THE FIRST PETITION

Travelling for a conference has the virtue of jet-lag. One wakes up at 4.30 a.m. and has time to think, meditate, pray and generally attend to things that usually fall by the wayside. What presented itself this time was, as so often, the Lord's Prayer, and notably the First Petition:  sanctificetur nomen tuum, "hallowed be Thy Name". 
A syllogism presented itself. Premise 1: Christ tells us, on a number of occasions, that if we pray for the right things, they will be granted to us. "Knock, and it shall be opened; ask, and you shall receive." If you are capable of giving your child bread when he asks, and not a stone, "how much more" will your Father give if you ask. Understood always is, "if you ask for the right thing, and preferably in the right way" (I don't think the latter is mandatory -- even crude ejaculations are accepted -- it's not a magic spell that has to be right in every word). 
Premise 2: Christ, when asked, told the disciples how to pray: the Pater Noster. Endless ink has been spilt on the Pater; but what struck me this time was its status as Premise 2, which with Premise 1 leads to a Conclusion: a Conclusion with several layers and articulations. In the first place, the major conclusion is that if we pray as Christ taught, if we pray the Pater Noster with all our heart, it will be granted, we will receive neither stone nor scorpion. 
BUT -- that raises new problems, especially concerning the first two petitions. Let us look at these, in this light. Sanctificetur nomen tuum, Hallowed be thy Name. Quite apart from the cultural difficulties, for a 21st-century person, of the "Name" (see Athanasius Kircher's diagram of the Names of God, above), this contains a number of questions. Most importantly, in this context, it sounds like a wish: a wish for God's Name to be to be hallowed -- to be held holy, to be acknowledged -- universally, throughout all the world. Noble, of course, and pious; but not something that we can count on being granted -- so not consistent with Premise 1. 
The Church, these days, tends to overcome such optatives by turning them back on us and changing them into imperatives: it's a task, it's up to us. Noble, but hardly a comfort; and we are told, and shown, throughout the Bible that to pray is to ask for something -- even insistently. So how can "Hallowed be thy Name" be a request? 
Perhaps what, in the First Petition, we are asking for is Faith -- the faith to fulfil the First Great Commandment, to love The Lord our God with all our heart, and all our soul, and all our mind, and all our strength. So whether I pray individually, or we pray communally, "hallowed be thy Name" might then mean a petition that whoever is praying may be granted the faith to fulfil that Commandment.. That is all -- it isn't a pious wish for the world -- but that is already immense, and worthy of standing at the head of all we pray for.