We pray you not to look upon our guilt; forgive us every sin of thought, word, and deed; forgive our inner blindness, disbelief, doubt, feeble-mindedness, impatience, arrogance, evil desires, lust, secret envy, hate, resentment and our other sins.
From Chemnitz' Braunschweig Wölfenbüttel Kirchen Ordnung (1569):
I, a poor sinner, confess to God my Heavenly Father, that I (sad to say) have sinned terribly and repeatedly, not only committing external, gross sins, but much more inner, inborn blindness, faithlessness, doubt, faintheartedness, impatience, arrogance, evil lusts, covetousness, secret jealousy, hatred and discontentment, also other sins with which I in many different ways have trampled the most holy law of God with thoughts, gestures, words and deeds. My Lord and God knows my sin and I sadly cannot recognize them so completely. Therefore I am sorry for them and heartily desire grace from God through His dear Son Jesus Christ, and plead that he would grant to me his Holy Spirit for the improvement of my life.
Sehr interessant, nicht Wahr?
3 comments:
Pastor Weedon,
I really like the Chemnitz prayer of 1569!!! It really cuts to the matter and lays everything bare before God. But since God knows this already, it becomes like Adam in the Garden where we begin to 'recognize' or 'realize' where we are, since He already knows where we are in our journey!!
Thanks,
YIC,
Darian L. Hybl
And another AHA for me as well! I am to forgive others all these things as well. Even when I think I do, I obviously don't.
Thank you for posting this. I prayed it last Saturday and did not have that aha then. ;-)
Isn't it great to see the liturgy forming the prayer life during the week -- even if it is a 16th century example (and what a beautiful example!)?
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