April's Tomes on Prayer

Parson Tom’s Tomes                                           Prayers. 

We are centered on prayers There is the Prayer Book where we say the prayers which have a long history in the faith, Prayers that Jesus taught us (The Lord’s Prayer), prayers of St Simeon (Lord let your servant now depart in peace as you have promised)  Prayers of St. John Chrysostom (Almighty God, you have given us grace at this time with one accord), Prayers of St. Francis (Lord make us instruments of your peace), John Henry Newman (O Lord, support us all the day long); prayers written over the centuries and which still strike a chord in our hearts. In recovery groups meeting here they offer a prayer (God grant me the serenity). 

We have prayers on the prayer chain (e.g. Henry’s second cousin Bill is going into surgery and he is worried)  where a group of people agree to pass on prayers in whatever way they think they can be faithful to the request.  We already have a book where people can list their intercessions and thanksgivings which are read during the daily and weekly services. 

R.S. Thomas (29 March 1913 – 25 September 2000) Welsh Poet and Anglican Priest

There is a box in the Narthex where people slip slips of paper with a request for a prayer for my intercession.  The pain in these notes drive me to  just come in to the sanctuary when it is empty and just be still and feel the presence of the Lord in silence,  just listening - to use the phrase by R. S. Thomas, my favorite modern Poet/Priest,  in The Church: “To the air recomposing itself/ For vigil.” And in another poem,” Kneeling”:  “all that close throng of spirits waiting, as I/ . . . The meaning is in the waiting”. It is those I offer up without saying a word out loud but with heart and soul lifted to the Throne of Grace, and as he wrote in Waiting for it, ”Now/in the small hours/ of belief the one eloquence/ to master is that/ of the bowed head, the bent/ knee, waiting, as at the end/ of a hard winter/ for one flower to open/ on the mind’s tree of thorns.” 

Herbert Window in Salisbury Cathedral

I am always drawn back to the 17^th century Priest/Poet George Herbert and his poem Prayer:

Prayer the church's banquet, angel's age,

         God's breath in man returning to his birth,

         The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,

The Christian plummet sounding heav'n and earth

Engine against th' Almighty, sinner's tow'r,

         Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,

         The six-days world transposing in an hour,

A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;

Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,

         Exalted manna, gladness of the best,

         Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,

The milky way, the bird of Paradise,

         Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul's blood,

         The land of spices; something understood.

Shalom: May your Lent continue to be blessed and your Easter Rising into new life be joyful.