Teach Us To Pray

Together we pray:

Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:
The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth.
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,
now and for ever.
Amen.

–from A New Zealand Prayer Book


The Lord's Prayer is the prayer of a community, Fred Craddock writes: the prayer of a community (us, we) not of a private individual (I, me, mine), and the primary desire of the community is for the coming of the kingdom of God, the reign of God.

Shalom (the peaceable kingdom of God: home of peace, righteousness, satisfaction, completion, wholeness, health; kingdom of justice and mercy)

alecheim (be with you)

Shalom alecheim, peace be with you, suddenly saying it sounds like a radical act.

May the kingdom of God be with us, you and me.

The temptations: three in the desert - bread, authority/power, prestige/glory - and the last (save yourself - and us!)

are (as Edward Schweitzer pointed out) mirrored/reverse-order matched by the petitions of the Our Father:

give us each day our daily bread

your kingdom come

hallowed (revered) be your name

... [forgive us our sins] ...

Do not bring us to the time of trial - this, poignantly, before he faces his own death.

We will never lack God's sustaining presence as we seek his will and follow his way - as revealed in Jesus Christ.

Guidance, strength, and perseverance are given to us in the Holy Spirit.

Father, we pray - ABBA - provider, protector, an intimate address

Holy be your name - may it be revered by all people

May your saving reign begin now -

Provide us with life-sustaining bread, as you gave manna to the wanderers in the wilderness.

Reconcile us - may we be reconciled in right relationship to God and to each other.

Strengthen us - to persevere in the face of temptation, of doubt, of the impulse to turn away from following you.

Guide us - into your holy kingdom, your place of peace.

For yours is the life-giving kingdom and in the power of love is your glory. Amen.

Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus.

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God be in my head, and in my understanding.
God be in mine eyes, and in my looking.
God be in my mouth, and in my speaking.
God be in my heart, and in my thinking.
God be at mine end, and at my departing. Amen.

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To God the Father who loved us,
and made us accepted in the Beloved.
To God the Son who loved us,
and loosed us from our sins by his own blood,
To God the Holy Spirit
who sheds the love of God abroad in our hearts,
To the one true God be all love and all glory
for time and for eternity. Amen.

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(Prayers from the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of Ireland, 2004)

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