It seems Pope Francis needs to brush up on his Tertullian!

It has been reported (in The ChristLast Media, I must note) that the current Pope does not like the phrase "lead us not into temptation" from The Lord's Prayer and wishes it to be translated differently. (The Catholic Bishops of France have already done so.) May I suggest all these worthy prelates as well as all you good Catholic kiddies take a gander at what one of the Fathers of the Church wrote on this very subject. (It would do all you prods a world of good as well.)

Everything Tertullian wrote on this prayer is germane, but I know what attention spans are like these days. The most germane is Capter 8, highlighted below.

From the Catholic Encyclopedia (NewAdvent.org):

CHURCH FATHERS: On Prayer (Tertullian)

Chapter 1. General Introduction.

The Spirit of God, and the Word of God, and the Reason of God— Word of Reason, and Reason and Spirit of Word— Jesus Christ our Lord, namely, who is both the one and the other, — has determined for us, the disciples of the New Testament, a new form of prayer; for in this particular also it was needful that new wine should be laid up in new skins, and a new breadth be sewn to a new garment. Besides, whatever had been in bygone days, has either been quite changed, as circumcision; or else supplemented, as the rest of the Law; or else fulfilled, as Prophecy; or else perfected, as faith itself. For the new grace of God has renewed all things from carnal unto spiritual, by superinducing the Gospel, the obliterator of the whole ancient bygone system; in which our Lord Jesus Christ has been approved as the Spirit of God, and the Word of God, and the Reason of God: the Spirit, by which He was mighty; the Word, by which He taught; the Reason, by which He came. So the prayer composed by Christ has been composed of three parts. In speech, by which prayer is enunciated, in spirit, by which alone it prevails, even John had taught his disciples to pray, but all John's doings were laid as groundwork for Christ, until, when He had increased— just as the same John used to fore-announce that it was needful that He should increase and himself decrease John 3:30 — the whole work of the forerunner passed over, together with his spirit itself, unto the Lord. Therefore, after what form of words John taught to pray is not extant, because earthly things have given place to heavenly. He who is from the earth, says John, speaks earthly things; and He who is here from the heavens speaks those things which He has seen. John 3:31-32 And what is the Lord Christ's— as this method of praying is— that is not heavenly? And so, blessed brethren, let us consider His heavenly wisdom: first, touching the precept of praying secretly, whereby He exacted man's faith, that he should be confident that the sight and hearing of Almighty God are present beneath roofs, and extend even into the secret place; and required modesty in faith, that it should offer its religious homage to Him alone, whom it believed to see and to hear everywhere. Further, since wisdom succeeded in the following precept, let it in like manner appertain unto faith, and the modesty of faith, that we think not that the Lord must be approached with a train of words, who, we are certain, takes unsolicited foresight for His own. And yet that very brevity— and let this make for the third grade of wisdom— is supported on the substance of a great and blessed interpretation, and is as diffuse in meaning as it is compressed in words. For it has embraced not only the special duties of prayer, be it veneration of God or petition for man, but almost every discourse of the Lord, every record of His Discipline; so that, in fact, in the Prayer is comprised an epitome of the whole Gospel.

Chapter 2. The First Clause

The prayer begins with a testimony to God, and with the reward of faith, when we say, Our Father who art in the heavens; for (in so saying), we at once pray to God, and commend faith, whose reward this appellation is. It is written, To them who believed on Him He gave power to be called sons of God. John 1:12 However, our Lord very frequently proclaimed God as a Father to us; nay, even gave a precept that we call no one on earth father, but the Father whom we have in the heavens: Matthew 23:9 and so, in thus praying, we are likewise obeying the precept. Happy they who recognize their Father! This is the reproach that is brought against Israel, to which the Spirit attests heaven and earth, saying, I have begotten sons, and they have not recognized me. Isaiah 1:2 Moreover, in saying Father, we also call Him God. That appellation is one both of filial duty and of power. Again, in the Father the Son is invoked; for I, says He, and the Father are One. John 10:30 Nor is even our mother the Church passed by, if, that is, in the Father and the Son is recognized the mother, from whom arises the name both of Father and of Son. In one general term, then, or word, we both honour God, together with His own, and are mindful of the precept, and set a mark on such as have forgotten their Father.

