Prayer of St. Patrick

Christ, be with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ where I lie, Christ where I sit, Christ where I arise,
Christ in the heart of every one who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every one who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
Salvation is of the Lord,
Salvation is of the Lord,
Salvation is of the Christ,
May your salvation, O Lord, be ever with us.

St. Patrick, 389-461

Oxford Book of Prayer, pg 129

Suffering

Lord, comfort the sick, the hungry
the lonely and those who are hurt and shut in on themselves,
by your presence in their hearts;
use us to help them in a practical way.
Show us how to set about this
and give us strength, tact and compassion.
Teach us how to be alongside them,
and how to share in their distress deeply in our prayer.
Make us open to them and give us courage to suffer with them,
and that in so doing we share with you in the suffering of the world
for we are your body on earth and you work through us.

Michael Hollings and Etta Gullick

Oxford Book of Prayer, pg 130

Long Loneliness #2

"I clung to the words of comfort in the Bible and as long as the light held out, I read and pondered. Yet all the while I read, my pride was fighting on. I did not want to go to God in defeat and sorrow. I did not want to depend on Him. I was like the child that wants to walk by itself, I kept brushing away the hand that held me up. I tried to persuade myself that I was reading for literary enjoyment. But the words kept echoing in my heart. I prayed and did not know that I prayed."

Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness, pg. 81 (italics added)

A Wesley Prayer

Thou art never weary, O Lord, of doing us good. Let us never be weary of doing thee service. But, as thou hast pleasure in the prosperity of thy servants, so let us take pleasure in the service of our Lord, and abound in thy work, and in thy love and praise evermore. O fill up all that is wanting, reform whatever is amiss in us, perfect the thing that concerneth us. Let the witness of thy pardoning love ever abide in all our hearts.

- John Wesley

Prayer of Good Courage

O God you have called us to ventures of which we cannot see the end, by paths never yet taken, through perils unknown. Give us good courage, not knowing where we go, to know that your hand is leading us, wherever we may go. Amen.

Kent Gustafson, Mountain Vespers

Native American Prayer

Great Spirit,
Give us hearts to understand
Never to take from creation's beauty more than we give,
Never to destroy want only for the furtherance of greed,
Never to deny to give our hands for the building of earth's beauty,
Never to take from her what we cannot use.
Give us hearts to understand
That to destroy earth's music is to create confusion,
That to wreck her appearance is to blind us to beauty,
That to callously pollute her fragrance is to make a house of stench,
That as we care for her she will care for us.
Give us hearts to understand
We have forgotten who we are.
We have sought only our own security.
We have exploited simply for our own ends.
We have distorted our knowledge. We have abused our power.
Great Spirit,
Whose dry lands thirst,
Help us to find the way to refresh your lands.
Great Spirit,
Whose waters are choked with debris and pollution,
Help us to find the way to cleanse your waters.
Great Spirit,
Whose beautiful earth grows ugly with misuse,
Help us to find the way to restore beauty to your handiwork.
Great Spirit,
Whose creatures are being destroyed,
Help us to find a way to replenish them
Great Spirit,
whose gifts to us are being lost in selfishness and corruption,
Help us to find the way to restore our humanity.

Author Unknown

http://www.eagleswingsministry.com/articles/poemsprayersponderings/prayer.pdf

Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardship as the pathway to peace.
Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His will; that I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with Him in the next. Amen


Reinhold Niebuhr

A Prayer From Jonah

This displeased Jonah terribly and he became very angry. 2 He prayed to the LORD and said, "Oh, LORD, this is just what I thought would happen when I was in my own country. This is what I tried to prevent by attempting to escape to Tarshish!– because I knew that you are gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in mercy, and one who relents concerning threatened judgment. 3 So now, LORD, kill me instead, because I would rather die than live!"



Jonah 4.1-3 (NET)

A Prayer for Translation

He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow
When I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou,
And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heart
Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing thou art.
Thus, always taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme
Worshipping with frail images a folk-lore dream,
And all men in their praying, self-deceived, address
The coinage of their own unquiet thoughts, unless
Thou in magnetic mercy to Thyself divert
Our arrows, aimed unskillfully, beyond desert;
And all men are idolaters, crying unheard
To a deaf idol, if thou take them at their word.

Take not, oh Lord, our literal sense. Lord in thy great,
Unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate.

