Luther had written hymns on the Commandments and the Creed by 1525, but more than a decade passed before he turned to the Lord's Prayer. The result, first printed in 1539, gives each petition a stanza: every stanza opens with a nearly literal line of the prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) and then explains it, so the singer both prays and learns what he is praying. The last stanza is on the Amen. It is the only hymn of Luther's, and the only hymn printed before 1570, that survives in the author's own handwriting, a manuscript of about 1538 now in Berlin. That page carries a melody in Luther's hand, crossed out and never used. The text was joined instead to a Dorian melody of the Bohemian Brethren, printed in their Czech hymnals between 1505 and 1519 and set in 1531 to Michael Weisse's German Lord's Prayer hymn; whether Luther or a Strassburg editor adapted it remains uncertain. Valentin Babst's 1545 hymnal placed a woodcut before the hymn showing Christians kneeling in prayer while the devil tries to disturb them. The English draws on Catherine Winkworth (1863) and F. Samuel Janzow. LSB appoints it as the Hymn of the Day for Rogate and suggests singing stanza 1, the stanza for the petition in view, and stanza 9.
Sung at Our Saviour
2026