The Third Petition: Thy Will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
[Sidenote: The Third Petition]
This means—
Our will, compared with Thy will, is never good, but always evil; but Thy will is always best, lovable above all things and most to be desired. Therefore, be merciful to us, dear Father, and let nothing be done according to our will. Grant us and teach us to have real and perfect patience when our will is broken or hindered. Help us, if anyone speaks or is silent, does or omits anything that is contrary to our will, that we become not angry or wrathful, neither curse, nor complain, nor cry out, nor judge, nor condemn, nor accuse. Help us with all humility to give place to those who oppose or hinder our will, and letting our own will go, to praise and bless them and do good to them as those who, against our own will, fulfil Thy divine will, which is altogether good.
Give us grace willingly to bear illness, poverty, shame, suffering and adversity, and to know that these are Thy divine will, or the crucifying of our will. Help us to bear even injustice gladly, and keep us from avenging ourselves. Suffer us not to render evil or evil or to resist force with force, but grant us grace to take pleasure in this will of Thine, which lays these things upon us, and to give Thee praise and thanks. Suffer us not to lay it to the charge of the devil or of wicked men when anything befalls us contrary to our will, but help us to ascribe it only to Thy divine will, which orders all such things for the hindering of our will and the increasing of our blessedness in Thy kingdom.
Help us to die willingly and joyfully, and to welcome death as a manifestation of Thy will, so that impatience and despair may not make us disobedient toward Thee. Help us that all our members—eyes, tongue, heart, hands, feet—be not submissive to their own desires or will, but be taken captive, imprisoned and broken in Thy will. Preserve us from all evil, rebellious, obstinate, stubborn and capricious self-will.
Grant us a true obedience, a submissiveness simple and complete in all things, spiritual and worldly, temporal and eternal. Preserve us from the cruel vice of aspersion, slander, back-biting, malicious judging, condemning and accusing of other men. O keep far from us the great unhappiness and grievous plague of tongues like these; but teach us, when we see or hear in others things blameworthy and to us displeasing, to hold our peace, to cover them over, to make complaint of them to none but Thee, to give them over to Thy will, and thus heartily to forgive our debtors and have sympathy with them.
Teach us to know that no one can do us any harm, except he first do himself a thousandfold greater harm in Thine eyes, so that we may be moved thereby to mercy rather than to anger, to pity rather than revenge. Help us not to rejoice when it goes ill with those who have not done our will or have hurt us or otherwise displeased us by their way of life; help us also not to be disturbed when it goes well with them.
To this petition belong all the psalms, versicles and prayers in which we pray to be delivered from sin and from our enemies.
The Fourth Petition: Give us this day our daily Bread.