Chapter 3. The Second Clause

The name of God the Father had been published to none. Even Moses, who had interrogated Him on that very point, had heard a different name. Exodus 3:13-16 To us it has been revealed in the Son, for the Son is now the Father's new name. I have come, says He, in the Father's name; John 5:43 and again, Father, glorify Your name; John 12:28 and more openly, I have manifested Your name to men. John 17:6 That name, therefore, we pray may be hallowed. Not that it is becoming for men to wish God well, as if there were any other by whom He may be wished well, or as if He would suffer unless we do so wish. Plainly, it is universally becoming for God to be blessed in every place and time, on account of the memory of His benefits ever due from every man. But this petition also serves the turn of a blessing. Otherwise, when is the name of God not holy, and hallowed through Himself, seeing that of Himself He sanctifies all others— He to whom that surrounding circle of angels cease not to say, Holy, holy, holy? In like wise, therefore, we too, candidates for angelhood, if we succeed in deserving it, begin even here on earth to learn by heart that strain hereafter to be raised unto God, and the function of future glory. So far, for the glory of God. On the other hand, for our own petition, when we say, Hallowed be Your name, we pray this; that it may be hallowed in us who are in Him, as well in all others for whom the grace of God is still waiting; Isaiah 30:18 that we may obey this precept, too, in praying for all, 1 Timothy 2:1 even for our personal enemies. Matthew 5:44 And therefore with suspended utterance, not saying, Hallowed be it in us, we say— in all.

Chapter 4. The Third Clause

According to this model, we subjoin, Your will be done in the heavens and on the earth; not that there is some power withstanding to prevent God's will being done, and we pray for Him the successful achievement of His will; but we pray for His will to be done in all. For, by figurative interpretation of flesh and spirit, we are heaven and earth; albeit, even if it is to be understood simply, still the sense of the petition is the same, that in us God's will be done on earth, to make it possible, namely, for it to be done also in the heavens. What, moreover, does God will, but that we should walk according to His Discipline? We make petition, then, that He supply us with the substance of His will, and the capacity to do it, that we may be saved both in the heavens and on earth; because the sum of His will is the salvation of them whom He has adopted. There is, too, that will of God which the Lord accomplished in preaching, in working, in enduring: for if He Himself proclaimed that He did not His own, but the Father's will, without doubt those things which He used to do were the Father's will; John 6:38 unto which things, as unto exemplars, we are now provoked; to preach, to work, to endure even unto death. And we need the will of God, that we may be able to fulfil these duties. Again, in saying, Your will be done, we are even wishing well to ourselves, in so far that there is nothing of evil in the will of God; even if, proportionably to each one's deserts, somewhat other is imposed on us. So by this expression we premonish our own selves unto patience. The Lord also, when He had wished to demonstrate to us, even in His own flesh, the flesh's infirmity, by the reality of suffering, said, Father, remove this Your cup; and remembering Himself, added, save that not my will, but Yours be done. Luke 22:42 Himself was the Will and the Power of the Father: and yet, for the demonstration of the patience which was due, He gave Himself up to the Father's Will.

Chapter 5. The Fourth Clause

Your kingdom come has also reference to that whereto Your will be done refers— in us, that is. For when does God not reign, in whose hand is the heart of all kings? Proverbs 21:1 But whatever we wish for ourselves we augur for Him, and to Him we attribute what from Him we expect. And so, if the manifestation of the Lord's kingdom pertains unto the will of God and unto our anxious expectation, how do some pray for some protraction of the age, when the kingdom of God, which we pray may arrive, tends unto the consummation of the age? Our wish is, that our reign be hastened, not our servitude protracted. Even if it had not been prescribed in the Prayer that we should ask for the advent of the kingdom, we should, unbidden, have sent forth that cry, hastening toward the realization of our hope. The souls of the martyrs beneath the altar cry in jealousy unto the Lord, How long, Lord, do You not avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth? Revelation 6:10 for, of course, their avenging is regulated by the end of the age. Nay, Lord, Your kingdom come with all speed—the prayer of Christians the confusion of the heathen, the exultation of angels, for the sake of which we suffer, nay, rather, for the sake of which we pray!

