What is "thy" will?

I've started discussing Catholic culture on Wednesday's and I thought I'd talk about thee, thy and thou. This, of course, is not solely a Catholic issue.

In my church we still say,

Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven
...

I'm not sure who made the decision to do it that way. It may be no one. The Priest says, In the words our saviour taught us" and then begins "Our Father" after which the people take over and habit reigns.

In any case, why say it this way or some other way? As soon as you ask the question it rapidly gets complicated. A lot of people like the thys and the thous because it sounds formal and elegant and there is a fascinating irony in that. You can get some sense of why if you look at the French version of the prayer:

Notre Père qui es aux cieux,
que ton Nom soit sanctifié,
que ton règne vienne,
que ta volonté soit faite sur la terre comme au ciel.
...

I've emphasized the pronouns in French. Now if you have even grade school French you will probably remember that second person singular  personal pronouns come in two forms. There is the formal "vous" and the informal "tu".  You use "vous" to talk to the principal and "tu" to talk to your best friend.

And, as you'll note above, we use "tu" to talk to God. The whole point being that we are, thanks to Jesus, on intimate terms with God.

And such a distinction did once exist in English. There are still traces of this today: Thee was informal and ye was formal. And we see this today as in "Ye Olde Fudge Shoppe". We are less aware of the fact that "thy" was informal and "your" was formal.

So you can see the irony. "Thy" was originally chosen because it was informal and now it is opposed because it is thought to be too formal.

Where do I come down. I say "thy" every time I say the Our Father. For the most part I think that simplifying everything is pointless. I even think it is good because it forces people to try and figure things out. When I was kid,  a very famous line from Saint Paul was typically translated:

And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

And I sat there puzzled because as I understood it charity meant to give goods to the poor. So I asked my mother and she explained the deeper meaning of charity and how it had come to be debased over time by, oh the irony, "charities".

But it's not the hill I'm ready to die for. If everyone around me switched to you, I'd probably go with them, with maybe a little heel dragging.