Over the next few months we will regularly share favorite prayers from our Book of Common Prayer (BCP). If you have a favorite you’d like to recommend, please let me know! ([email protected])
Today’s prayer is from Marcia Wallace, and it can be found near the end of the Compline service, pp. 127-135 of the BCP:
Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love’s sake. Amen. (BCP, p. 134)
Marcia says: “The entire prayer is beautiful, and I pray it many times for friends who are grieving or suffering in a variety of ways, But the line that strikes me the most is ‘… shield the joyous.’ I am extremely grateful that my two daughters clearly exhibit a spirit of pure joy in their lives, and with them both being over 1000 miles away, in Minnesota, this prayer allows me to ask God to preserve that spirit in their hearts, despite the difficult circumstances they might encounter in their personal lives and/or in the world around them. It is not asking that nothing bad ever happens to them (or to anyone else), but that as they deal with life as it comes, that core response of joy will remain unchanged.”
May it be so for us all!