Chapter 6. The Fifth Clause

But how gracefully has the Divine Wisdom arranged the order of the prayer; so that after things heavenly— that is, after the Name of God, the Will of God, and the Kingdom of God— it should give earthly necessities also room for a petition! For the Lord had withal issued His edict, Seek first the kingdom, and then even these shall be added: Matthew 6:33 albeit we may rather understand, Give us this day our daily bread, spiritually. For Christ is our Bread; because Christ is Life, and bread is life. I am, says He, the Bread of Life; John 6:35 and, a little above, The Bread is the Word of the living God, who came down from the heavens. John 6:33 Then we find, too, that His body is reckoned in bread: This is my body. Matthew 26:26 And so, in petitioning for daily bread, we ask for perpetuity in Christ, and indivisibility from His body. But, because that word is admissible in a carnal sense too, it cannot be so used without the religious remembrance withal of spiritual Discipline; for (the Lord) commands that bread be prayed for, which is the only food necessary for believers; for all other things the nations seek after. Matthew 6:32 The like lesson He both inculcates by examples, and repeatedly handles in parables, when He says, Does a father take away bread from his children, and hand it to dogs? and again, Does a father give his son a stone when he asks for bread? For He thus shows what it is that sons expect from their father. Nay, even that nocturnal knocker knocked for bread. Luke 11:5-9 Moreover, He justly added, Give us this day, seeing He had previously said, Take no careful thought about the morrow, what you are to eat. To which subject He also adapted the parable of the man who pondered on an enlargement of his barns for his forthcoming fruits, and on seasons of prolonged security; but that very night he dies. Luke 12:16-20

Chapter 7. The Sixth Clause

It was suitable that, after contemplating the liberality of God, we should likewise address His clemency. For what will aliments profit us, if we are really consigned to them, as it were a bull destined for a victim? The Lord knew Himself to be the only guiltless One, and so He teaches that we beg to have our debts remitted us. A petition for pardon is a full confession; because he who begs for pardon fully admits his guilt. Thus, too, penitence is demonstrated acceptable to God who desires it rather than the death of the sinner. Moreover, debt is, in the Scriptures, a figure of guilt; because it is equally due to the sentence of judgment, and is exacted by it: nor does it evade the justice of exaction, unless the exaction be remitted, just as the lord remitted to that slave in the parable his debt; Matthew 18:21-35 for hither does the scope of the whole parable tend. For the fact withal, that the same servant, after liberated by his lord, does not equally spare his own debtor; and, being on that account impeached before his lord, is made over to the tormentor to pay the uttermost farthing— that is, every guilt, however small: corresponds with our profession that we also remit to our debtors; indeed elsewhere, too, in conformity with this Form of Prayer, He says, Remit, and it shall be remitted you. Luke 6:37 And when Peter had put the question whether remission were to be granted to a brother seven times, Nay, says He, seventy-seven times; Matthew 18:21-22 in order to remould the Law for the better; because in Genesis vengeance was assigned seven times in the case of Cain, but in that of Lamech seventy-seven times.

Chapter 8. The Seventh or Final Clause

For the completeness of so brief a prayer He added— in order that we should supplicate not touching the remitting merely, but touching the entire averting, of acts of guilt— Lead us not into temptation: that is, suffer us not to be led into it, by him (of course) who tempts; but far be the thought that the Lord should seem to tempt, as if He either were ignorant of the faith of any, or else were eager to overthrow it. Infirmity and malice are characteristics of the devil. For God had commanded even Abraham to make a sacrifice of his son, for the sake not of tempting, but proving, his faith; in order through him to make an example for that precept of His, whereby He was, by and by, to enjoin that he should hold no pledges of affection dearer than God. He Himself, when tempted by the devil, demonstrated who it is that presides over and is the originator of temptation. This passage He confirms by subsequent ones, saying, Pray that you be not tempted; yet they were tempted, (as they showed) by deserting their Lord, because they had given way rather to sleep than prayer. The final clause, therefore, is consonant, and interprets the sense of Lead us not into temptation; for this sense is, But convey us away from the Evil One.

I understand that. How about you? Do you need The Lord's Prayer to be dumbed down for those whose minds have been destroyed by the ignorance of our benighted age?

As a matter of fact, I remember asking about this in CCD class.

Chapter 9. Recapitulation

In summaries of so few words, how many utterances of the prophets, the Gospels, the apostles— how many discourses, examples, parables of the Lord, are touched on! How many duties are simultaneously discharged! The honour of God in the Father; the testimony of faith in the Name; the offering of obedience in the Will; the commemoration of hope in the Kingdom; the petition for life in the Bread; the full acknowledgment of debts in the prayer for their Forgiveness; the anxious dread of temptation in the request for Protection. What wonder? God alone could teach how he wished Himself prayed to. The religious rite of prayer therefore, ordained by Himself, and animated, even at the moment when it was issuing out of the Divine mouth, by His own Spirit, ascends, by its own prerogative, into heaven, commending to the Father what the Son has taught.

