Most of the phrases from the Pater Noster, the
Lord's Prayer, pop up in Ulysses. The intent is
never devotional. Like a song that has been heard too many
times, this staple of the Christian liturgy seems capable of
inspiring only parody or mockery in Dubliners.
Some references to the prayer are frankly hostile. In Telemachus
Mulligan notes that "The aunt always keeps plainlooking
servants for Malachi. Lead him not into temptation."
In Lotus Eaters Bloom looks about him in the church
and thinks, "Blind faith. Safe in the arms of kingdom
come." And when Bloom is immolated by the
Inquisition in Circe, Brother Buzz delivers him to
the executioners while sanctimoniously intoning, "Forgive
him his trespasses."
Bloom often quotes phrases from the prayer in the same
childlike, whimsical spirit that he brings to nursery rhymes
and advertising jingles. In Calypso he thinks of
Boland's breadvan "delivering with trays our daily
but she prefers yesterday's loaves turnovers crisp crowns
hot." In Eumaeus the smell of James Rourke's bakery
brings back the phrase "our daily bread, of
all commodities of the public the primary and most
indispensable." Later in the chapter he transforms the cliché
into "give us this day our daily press."
These recollections of an overused phrase are quite lame, but
Bloom is in better form in Calypso when he notes the
perverse fact that watering something will bring on a
rainstorm: "Watering cart. To provoke the rain. On
earth as it is in heaven."
The "Our father who art in heaven" that begins the prayer
regularly makes characters think of absent patriarchs that are
all too human. In Hades Bloom remembers his suicidal
father's request that he should take good care of his dog
Athos, a "last wish" presumably honored by his son: "Thy
will be done." Stephen imagines Shakespeare as a
bitter ghost who demands that his murderous will be done by
his son on earth: "Our Father who art in purgatory.
Khaki Hamlets don't hesitate to shoot." Boody Dedalus,
starving at home with her sisters, speaks of "Our
father who art not in heaven." Simon's name is not
hallowed in his own house. He is in some bar or other,
supplying no daily bread for his children.
Joyce continued to play games with the Pater Noster
in Finnegans Wake. Book 1 chapter 5 opens with an
invocation of a female deity:
"In the name of Annah the Allmaziful, the Everliving, the
Bringer of Plurabilities, haloed be her eve, her singtime
sung, her rill be run, unhemmed as it is uneven!" And a
parody by Senan Molony, reproduced here, shows that all of us
can keep worshiping in this church.
