This is one of my favourite prayers. As I read it, I picture a family, father, mother, several children, and perhaps grandparents, sitting around a table in reverent attitude as one of their members thanks and beseeches God in this perfect prayer of thanksgiving and intercession. It would be equally suitable for our church family as we assemble each Sunday for worship.
Lord, behold our family here assembled. We thank thee for this place in which we dwell; for the love that unites us; for the peace accorded to us this day; for the hope with which we expect tomorrow; for the health, the work, the food, and the bright skies, that make our lives delightful; for our friends in all parts of the earth.
Let peace abound in our small company. Purge out of every heart the lurking grudge. Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere. Give us the grace to accept and to forgive offenders. Forgetful ourselves, help us to bear cheerfully the forgetfulness of others.
Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind. Spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies. Bless us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavours. If it may not, give us strength to encounter that which is to come, that we may be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath, and in all changes of fortune and down to the gates of death, loyal and loving one to another.
As the clay to the potter, as the windmill to the wind, as children of their sire, we beseech of thee this help and mercy for Christ’s sake. Amen.