I was first taught the Lord’s Prayer sometime in September 1973 when I began first grade at St. Bernard’s School up on Ninety-eighth Street. It would not be an outrageous overstatement for me to claim that I have said that prayer almost every day during the intervening thirty nine years. I wear it as part […]
Sermon Topic: Prayer Series
And Forgive Us Our Trespasses...
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Over the forty years of my life as a priest, the issues raised by this sentence in the Lord’s Prayer have been among those matters most regularly […]
Adoration and Praise
“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created” [i] Today in our series of sermons on prayer we come to adoration and praise. For several years I went to a Church Conference in England. We […]
Thanksgiving
I am a lifelong Episcopalian and a priest in the church. When I was told that my sermon was part of a series of sermons on prayer and that my particular topic was thanksgiving, the first thing that popped into my head was the Holy Eucharist (commonly called Holy Communion or the Mass). The word […]
Penitence
In the Name of God: Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen. I’m trying not to take it personally that I’ve been assigned the Sunday when we talk about penitence. But I can’t help but wonder: is it because I’m seen as especially familiar with repentance? Or more pointedly: that I should be especially familiar with […]
Petition and Intercession
There are two forms of prayer that seem to be nothing more than asking God for stuff. They are petition; that is, asking God for stuff on our own behalf; and intercession, asking God for stuff on behalf of another person. Both forms are good and commendable. Though, on the surface, they appear to be […]
But Deliver Us from Evil
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen. “Deliver us from evil” is the last petition of the Lord’s Prayer before the Doxology, “For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.” Sometimes, as in Choral Evensong, the Lord’s Prayer […]
For Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory...
Are “the kingdom, and the power, and the glory” three things or one thing? The traditional wording suggests that they are one thing: we say, “For thine is . . .”—using the singular verb “is” to cover kingdom and power and glory. But in a contemporary version, you will hear: “the kingdom, the power, and […]
Thy Kingdom Come
It was a month or so ago that this course began with a fine foundation-sermon by my colleague Father Victor Austin explaining prayer itself. It was clear, brief to the point of sparseness. I was helped as I listened. And I remembered the simplicity of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, who in a three-part […]
Thy Will Be Done, on Earth as it is in Heaven
With this line, “thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” the Lord’s Prayer wraps up its first section by repeating the word that appeared at the end of the first line, “heaven.” We can feel the point, I think, by comparing the Prayer as we pray it, which is largely the […]
