The Collect for the Day

The collect for the week from the Book of Common Prayer¹ reads:

Almighty and merciful God, in your goodness keep us, we

pray, from all things that may hurt us, that we, being ready

both in mind and body, may accomplish with free hearts

those things which belong to your purpose; through Jesus

Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy

Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

I love the BCP collects.  It may be that a single week’s offering may not hit home every time.  But, over the course of the year this series of prayers takes in a lot of human experience.  Even setting aside the collects for high holy days, there are still roughly 45 weekly petitions that do a marvelous job of linking humankind and Almighty God.

And, I like this one.  It is simple and direct.  It sums up a lot of what faithful people place before God every time we pray.  “…keep us…from all things that may hurt us…that we…may accomplish…those things which belong to your purpose.”  Deliver us from evil.  Thy kingdom come.  When you strip away a lot of our selfishness, this is the essence of our prayers’ content.  Now surely, the purpose or nature of prayer is to bring our spirits in communion with God’s Spirit.  But these words are pretty basic: “keep us from harm, that we may serve God.”

Good words.

¹from The Book of Common Prayer,

Copyright 1979 by Seabury Press.