Chapter 10. We May Superadd Prayers of Our Own to the Lord's Prayer

Since, however, the Lord, the Foreseer of human necessities, said separately, after delivering His Rule of Prayer, Ask, and you shall receive; and since there are petitions which are made according to the circumstances of each individual; our additional wants have the right— after beginning with the legitimate and customary prayers as a foundation, as it were— of rearing an outer superstructure of petitions, yet with remembrance of the Master's precepts.

More from Tertullian:
(Seriously, the guy was prolific. There is a lot more where this came from.)

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Tertullian

The year 197 saw the publication of a short address by Tertullian, "To the Martyrs ", and of his great apologetic works, the "Ad nationes" and the "Apologeticus". The former has been considered a finished sketch for the latter; but it is more true to say that the second work has a different purpose, though a great deal of the ...

www.newadvent.org

www.newadvent.org/cathen/14520c.htm

CHURCH FATHERS: An Answer to the Jews (Tertullian) Chapter 1. Occasion of Writing. Relative Position of Jews and Gentiles Illustrated. It happened very recently a dispute was held between a Christian and a Jewish proselyte. Alternately with contentious cable they each spun out the day until evening. By the opposing din, moreover, of some partisans of the individuals, truth ... www.newadvent.org www.newadvent.org/fathers/0308.htm

CHURCH FATHERS: Apology (Tertullian) Chapter 1. Rulers of the Roman Empire, if, seated for the administration of justice on your lofty tribunal, under the gaze of every eye, and occupying there all but the highest position in the state, you may not openly inquire into and sift before the world the real truth in regard to the charges made against the Christians; if in this  ... www.newadvent.org www.newadvent.org/fathers/0301.htm

CHURCH FATHERS: On Idolatry (Tertullian) Chapter 1. Wide Scope of the Word Idolatry. The principal crime of the human race, the highest guilt charged upon the world, the whole procuring cause of judgment, is idolatry. For, although each single fault retains its own proper feature , although it is destined to judgment under its own proper name also, yet it is marked off ... www.newadvent.org www.newadvent.org/fathers/0302.htm

CHURCH FATHERS: The Prescription Against Heretics (Tertullian) Chapter 1. Introductory. Heresies Must Exist, and Even Abound; They are a Probation to Faith. The character of the times in which we live is such as to call forth from us even this admonition, that we ought not to be astonished at the heresies (which abound) neither ought their existence to surprise us, for it was foretold that ... www.newadvent.org www.newadvent.org/fathers/0311.htm

CHURCH FATHERS: A Treatise on the Soul (Tertullian) Chapter 1. It is Not to the Philosophers that We Resort for Information About the Soul But to God. Having discussed with Hermogenes the single point of the origin of the soul, so far as his assumption led me, that the soul consisted rather in an adaptation of matter than of the inspiration of God, I now turn to the other questions ... www.newadvent.org www.newadvent.org/fathers/0310.htm

CHURCH FATHERS: Scorpiace (Tertullian) Antidote for the Scorpion's Sting. Chapter 1. The earth brings forth, as if by suppuration, great evil from the diminutive scorpion. The poisons are as many as are the kinds of it, the disasters as many as are also the species of it, the pains as many as are also the colours of it. Nicander writes on the subject of scorpions, and ... www.newadvent.org www.newadvent.org/fathers/0318.htm

CHURCH FATHERS: On the Apparel of Women (Tertullian) Waiving the Question of the Authors, Tertullian Proposes to Consider the Things on Their Own Merits. Grant now that no mark of pre-condemnation has been branded on womanly pomp by the (fact of the) fate of its authors; let nothing be imputed to those angels besides their repudiation of heaven and (their) carnal ... www.newadvent.org www.newadvent.org/fathers/0402.htm

CHURCH FATHERS: On Baptism (Tertullian) Chapter 1. Introduction. Origin of the Treatise. Happy is our sacrament of water, in that, by washing away the sins of our early blindness, we are set free and admitted into eternal life! A treatise on this matter will not be superfluous; instructing not only such as are just becoming formed (in the faith), but them who, content with ... www.newadvent.org www.newadvent.org/fathers/0321.htm

CHURCH FATHERS: On the Flesh of Christ (Tertullian) This was written by our author in confutation of certain heretics who denied the reality of Christ's flesh, or at least its identity with human flesh— fearing that, if they admitted the reality of Christ's flesh, they must also admit his resurrection in the flesh; and, consequently, the resurrection of the human body after death. www.newadvent.org www.newadvent.org/fathers/0315.htm TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.