My brothers and sisters ... enough ... now!
The purpose of this thread was a request for prayer. Prayer comes in time-honored and glorified words, passed down to us through generations, from the mouths of Saints, hierarchs, and simple persons whose names even our hallowed traditions have lost.
Prayer also comes spontaneously, from one's deep-felt emotional response to a blessing from God or a trial visited upon us from God, from a desire or need to communicate with God in the most personal of ways - using one's own words and thoughts.
And, sometimes, prayer derives from some combination of those two forms - with neither the intent nor the effect of disrespecting spirituality, tradition, or praxis.
Have you not ever listened to a child pray? ... composing from deep within his heart, his mind, his soul. Can one not, as an adult, emulate that spontaneity, that absolute purity of spiritual emotion? Did not Our Lord encourage us to be as little children? He also said that when we pray, we should pray "Our Father, ..." - but we have not constrained ourselves in these two centuries since to that solitary prayer.
Never criticize that someone prays; that they do is, without question, a joyful noise unto the Heavens and I doubt muchly that God has deputed any of the angelic host to keep tabs on adherence to or deviation from formulaic script, the Words of Institution or other Sacramental forms aside (and, even then, one cannot deny the possibility that He can, if He so chooses, use oekonomia to right innocent error or supply omission).
Prayers for Einar in his discernment and a prayer that all will recollect our prayers in this season asking and granting forgiveness.
Many years,
Neil
