Wednesday, April 3, 2019

John Calvin's prayer before going to work

Prayer [to be said before doing one's work]

     "Our good God, Father and Savior, since You have pleased to command us to work to meet our needs, by Your grace may You so bless our labor that Your benediction may extend to us:  without it we cannot continue to live.  And may [Your] favor serve us as a witness of Your goodness and presence, that by it we may recognize the fatherly care You have for us.

     "Moreover, O Lord, please grant us aid by Your Holy Spirit, so that we may faithfully work in our place and vocation, without any fraud or deception; may we pay attention to following Your ordinance rather than satisfying our own lust for gain.  And if it please You to prosper our labor, may You also give us the heart to support those who are in need according to the ability You have given to us—but always without our wishing to set ourselves above those who have not received such generosity from You.  And where You choose to give us greater poverty and lack than our flesh would like, You, O Lord, grant us the grace to acknowledge that You always feed us by Your goodness, so that we may not be tempted to defy You.  But may we wait with patience for You to fill us not only with Your temporal graces but also with spiritual ones, so that we may always have greater reason and occasion to thank You and to repose entirely on Your goodness alone.  Hear us, most merciful Father, by Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord.  Amen."

     John Calvin:  writings on pastoral piety, ed. Elsie Anne McKee, Classics of western spirituality:  a library of the great spiritual masters (New York:  Paulist Press, 2001), 215-215.  According to McKee  (210), this, the second of the two such prayers (hence the square brackets in the heading), appeared first in  L'ABC françois of 1551 (I know of only the 1553 online (which doesn't contain the prayer), though there does seem to be a 1551 in the full-text  Brill collection Huguenots Online), and then again in "some [1561] editions of the liturgy and catechism", including the 1561 Forme des prières.  Cf. CO 6 =CR 34, 137-138, where it appears as a variant.  John H. Leith reproduced the so-called Beveridge translation in The Christian life (Cambridge, MA:  Harper & Row, Publishers, 1984), 79-80, as follows, though I have yet to find it in the work cited by Leith, Beveridge's 19th-century edition of the Tracts and treatises:

     "Our good God, Father and Savior, since thou hast commanded us to work in order to meet our needs, sanctify our labor so that thy blessing extends even to us, without which no one can ever prosper well.  Let such favor attend us as a witness of thy goodness and help, making us aware through it of the fatherly care thou hast for us.  Also, Lord, be pleased to assist us through the Holy Spirit to the end that we are able faithfully to fulfill our calling without any deceit or fraud, that we regard ourselves as following thy law rather than fulfilling our desire to enrich ourselves.  Nevertheless, let it please thee to prosper our labor.  Give thou also to us a good heart to supply those who are poor, maintaining us in all humility to the end that we may never exalt ourselves over those who have not received such largesse from your liberality.  Now if thou should call us into greater poverty or need than we humanly desire, let us not sink into defiance but rather let us wait patiently for thee to replenish us not only with temporal grace but also with thy spiritual grace to the end that we may always have more ample cause and occasion to thank thee and to rest entirely upon thy goodness.  Grant this to us, Father of all mercy, through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Savior.  Amen."
   

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