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This is probably the
most well known Christian prayer, said by Catholics and
non-Catholics alike, albeit , with slight differences.
In keeping with the Christian tradition at the time,
during the Middle Ages the "Our Father" was always said
in Latin, even by the uneducated. Hence it was then most
commonly known as the Pater Noster, the first two words
in the Latin version of the Lord's Prayer. The English
text now in use among Catholics, is derived not from the
Rheims Testament but from a version imposed upon England
in the reign of Henry VIII. The prayer appeared in the
1549 and 1552 editions of the "Book of Common Prayer."
The prayer is found in
Gospel of Matthew and in a slightly different version,
in the Gospel of Luke, and sometimes prefaced in the
Mass as "Taught by our Savior's command and formed by
the Word of God, we dare to say..."
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