The Lord's Prayer and Rudolf Steiner: A study of his insights into the archetypal prayer of Christianity Paperback – May 15, 2014

Well done!

Peter Selg has written an excellent, short book titled, The Lord’s Prayer and Rudolf Steiner. It is really a series of meditations with footnoted quotations from Steiner and early Church fathers on the importance of the Our Father. I have often found myself praying the Our Father in subways and other odd places. Early Church fathers recommended praying it 3 times a day. Fritz Koelln stated that 24 hours in a day is not enough time to give this prayer its due. The Our Father is central to the Mass and precedes communion. Like communion, the Our Father transforms the individual. Like communion, the Our Father connects individuals to the spiritual realms and therefore to one another. Selg cites early quotations that are gems. One is a preparatory prayer from an Eastern Syrian liturgy. May your peace, Lord, dwell amongst us, and your peace in our hearts, and may our tongue proclaim your truth, your Cross be the guardian of our souls, as we make our mouths into new harps and speak a new language with fiery lips. Make us worthy, Lord, with the trust that comes from you, to speak before you this pure and holy prayer that your life-giving mouth taught your faithful disciples, the children of your mysteries: When you pray, you should pray and avow thus, saying: Our Father, who art in heaven… Selg also has quotations regarding Clement of Alexandria. All his comments on prayer are founded on the presiding idea that prayer composes a true Christian’s whole life, and therefore involves uninterrupted, intimate communication with God. Selg also quotes Origen, who declared “the angels along with fellow Christians who have died, join us as we pray the Lord’s Prayer.” Ita Wegman wrote Steiner’s version of the Lord’s Prayer. Father,
 you who were, are, and will be
 in our inmost being,

 May your name be glorified
 and praised
 in us.

 May your kingdom grow 
 in our deeds and inmost lives.

 May we perform your will
 as you, Father, lay it down 
in our inmost being.

 You give us 
spiritual nourishment,
 the bread of life,
 superabundantly in all the changing conditions 
of our lives.

 Let our mercy 
toward others
 make up for the sins
 done to our being.

 You do not allow the tempter
 to work in us 
beyond the capacity of our strength.

 For no temptation can live
 in your being,
 Father,
 and the tempter is only appearance
 and delusion,
 from which
 you lead us, Father,
 through the light of knowledge.

 May your power and glory
 work in us through all periods
 and ages
 of time.
 Amen. 1 1. Rudolf Steiner prayed the Lord’s Prayer – daily, upright, and aloud. Already, before the First World War, people reported that Steiner used to say the Lord’s Prayer so loudly in his Berlin apartment that it could be understood in the neighboring room. Several versions/translations are known. There are two copies in Marie Steiner’s estate, both in her own handwriting. During a burial in 1920, Reverend Hugo Schuster, an Old Catholic Priest, for whom Steiner also translated the Catholic Mass, said a version given him by Rudolf Steiner. The translation given here is that used by Steiner at the end of his life. He spoke it with Ita Wegman when they worked together during the summer and autumn of 1923 on their book, Extending Practical Medicine, and he continued to say it up to his dying days: “In the course of the winter, it became even harder for the attending physicians to judge Rudolf Steiner’s condition. Ita Wegman watched as ‘his physical strength gradually disappeared’. There were short periods of time when he got up twice a day; then again his strength left him to such an extent that she had to support him when he wanted to pray. He recited the Lord’s Prayer in a loud voice, standing upright, everyday, so that people passing by outside his studio heard him.” See, for text of the Lord’s Prayer and Steiner’s saying of it, J.e. Zeylmans van Emmichoven, Who Was Ita Wegman: A Documentation, Volume 1 – 1876 until 1925 (Mercury Press, Spring Valley, 1995), pp. 144, 223-224, 247-249.Published in The Christian Mystery 1998