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Hallo again to all. For many decades, at the end of public worship, it's been our custom to say silently what is called a Prayer of Self Oblation*. Written in Latin by King Henry VI, the English translation** is this:
The rhythmic lines — 'Do with me according to thy will, with mercy' — were for us the heart of the prayer. That we could ask God to shape us to his will, with a merciful understanding of all our foibles, foolishnesses, and sins, seemed utterly right. Occasionally the 'with mercy' italicised itself in our mind, since our lives, as years moved on, were certainly in need of it. Now after three decades, this small somewhat mysterious text of Henry VI — about 30 words whether in Latin or English — has remained a constant coda to our personal prayers.
A priest of our acquaintance uses, as his 'sig' this short phrase: 'Pray until something happens'. 'Something', of course, can be sometimes 'nothing', if God chooses to answers our prayers with a 'No'. But that simple 'Pray until something happens' energises us from time to time when our prayers begin to slip into some vaguely heavenward to-do list. So we carry on with our prayers until we see something in our world change. We try not to let up or give up. For in the end and at the end, there is prayer. Our language at our last hour, whether lisped aloud or heard only in our own minds, surely won't be about office memos or household projects (or, for heaven's sake, the Anglican Communion), but will be our heart's words to God. And the prayers of others — the milkie way, the bird of Paradise — will, please God, accompany our crossing over. Prayer and the deep mysterious chances of life that can alter our world in a second are the subjects of an essay by Jonathan Steinhart, MD: Jesus, Remember Me. This is Dr Steinhart's first article for Anglicans Online and we're delighted to publish it. See you next week. And pray until something happens. |
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