One of my favourite prayers in the Communion liturgy is the prayer for purity(called the prayer of preparation) that we say at the beginning. It never fails to pull my attention from the busy-ness of my life into a place of wanting (not always succeeding) to concentrate on God and to open myself to worship.
Here it is from Common Worship:
Almighty God,
to whom all hearts are open, all desires known,
and from whom no secrets are hidden:
cleanse the thoughts of our hearts
by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit,
that we may perfectly love you,
and worthily magnify your holy name;
through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
To me it seems to fall into three blocks, after the opening acknowledgment of the mightiness of God:
to whom all hearts are open, all desires known,
and from whom no secrets are hidden
cleanse the thoughts of our hearts
by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit
that we may perfectly love you,
and worthily magnify your holy name;
I often feel that I would love to have a thirty second pause after each block to meditate on the words.
Perhaps you might like to try that now - but maybe, as you will be using it individually and not for corporate worship, you could extend the time to two or three minutes.
The thought of God cleansing my heart takes my breath away.
Does anybody else love this prayer?
