Trinity Sunday: Pastoral Prayer

Here’s a prayer for Trinity Sunday (the Sunday after Pentecost) from the Church of Scotland’s Starters for Sunday website. It was written by the Very Rev. John Chalmers.

Pastoral Prayer for Trinity Sunday

Almighty God known as wisdom before the dawn of creation,
Lord Jesus Christ – perfect love made flesh,
Holy Spirit of God – ever present,

O Hidden Source of Life wrapped up in perfect Trinity,
we meditate upon the great and gracious plan
which you have brought to pass,
that women and men like us should look beyond creation
to worship you the Creator of all things.

In the beginning,
You the uncreated
moved across the face of deep
and brought out space and time
and then material substance:
The atom and the molecule and the crystalline form:
Then the first germ of life
and the long upward striving of all things: that swim and creep and fly:
And then the miracle of intelligence and consciousness ;
The beginning of mystery and the building of the first altar;
And then the saying of the first prayer;

O hidden love of God,
forgive us for those times when we have taken this mystery for granted
and forgive us all the more
for the times when we thought that we had unravelled the mystery
and thought that we knew it all –
the how, the where and the why.

Almighty God, let us not harbour anything in our hearts
that might spoil our fellowship with you
or with one another;
work with us and within us:
            Do what you will with us;
            Make of us what you want of us;
            Change us as we need changed
            Use us as your will requires –
Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

~ Adapted from John Bailie “A Diary of Private Prayer” Thirteenth Day: Morning by the Very Rev. John Chalmers. It was posted on the Church of Scotland’s Starters for Sunday website. http://www.churchofscotland.org.uk/