Category: Belief

I recently became familiar with the late Rev. Ian Cowie’s excellent meditation (from here and here) on St. Patrick’s Breastplate.

Meditation on St. Patrick’s Breastplate

Christ behind me.
Christ before me.
Christ beside me.
Christ between us.
Christ beneath me.
Christ above me.
Christ within me.

Christ behind me. In the past, all that has been good is in His keeping. I need no regrets, no mementoes. 
I can let go of all that was good, knowing that it is precious to Him.
 Give thanks to God for all His goodness.
All that was bad, hurtful, shameful, I consign into the depths of His mercy. All the hurt which I have caused, all the hurt which others have caused me,
 I lay at the foot of His cross. May the Lord have mercy on us all.

Christ before me. He is the Way stretching before me, 
from where I am now 
from this actual situation I am in,
 right home to our Father’s house.
 He is the Way, the Way prepared. 
He has gone ahead into tomorrow to make it ready.
 The future is a journey home.
 Through all the dark valleys He will guide 
and He will provide times when my cup of happiness will overflow.
 I face the future knowing the Way.

Christ beside me. “I am with you always.”
 He is in this situation, sharing it with me now.
 His strong shoulder is under the burden I carry.
 Every joy and every sorrow He shares with me.
 He will not fail me, nor forsake me.
 Nothing can separate me from His love.

Christ between us. To sever and to reconcile, to shield us
 from the sin in one another.
 To bless all that is good and true. To cleanse from pride, possessiveness, 
lust. To give laughter, tears, understanding and peace.

Christ beneath me. Underneath are the everlasting arms, 
cherishing, upholding.
 When I fall, it is into His arms that I fall. 
And He will lift me up again.
 His strength undergirds my weakness.

Christ above me. As a hen gathers her chicks 
so His love is spread over me,
 comforting me, shielding me.
 I claim His protection from all attack and oppression.
 Under the shadow of His wings I am safe.
 And in Him will I trust.

Christ within me. I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me.
 My body is Christ’s body, 
bone of His bone, flesh of His flesh.
 By the bread broken and the wine poured out,
 I know that You, Lord, are in me and I in You.
 You will accomplish the work that You have for me to do, 
and Your grace is sufficient for me.

Christ behind me in the past, before me in the future, beside me in the present, beneath me to support me, above me to shield me, within me filling my life. Thus enfolded, armed and led, I go forth in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

(This meditation was written by the Reverend Ian Cowie of the Scottish Centre of Healing, Edinburgh, Scotland.)

The Southwell Litany has been a helpful prayer for me:

A LITANY FOR THE PERSONAL LIFE

It has been found helpful to have the petitions of this litany said quite slowly, with a brief silence after each suffrage or response.

Let us pray:

O Lord, open our minds to see ourselves as thou seest us, or even as others see us and we see others, and from all unwillingness to know our infirmities,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

From moral weakness of spirit; from timidity; from hesitation, from fear of men and dread of responsibility, strengthen us with courage to speak the truth in love and self-control; And alike from the weakness of hasty violence and weakness of moral cowardice,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

From weakness of judgment; from the indecision that can make no choice; from the irresolution that carries no choice into act; and from losing opportunities to serve thee,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

From infirmity of purpose; from want of earnest care and interest; from the sluggishness of indolence, and the slackness of indifference; and from all spiritual deadness of heart,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

From dullness of conscience; from feeble sense of duty; from thoughtless disregard of consequences to others; from a low idea of the obligations of our Christian calling; and from all half-heartedness in our service for thee,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

From weariness in continuing struggles; from despondency in failure and disappointment; from overburdened sense of unworthiness; from morbid fancies of imaginary back-slidings, raise us to a lively hope and trust in thy presence and mercy, in the power of faith and prayer; and from all exaggerated fears and vexations,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

From self-conceit, vanity, and boasting; from delight in supposed success and superiority, raise us to the modesty and humility of true sense and taste and reality; and from all the harms and hindrances of offensive manners and self-assertion,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

From affectation and untruth, conscious or unconscious; from pretence and acting a part which is hypocrisy; from impulsive self-adaptation to the moment in unreality to please persons or make circumstances easy, strengthen us to manly simplicity; and from all false appearances,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

From love of flattery; from over-ready belief in praise; from dislike of criticism; from the comfort of self-deception in persuading ourselves that others think better than the truth of us,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

From all love of display and sacrifice to popularity; from thought of ourselves in forgetfulness of thee in our worship; hold our minds in spiritual reverence; and in all our words and works from all self-glorification,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

From pride and self-will; from desire to have our own way in all things; from overweening love of our own ideas and blindness to the value of others; from resentment against opposition and contempt for the claims of others; enlarge the generosity of our hearts and enlighten the fairness of our judgments; and from all selfish arbitrariness of tempter,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

From all jealousy, whether of equals or superiors; from grudging others success; from impatience of submission and eagerness for authority; give us the spirit of brotherhood to share loyally with fellow-workers in all true proportions; and from all insubordination to law, order, and authority,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

From all hasty utterances of impatience; from the retort of irritation and the taunt of sarcasm; from all infirmity of temper in provoking or being provoked; and from all idle words that may do hurt,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

In all times of temptation to follow pleasure, to leave duty for amusement, to indulge in distraction and dissipation, in dishonesty and debt, or to degrade our high calling and forget our Christian vows, and in all ties of frailty in our flesh,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

In all times of ignorance and perplexity as to what is right and best to do, do thou, O Lord, direct us with wisdom to judge aright, order our ways, and overrule our circumstances as thou canst in thy good Providence; and in  our mistakes and misunderstandings,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

In times of doubts and questionings, when our belief is perplexed by new learning, new thought, when our faith is strained by creeds, by doctrines, by mysteries beyond our understanding, give us the faithfulness of learners and the courage of believers in thee; alike from stubborn rejection of new revelations, and from hasty assurance that we are wiser than our fathers,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

From strife and partisanship and division among the brethren, from magnifying our certainties to condemn all differences, and from all arrogance in our dealings with all men,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

Give us knowledge of ourselves, our powers and weaknesses, our spirit, our sympathy, and imagination, our knowledge, our truth; teach us by the standard of thy Word, by the judgments of others, by examinations of ourselves; give us earnest desire to strengthen ourselves continually by study, by dilligence, by prayer, and meditation; and from all fancies, delusions, and prejudices of habit, or temper, or society,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

Give us true knowledge of our brethren in their differences from us and in their likenesses to us, that we may deal with their real selves, not measuring their feelilngs by our own, but patiently considering their varied lives and thoughts and circumstances; and in all our relations to them, from false judgments of our own, from misplaced trust and distrust, from misplaced giving and refusing, from misplaced praise and rebuke,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

Chiefly, O Lord, we pray thee, give us knowledge of thee, to  see thee in all thy works, always feel thy presence near, to hear and know thy call. May thy Spirit be our will, and in all our shortcomings and infirmities may we have sure faith in thee,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

Finally, O Lord, we humbly beseech thee, blot out our past transgressions, heal the evils of our past negligences and ignorances, make us amend our past mistakes and misunderstandings; uplift our hearts to new love, new energy and devotion, that we may be unburdended from the grief and shame of past faithlessness to go forth in thy strength to persevere through success and failure, through good report and evil report, even to the end; and in all time of our tribulation and in all time of our prosperity,

Save us and help us, we humbly beseech thee, O Lord.

Source: here

Note: Google reveals a few other web pages with versions of the Southwell Litany, but each one I have reviewed varies significantly from the 1968 Forward Movement pamphlet. The version in the pamphlet seems more likely to be the original text, and so I have reproduced here.