Name your three favourite prayers, and explain why.
Tag five bloggers - give them a link, and then go and tell them they have been tagged.
Finally, tell the person who tagged you that you've completed the meme.
The Liturgy and the Sacraments are off limits here. MF is more interested in people's favourite devotional prayers.
I could make it more than three. If I were to do this, I would include the prayers incorporated in St Alphonsus Liguori’s meditations at the Stations of the Cross. Some are addressed to Jesus, and some to our Lady, and I find them quite haunting. I’d also include the Prayer to St Michael the Archangel, which seems to have such power within it. But these are my three, for the purposes of this meme:
The Our Father: because the Lord Himself gave it to us, therefore it is the best and most powerful prayer of all. The Holy Spirit inspires us to say it, and we speak our Lord Jesus’s own words, to our Father in Heaven. Perfect!
The prayer at the end of each Station’s meditation, which I often say as a separate prayer: “I love Thee, Jesus, my love above all things. I repent with my whole heart of having offended Thee. Never permit me to separate myself from Thee again. Grant that I may love Thee always; and then do with me what Thou wilt.”
Finally, I’d like to include a prayer that is so short and simple that it would, I suppose, be called an aspiration: simply the words, “Heavenly Father”. This is a prayer for times of extremity, as well as for those little expressions of love, those turnings toward the Lord that we make during the day. And I can attest that it’s just the thing when one is heavily sedated and being wheeled to the operating theatre; it is a lovely thing to go to sleep to.
I have managed to tag four bloggers, as follows, but I may be beaten to it:
Bob, of Bob’s Blog;
A Reluctant Sinner;
Paulinus from In Hoc Signo Vinces;
Fr Hunwicke, priest-in-charge of the Anglican church of S. Thomas the Martyr, Oxford, who has a most erudite blog. It is a joy to cheer him on, silently, from the wings, as he makes his journey in these momentous times.
Since so many bloggers have already been tagged, I think I should excuse my tag victims from finding any others, if they find they are struggling with it.
2 comments:
Thank you for tagging me - a first for my blog!
Yes, the prayer at the end of the Stations is one we can often forget, yet is so powerful! Thanks for reminding me of it!
Thank you Dorothy for inviting me to join the the prayer meme. Started by Mulier Fortis.
My favourite prayers, like yours are firstly the Our Father and secondly the prayer from the Stations of the Cross which came to mind immediately I received notification of your comment, on my blog.
Perhaps, not what some people would consider a prayer, a phrase I use extremely frequently is simply thank you. When waking up in the morning one of my first thoughts is to say thanks for a new day. Throughout the day, the good and bad and beauty and all the events of the day seem to demand a little thank you. Even when events seem not to be going the way I would wish, I know from experience that God always knows what's best and Thank You is still too made the most appropriate prayer. Sometimes after Holy Communion, the heart races and they are the only words which fill the mind.
Thank you Lord!
(I have also published this on my blog)
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