www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Nice Orthodox Prayer for our children/young or older

O God, our heavenly Father, Who lovest mankind, and art most merciful and compassionate, have mercy upon our children, Thy servants, (their names), for whom I humbly pray Thee, and commend them to Thy gracious protection. Be Thou, O God, their guide and guardian in all their endeavors; lead them in the path of Thy truth, and draw them near to Thee, that they may lead a godly and righteous life in Thy love and fear; doing Thy will in all matters. Give them grace that they may be temperate, industrious, diligent, devout and charitable. Defend them against the assaults of the enemy, and grant them wisdom and strength to resist all temptation and corruption of this life; and direct them in the way of salvation, for the merits of Thy Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, and the intercessions of His Holy Mother, and Thy blessed saints. Amen.

Amen!

Thank you Alice...

AMEN!

Thanks

Rose:
What is the origin of this prayer: which prayer book is it taken from please?

While I am unaware of it's origins, it appears on many EC, EO, and Oriental sites - including jurisdictions and parishes of the Antiochian, Greek, Russian, Ruthenian, Melkite, and Malankara Churches.

Many years,

Neil

I have seen similar prayers but never this line before in my Orthodox prayer book version:

Miller,

I just checked on-line sites for all but 1 (Syro-Malankara) of the multiple jurisdictions that I cited above. All have that text, with a few very minor variations in the wording among them.

Many years,

Neil

I have not seen this before in a prayer either, but then I don't know a lot about liturgy.
Most prayers follow the formula ending with "in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Neil, you mentioned checking various web sites: can iask you what is the original Church Slavonic end of the prayer. Maybe it is just a bad tranlsation into English.

Halia,

I have no idea (and no knowledge of Church Slavonic). All the sites on which I found the prayer offered it in English. You'll note that, of those I referenced, only a few would have originally (if ever) used it in Church Slavonic.

I don't recollect that I saw anything which suggested that the prayer was recited in a formal liturgical setting. Rather, it appears to be a prayer intended for personal/daily/occasional use and I think that it was listed as such on several of the sites.

If you use the opening two lines (O God, our heavenly Father, Who lovest mankind, and art most merciful and compassionate, have mercy upon our children) as your search text on Yahoo, as I did, (or Google, if you prefer), you should receive a significant number of hits. They will include jurisdictional entries (eparchies, etc), parishes, unofficial EC/EO websites, and at least 1 personal website that doesn't appear to have any connection to Eastern/Oriental Christianity. There is also at least one Anglican (Anglo-Catholic, I believe) parish on which it appears.

I stopped reading after noting those I listed - all of which were either jurisdictions or parishes; it may well have appeared elsewhere (on sites of other Churches), were I to have searched further. Notably, there were at least four large groups - Ukrainians - EO or EC, Maronites, Alexandrians - Copt or Ethiopian, and Armenians, which didn't appear in my admittedly cursory review.

Many years,

Neil

For the benefit of those seeking to look further into this, the following are some of the sites on which the prayer text appears.

I recant my earlier remark that there were no Ukrainian sites which posted the prayer, having observed a UOC of USA parish which I hadn't noticed before. Note that the following is only a representative sample; for instance, the prayer has been published in the AOCANA's Mustard Seed on several occasions. No site, that I've observed, gives attribution to an author for the text.

ACROD
Prayer of Parents for Their Children - PDF Pg 3 [stnicholaserie.org] - St Nicholas Orthodox Church, Erie, PA

Anglican (Anglo-Catholic)
Prayer of Parents for Their Children [stjohnscamberwell.org.au] - St John's Anglican Church, Camberwell, Victoria, Australia

AOCANA
Prayer of Parents for Their Children [antiochian.org] - AOCANA website

GOAA
Parent's Prayer for Their Children [transchurch.org] - Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church, Lowell, MA

GOM - Canada
Prayer of Parents for Their Children [gocanada.org] - Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Toronto, Canada

Malankara Orthodox
Prayer of Parents for Their Children [indianchristianity.org] - Quilon Diocese

Melkite
A Prayer of Parents for Children [melkitechicago.org] - St John the Baptist Melkite Greek-Catholic Church, Northlake, IL

OCA
A Prayer of Parents for Their Children [sthermanoca.org] - St Herman of Alaska Orthodox Church, Littleton, CO

ROCOR
Prayer for Children [fatheralexander.org] - Bishop Alexander (Mileant) of Buenos Aires and South America

Ruthenian
Prayer of Parents for Their Children [montgomerybyz.org] - Byzantine (Ruthenian) Catholic Mission of Montgomery County, Gaithersburg, MD

UOC of USA
Prayer of Parents for Their Children [4evangelists.org] - 4 Evangelists Orthodox Mission Church, Bel Air, MD

It also appears on the following well-known, but unofficial, sites associated with Orthodoxy, among others (I have not listed several popular Eastern Christian blogs that also include it):

ComeandSeeIcons, OrthodoxNet, OrthodoxPhotos

Many years,

Neil

I was hoping that this thread would get more attention for its edifying content instead of the details of its translation, ( ) but anyway, here is the original site I got it from:

http://www.ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/prayers/

Here is another site which has a slightly different translation:

( throught the goodness of your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ )

http://www.transchurch.org/sguide/praybk.htm

In our newborn Christ,
Alice

P.S. Thanks for stepping in dear Neil, and also for all your research!

Alice,

I agree, heartily!

Many years,

Neil

Well I have shared it with many who were HEARTILY HAPPY to receive it

God bless you Alice!

ALICE:

Christ is born!! Glorify Him!!

I've always maintained that the best gift we can give our children and godchildren is to pray for them each day. This prayer is a good one to guide our thoughts for them to God.

In Christ,

BOB

I was able to discuss this topic with my priest and others over the recent Christmas holidays ending today on the Old Calendar.

My priest in particular pointed out that it is a "slippery slop" to use a bad translation of "through the grace of Jesus Christ" as "merits" because of all the historical arguments about the "merits" of Christ and the surplus of merits in Western Europe during the time of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation.
Adopting the use of the words "merits of Jesus Christ" could become a slippery slope to accepting other Roman Catholic theological arguments.
Speaking as an Orthodox Christian I believe it is good for us to stick to our Orthodox prayers and not adopt Roman Catholic terminology.
The fact that some Orthodox Churches, probably adopted this poor translation due to a poor understanding of the Engliah language does not take away from the issue.
I have no objection to the prayer itself but to the use of the term "merits" and I believe we Orthodox should stick to our own traditions.