (A. E. 1025.)
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"'Hallowed be thy name' signifies that the Divine Human of the Lord is to be held holy and is to be worshipped." (A. E. 102.)

III.

"Thy Kingdom come."

"By 'kingdom' here is meant the reception of the Divine Good and the Divine Truth which proceed from the Lord, and in which the Lord is with the angels of heaven and with the men of the Church." (A. E. 683.)

"His Divine Human is the Father's name, and the Father's kingdom is come when the Lord is approached immediately, and by no means when God the Father is approached immediately." (A. R. 839)

IV.

"Thy Will be done as in Heaven so upon the Earth."

"The will of God is done when the Divine Good and the Divine Truth are received in heart and soul, that is, in love and faith." (A. E. 683.)

"By name is not meant name, but all things of love and faith, for these are the Lord's and are from Him; and as these are holy, the Lord's kingdom comes and His will is done on earth as in the heavens, when they are held to be so." (A. C. 2009.)

V.

"Give us this day our daily Bread."

"'Give us bread,' signifies supplication for the support of spiritual life. In a specific sense 'bread' signifies the good of love and charity, but in general it signifies spiritual life, for in this case by 'bread' is meant all food." (A. C. 6118.)

"'This day' signifies what is perpetual. Heavenly food is nothing else than love and charity together with the goods and truths of faith. This food is given by the Lord to the angels in heaven every moment, and thus perpetually and to eternity." (A. C. 2838.)

"'Give us this day our daily bread' signifies that the Lord daily provides our necessaries, and that therefore we ought not to be anxious about acquiring them from ourselves." (A. C. 8478.)
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VI.

"And forgive us our Debts, as we also forgive our Debtors."

"God cannot according to His laws remit sins to any man, except in Proportion as the man desists from them." (T. C. R. 73.)

"The Lord forgives sins to every one but they are not on that account remitted unless the man performs serious repentance, and desists from evils, and then lives a life of faith and charity, and this up to the end of his life. When he does this, he receives spiritual life from the Lord, and when from this life he regards the evils of his former life, and feels aversion and horror for them, then, first, are evils remitted; for the man is then kept in truths and goods by the Lord, and is withheld from evils." (A. C. 9014.)

VII.

"And lead us not into Temptation."

"It was granted me to have a perception of angelic ideas about these words in the Lord's Prayer: 'Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.' Temptation and evil were rejected by the nearest good spirits, by a certain idea perceptible within me, and this even until what is purely angelic, namely, Good, remained, without any idea of temptation and evil, the literal sense thus perishing altogether. In the first rejection innumerable ideas were being formed respecting this Good,-how good may come from man's affliction, while the affliction still is from the man and his evil in which there is punishment, and this together with a kind of indignation joined with it, that it should be thought that temptation and its evil come from any other source, and that any one should have any thought of evil in thinking of the Lord. These ideas were purified in the degree of their ascent. The ascents were represented by rejections, which were made with a swiftness and in a manner that were inexpressible, until they passed into the shade of my thought. They were then in heaven, where there are only ineffable angelic ideas concerning the Lord's good." (A. C. 1875.)

VIII.

"But deliver us from Evil."

"The deliverance from damnation, or, what is the same, deliverance from sins, is the removal of evil, which is effected through repentance of life." (A. C. 9077.)
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"The sins which a man does, are inrooted in his very life, and make it; wherefore no one is delivered from them unless he receives new life from the Lord by means of regeneration." (A. C. 9444.)

"That the Lord redeemed mankind means that He liberated and delivered them from hell and from the evils and falsities which constantly rise up thence, and that He continually liberates and delivers them by this that He subjugated the hells and glorified His Human." (A. E. 328.)

IX.

"For Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory."

"'For Thine is the kingdom' signifies that the Divine Truth is from the Lord alone: it is also said 'power' and 'glory,' because to the Divine Truth belong all power and glory." (A. E. 48.)

"In the sense of the letter of the Word the Divine Truth is in its fullness, in its holiness, and in its power." (S. S. 37.)

"By 'glory' is signified the internal sense of the Word, which inmostly treats of the Lord alone." (A. C. 49.)

"To 'give glory' to the Lord is to acknowledge, confess, and worship the Lord, and to live according to His Divine Truth." (A. E. 874, 1218.)

"Forever. Amen."

"For ever' [lit. 'unto the ages'], signifies what is eternal, because by an 'age' is meant duration even to the end; the same word, also, which in the original tongue expresses an 'age' signifies eternity." (A. C. 10248.)

"Faith and truth are one, wherefore the ancients instead of 'faith' said 'truth.' Hence also it is that in the Hebrew language truth and faith are one word, which is amuna, or 'amen.' " (D. F. 6.)

"'Amen,' at the end of a prayer, signifies confirmation, and the consent of all that it is the truth." (A. R. 375.)

"'Amen' signifies the truth; and since the Lord is the Divine Truth itself, by 'amen' in the highest sense is signified the Lord as to the Divine Truth." (A. E. 464.)
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"When any one speaks Divine truth from the heart, the Lord confirms it; confirmation can come from no other source. This is signified by 'amen' at the end of prayer." (A. E. 469.)

RESUME

"Our Father who art in the heavens" = acknowledgment of the Lord, which is the first of the Church with man.

"Hallowed be Thy name = worship of the Lord according to His Doctrine.

"Thy kingdom come = increasing reception of the Truth in the understanding.

"Thy will be done, as in heaven so upon the earth" = obedience to the Lord's will in life as well as in faith.

"Give us this day our daily Bread,' conjunction of good and truth in our daily life, also forgive our debtors"

"Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors" = repentance by the shunning of evil.

"Lead us not into temptation" = progress through combats against evil.

"But deliver us from evil" = redemption and the life of regeneration.

"For Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power and the Glory" = the triumphant establishment of the Church in man, through the Word and the Heavenly Doctrine.

"For ever. Amen" = at last, eternal salvation, by means of the Divine Truth.
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