mangoe@mimsy.UUCP (Charley Wingate) (11/17/86)
[Here comes another mini-flood. I got buried this week. I really do intend to supply 24 hr turnaround. --clh] >I look at this prayer as more of a template, rather than a "mantra". >Jesus summarized all the different things we can talk to our Father >about. Well, the Anglicans, typically, try to have our cake and eat it too on this. The Lord's Prayer proper always appears in each service; if there is a eucharist, it appears as the last prayer before the bread is broken. If there is no eucharist, it always appears as the last prayer in the typical sequence of prayers in the service. Its liturgical purpose thereby is as a summary, or as a crown on the body of prayer. (Incidentally, one of the rare places in the 1979 BCP where the traditional and modern language run in parallel is in Eucharistic rite II, where both the traditional and ICET texts appear side-by-side. Hardly anyone uses the ICET text, regardless of its clarity, because it is so hopelessly clumsy. Another triumph of poetry over theology.) Eucharists, however, are generally required to have a section of petitionary prayers labelled "the Prayers of the People", which is followed by a general confession. These prayers expand the petitions of the Lord's Prayer into a skeleton of things to be prayed for. Seven forms are provided, or the leader can make things up as he or she goes along. Of the seven forms, none are outright bad; several are wonderful. I find this kind of directed prayer very helpful in simultaneously concentrating on the praying while at the same time being reminded of the sorts of things that need to be prayed for, and I feel that this is one of the purposes behind the Lord' Prayer. In this respect I think that the section in which the Lord's prayer appears indicates that prayers themselves are not to be treated like incantations. The exact form is utterly unimportant, while the content, both in word and attitude, are all-important. We should be careful not to mistreat the Lord's Prayer by taking it from this context and treating ITS words as magical! C. Wingate