The flurry about the announced change in the Italian liturgical text of the Our Father ranges from: "It's not his prayer; it's in the Bible that way, so he can't change it! to "I was good enough for my parents; who does he think he is?"
But he's not alone in his reasoning behind the announced change. And he is due the justice of a little background for this justice-based eschatological prayer.
As reported last week,
Pope Francis doesn't reference the scriptural scholarship of the past or present in his announcement of the change he makes in the Italian liturgical text of the Pater Noster.The pope said he thought the English translation of the prayer was not correct.”It is not a good translation because it speaks of a God who induces temptation,” he told Italy’s TV2000 channel in 2017, per The Guardian. “I am the one who falls. It’s not him pushing me into temptation to then see how I have fallen. https://chicago.suntimes.com/entertainment-and-culture/2019/6/6/18655772/pope-francis-changes-words-to-lords-prayer-our-father
My scripture prof of happy memory, Gene Maly, would probably be smiling to see this controversy, recognizing that all the sentimental clinging to what people hold dear misses the point of the scripture text on which our sacrosanct liturgical prayer is based. He'd probably say something like, "Get over it, folks. It's about the End-Times!"
Related to that, Francis' words witness the following from Ray Brown, arguing grammatically aa well as quoting the Letter of James (Jas 1:13) as he comments on this petition in his article "The Pater Noster as an Eschatological Prayer" [Theological Studies, May 1961]
SIXTH PETITIONMt, Lk, Did: And do not lead us into trialMt, Did: but free us from the evil oneThus far in the PN, the Christians have urgently petitioned God's triumph and have dealt with their own role in that triumph, both positive and negative. Now the only remaining object of eschatological prayer is the terrible obstacle that separates the Christian from that triumph, namely, the titanic struggle between God and Satan which must introduce the last days. Once again, the aorist tenses117 do not favor the interpretation of this petition in terms of daily deliverance from temptation (emphasis mine). And, indeed, such an interpretation has produced a theological difficulty, for the prayer would then seem to imply that it is God who is responsible for temptation. It is true that the OT speaks of God tempting people, but normally in the sense of testing.118 In a late book like Sir (15:12) there is a reaction against the inference that God is responsible for human failing. In the NT, Jas 1:13 is lucid: "Let no one say when he is tempted, Ί am tempted by God/ .. . He Himself tempts no one" (emphasis mine). Why, then, do we have the Christians asking their Father not to lead them into temptation? We see in the patristic phrasings of this petition attempts to avoid the difficulty. Tertullian says it means: Do not allow us to be led into temptation by him who tempts.119 He thus makes Satan the tempter, not God.
Seemingly foreseeing the present controversy, W.F. Albright writes in his commentary on Matthew in the Anchor Bible:"The constant repetition of the Lord's prayer in public worship has steadily eroded the eschatological urgency of the words almost to the vanishing point."
So I echo the imagined word from my scripture prof of old, basing this response on the above scholarly commentary, "Get over it, Folks!"
But to allow for an alternative response, I submit this justice-based translation of the phrase within the Pater Noster for those who object to Pope Francis' change:
Dear Father in Heaven,May your Name be glorified,May your Rule be honored,May your Will be done –as now in Heaven, so also in my life and everywhere on earth.Give us today what we need, andForgive us our offenses, which requires us likewise to forgive everyone who offends us, andHelp us when we are tempted anddeliver us from harm by the evil one.For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.