C.S. Lewis

Oxford Book of Prayer
Pg. 70

I Tremble on the Edge of a Maybe

O God of beginnings
as your spirit moved
over the face of the deep
on the first day of creation,
move with me now,
in my time of beginnings,
when the air is rain-washed
the bloom is on the bush,
and the world seems fresh
and full of possibilities,
and I feel ready and full.
I tremble on the edge of a maybe,
a first time
a new thing,
a tentative start,
and the wonder of it lays its finger on my lips.
In silence, Lord,
I share now my eagerness
and my uneasiness
about this something different
I would be or do:
and I listen for your leading
to help me separate the light
from the darkness
in the change I seek to shape
and which is shaping me. Amen.

Excerpted from: Guerrillas of Grace by Ted Loder, 1984

"A Jacob Prayer"

Lord, I want to love you, yet I'm not sure.
I want to trust you, yet I'm afraid of being taken in.
I know I need you, yet I'm ashamed of the need.
I want to pray, yet I'm afraid of being a hypocrite.
I need my independence, yet I fear to be alone.
I want to belong, yet I must be myself.
Take me, Lord, yet leave me alone.
Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief.
O Lord, if you are there, you do understand, don't you?
Give me what I need but leave me free to choose.
Help me work it out my own way, but don't let me go.
Let me understand myself, but don't let me despair.
Come unto me, O Lord - I want you there.
Lighten my darkness - but don't dazzle me.
Help me to see what I need to do and give me strength to do it.
O Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief.

Bernard, SSF, The Oxford Book of Prayer
(Note: The title is not original to the prayer, it was added by Terence Fretheim, prior to discussing Gen 32.22-32.)

A Prayer for the Days of Awe

I am planning to post some prayers in the future and discuss the "problem of evil" as well. First, I would like to share the following literary piece, which I believe covers both of those topics. This article was written by Elie Wiesel, author of Night.

"Master of the Universe, let us make up. It is time. How long can we go on being angry?"

Follow the link to read the entire article:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9502E7D91F3AF931A35753C1A961958260

Hope Restored Through Remembrance

He has broken my teeth on gravel,
Has ground me into the dust.
My life was bereft of peace,
I forgot what happiness was.
I thought my strength and hope
Had perished before the LORD.

To recall my distress and my misery
Was wormwood and poison;
Whenever I thought of them,
I was bowed low.
But this do I call to mind,
Therefore I have hope:

The kindness of the LORD has not ended,
His mercies are not spent.
They are renewed every morning -- Ample is Your grace!
"The LORD is my portion," I say with full heart;
Therefore will I hope in Him.
The LORD is good to those who trust in Him,
To the one who seeks Him;
It is good to wait patiently
Till rescue comes from the LORD.

- Lamentations 3.16-26

A Time for Prayer

A too often neglected aspect of my relational being is that of prayer. It is most likely the case with many other believers. Certainly I am in constant dialogue with God, "Help!" Why?" "When?" "How?" "Where?" "What?" It often seems as I am an imposing journalist to God seeking answers to these questions! Beyond these prayers of questioning and petition however, my communication with the divine is not always constant. I try to make it a point to pray for others, I have found making a list for this most helpful. Along with my own words, I have found the words of others, reading them as a prayer to be another avenue of helpful communication with God. I do not have a formula or a model for prayer, but one can easily find numerous books on the subject. Some that I have found helpful include: A Primer on Prayer. Ed. Paul R. Sponheim. The Comeplete Works of E.M. Bounds on Prayer, and Richard Foster has a section on prayer in his book Celebration of Discipline. These books are just scratching the surface, but perhaps they will be helpful to any who are interested. One of the most profound statements I have heard on prayer comes from Dr. Doug Cullum. Dr. Cullum was speaking in chapel on Psalm 88, after the tragic death of a fellow classmate. He relayed these words, "...when life crumbles in...pray as you can, not as you can't." With those words in mind, I cling to the relationality with God that is possible through prayer, no matter what the prayer may be. I will be posting various prayers here daily, weekly, and monthly. My hope is that these prayers will be helpful as a means of communicating with God.

"I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me; I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, "Here I am, here I am," to a people that did not call my name."
- Isaiah 65.1-2

A Creation Prayer

Creator God,

We adore You for the music of all created things,

Earth to Heaven, Heaven to Earth,

The mustard seed to the crescent moon and the evening star,

The flower in the crag wall to the Perseid meteor shower,

All green and growing things,

The snow and cold and frosty things,

All that delights ear and eye,

And in every field and pond,

Creation's choral music,

The crickets, the loons, the rustling leaves, the cicadas,

For all these creatures we give You thanks, O Lord, amen.

- Peter ?