21 October 2010

Prayer from my Father's Prayerbook

I have in my possession an old prayerbook of my father's.  Originally published in 1913, it was given to him as a first communion gift in the 20's.  He carried it with him throughout the Second World War.  I carried it with me for a while, but it is disintegrating.  I was going to publish some of its prayers alongside modern counterparts from prayer books given to my daughters, but then decided the exercise was pointless.  All of the very few readers of this blog already believe the older prayers are better, so writing posts illustrating that point seemed a waste of time.  Instead, for this week I'll do a few that seem to have no counterpart in the modern prayer books I know.

Act of Resignation to the Divine Will

O Lord my God, I now, at this moment, readily and willingly accept at Thy hand whatever kind of death it may please Thee to send me, with all its pains, penalties and sorrows.

2 comments:

Mary N. said...

I love old prayers!

My daughter is 7 and will be making her first Communion next spring. She has to learn the Act of Contrition and I was shocked when I read the modern version of this prayer. It doesn't resemble the one I learned as a child at all. The older prayers are far more beautiful and reverent. They get worse as the years go by!

Thank you for your prayers for my father and friend. I appreciate it!

Puff the Magic Dragon said...

I taught my daughters to say

"O,My God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, who art good and deserving of all my love.

I resolve, with the help of Thy grace to sin no more and avoid the near occasions of sin"

I personally find promising to sin no more just not right. It's like I'm setting myself up tp break a promise, which is a sin in itself I can't promise to sin no more because I know that I probably will, but I know I can try to sin less, so that is what I say instead