God is our Father, the Creator of the Universe. We are all brothers, sons of the Creator. God is the supreme intelligence, the first cause of all the things. God is eternal, infinite, unique, immaterial, all-powerful, just and good. He has to be infinite in all his perfections since, if we could suppose imperfectness of even one of his attributes, he would not be God. God is a kind and loving Father. Prayer is an act of worship. Praying to God is to think about Him, to approach Him, to get in touch with Him.
Hallowed be Your name
If we connect to God, we can feel His presence because everywhere there is proof of his Divine love and wisdom. We should worship God and thank Him for our life, our family and experiences; happy and sad ones which allow us to progress spiritually.
May Your kingdom come!
Everyone must put Jesus’ teachings into practice in order to install God’s kingdom within ourselves. This is the kingdom of peace, justice and love. The Divine Laws are also imprinted into the conscious mind of every human being. We need to make efforts to practice goodness, as this is the only way to reach true happiness.
May Your will be done on Earth, on the Space and on all inhabited worlds as it is in heaven!
God’s will is expressed through the manifestations of the principle of action and reaction (or “law of cause and effect”). We must be aware of our thoughts, words and actions since everything we do, good or bad, will have consequences to ourselves. Spiritism establishes the relationship between free-will and responsibility (you can explain the meaning of free-will and responsibility, according to the Doctrine). We could explain to the children all the tribulations which we suffer in the earthly life are at once the consequences of our own defects and expiations of faults that have been committed by us, either in our present life or in some of our former existences. Everything has a cause and an effect.
Give us this day our daily bread for the soul and the body, Sir
Please ask only what is necessary. You should ask for the bread that feeds the physical body and the bread of the soul which is faith; the trust in God. You can ask for the daily bread; that is the way of obtaining through work the necessary things for the material and spiritual world since we can not ask for the superfluous; the unnecessary.
Forgive us our sins and imperfections; please give us the sublime feeling of forgiveness for those who sin against us!
Mercy is a complement to mildness, because the person who is not merciful cannot be mild and pacific. Mercy consists of being able to forget and forgive all offence. Hate and rancor denotes a Spirit without any elevation or magnanimity. Being able to forget offences is the mark of an elevated soul, which does not perturb itself with the blows it may be dealt. The one is always anxious, of a dark susceptibility and full of bitterness; while the other is calm, full of sweetness and charity. We are still imperfect spirits who make lots of mistakes but we do have the commitment to ourselves to be more charitable, forgiving and forgetting all offenses.
Lead us not into the temptation of the matter, the traps from spirits who are less perfect than ourselves, but please send us the good ones spirits to shed light upon us
Each of our terrestrial existences is but an episode of our immortal life. No soul in this short space of time could rip itself of all its vices and errors, of all the coarse desires that are so many vestiges of its past lives, so many proofs of its origin. The plurality of existences can alone explain the diversity of character, the variety of aptitudes, the disproportion of moral endowments - in a word, all the disparities that we notice about us. We need to analyze all situations, learn from our mistakes and try to do goodness. We need to make efforts to practice goodness, as this is the only way to reach true happiness. Let’s improve everyday so we can always deserve the help and inspiration of our protector spirit.
Let the ray of Your light sprinkle over the suffering humanity.
In the name of God, Christ and charity
We need to understand God is just and only does goodness. The good spirits try to lead us into the right road, sustain us under the trials of life, and aid us to bear them with courage and resignation. The prospect of the happiness which awaits therefore gives us patience, resignation and courage to continue to the end of his path.
Third: please each group to glue in one unique panel their parts from THE LORD'S PRAYER. Please ask them to explain the meaning of each part of the taught by Jesus (the Spiritist Teacher should complement the comments from each group, if necessary). At the end of the task, please explain the prayer was taught by Jesus and it sums everything we need and is licit for us to ask the Father. Please see here below how you can split the prayer.
Click here to see the PowerPoint with THE LORD'S PRAYER – adapted Spiritist version.
Click here to see the PowerPoint with THE LORD'S PRAYER from the Gospel According to Spiritism.OBS: In The Gospel According to Spiritism, Chapter 28, there is a detailed analysis of the meaning of THE LORD’S PRAYER. We would also recommend the book Iniciação ao Espiritismo (Spiritism for Beginners; to be translated into the English language), from Terezinha Oliveira, Edited by EME, (Chapter 27 - Oração Dominical).
Fourth: here below are some suggested activities received from the spiritist teacher Adriana Timón from União Espírita de Peruíbe – Peruíbe/SP.
Activity 1: print and answer. - Answer.
Answer activity 1: (7), (3), (10), (4), (6), (1), (9), (11), (2), (8), (5)
Activity 2: assemble THE LORD’S PRAYER in the shape of an accordion.
Activity 3: please write and assemble THE LORD’S PRAYER in the shape of a little book.
Click here to see some pictures of how this was done, as an example.
Fifth: every child should now receive a copy of THE LORD'S PRAYER to glue it into their notebooks.
Click here to print a copy of THE LORD'S PRAYER – adapted Spiritist version.
Click here to print a copy of THE LORD'S PRAYER from the Gospel According the Spiritism.
Closing Prayer: please ask the group to read THE LORD'S PRAYER from the panel together. Please ask each child to read their part from activity which involved THE LORD'S PRAYER as the closing prayer for this class.
Class suggested being suitable for: 2nd cycle (9 to 10 years old) and 3rd cycle (11 to 12 years old).
Translation: Carolina von Scharten, London, Sir William Crookes Spiritist Society linked to BUSS - The British Union of Spiritist Societies.
