27 January 2009

And speaking of Chemnitz' Church Order...

...it is striking to me that the Prayer of the Church in this particular order consists entirely of bids to pray for this or that need (for the church, for the state, for the needy, and against various catastrophes), and then wraps up:
Let every one present to God his own need and pray in the name of Christ at his command, where he said, "Everything which you pray in my name, believe, and it will be yours" and speak heartily the Our Father, etc.

This is quite like the bidding prayer that begins Lessons and Carols in the Anglican tradition and concludes with something like: Let us offer up these petitions to the throne of heaven in the words our Savior taught us. Something like that.

What I particularly like about this form of praying is that it shows how all the things for which we might ever need to pray are given us in the Lord's own "Lex orandi" - the prayer of all prayers, the Our Father.

1 comment:

J.G.F. said...

"These prayers and praises let us humbly offer up to the throne of heaven in the words which Christ Himself hath taught us..."

Kings College, Cambridge, this past Christmas. Have the recording.