On the Seven Petitions of the _lord's Prayer_. The Lord's Prayer is the most perfect of all prayers, for, as S. Augustine says to Proba[173]: "If we pray rightly and fittingly we can say nothing else but what is set down in the _Lord's Prayer_." And since prayer is, in a sort, the interpreter of our desires before God, we can only rightly ask in prayer for those things which we can rightly desire. But in the _Lord's Prayer_ not only do we have petitions for all those things which we can rightly desire, but they are set forth in the order in which they are to be desired. Hence this prayer not only teaches us how to pray, but serves as the norm of all our dispositions of mind. For it is clear that we desire first the end and then the means to the attainment of that end. But our end is God, towards Whom our desires tend in two ways: first, in that we desire God's glory; secondly, in that we desire to enjoy that glory ourselves. The former of these pertains to that love wherewith we love God in Himself, the latter to that charity wherewith we love ourselves in God. Hence the first petition runs: _Hallowed be Thy Name_, wherein we pray for God's glory; and the second runs: _Thy kingdom come_, wherein we pray that we may come to the glory of His kingdom. But to this said end things lead us in two ways: viz., either _essentially_ or _accidentally_. Things which are useful for the attainment of that end _essentially_ lead us to it. But a thing may be useful as regards that end which is the possession of God in two ways: namely, _directly and principally_, that is, according to the merits by which we merit the possession of God by obeying Him; and in accordance with this runs the petition: _Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven_; also _instrumentally_ as assisting us to merit, whence the petition: _Give us this day our daily bread_. And this is true whether we understand by this "bread" that Sacramental Bread, the daily use of Which profits man, and in Which are comprised all the other Sacraments; or whether we understand it of material bread so that "bread" here means all that is sufficient for the support of life--as S. Augustine explains it to Proba.[174] For both the Holy Eucharist is the chief of Sacraments, and bread is the chief of foods, whence in the Gospel of S. Matthew we have the term "super-substantial" or "special" applied to it, as S. Jerome explains it.[175]