On the Scope of the Lord’s Prayer

St. Maximus the Confessor ca. 580-662

…[H]e Himself worked and taught many new mysteries whose number and dimension the mind can in no way grasp or measure. There are seven in number which are more general than the others which He appears to have given to men in His extraordinary generosity. The scope of the [Lord’s] prayer, as I have said, mysteriously contains their meaning: theology, adoption in grace, equality of honor with angels, participation in eternal life, the restoration of nature inclining toward itself to a tranquil state, the abolition of the law of sin, and the overthrowing of the tyranny of evil which has dominated us by trickery. Let us examine the truth of what has just been said. (Commentary on the Our Father, Prologue 1.)