Common Ground Song 56 ‘I bow my knee in prayer’
Words: Common Ground Editors (translated from ‘Carmina Gadelica’) / Music: traditional.  © Panel on Worship
YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00_n11ugBr8
Featured image: from https://mythought-filledjourney.blogspot.com/2013/ (original creator unknown)

This is a paraphrase of an old Celtic prayer, set to what is also said to be a traditional Gaelic tune (‘Dunning’). The performance linked above is the only one I found on YouTube. It is the same melody as in the book, but in the nature of this sort of chant (not a fixed time signature) the lengths of each note will vary from one singer to another. Nor are the words on screen, but they are audible.

The three verses are addressed differently. The first is in the first person: ‘I bow my knee…’ It is a brief Trinitarian creed, expressing faith in the Father/Creator, Son/Redeemer, and Spirit/Purifier. In prayer, we first of all humble ourselves before the mystery of God, however we understand God to be.

The second verse then addresses God directly: ‘Lord, through your anointed…’ ‘Anointed’ is a reference to the Messiah/Christ. So we ask the Father to give us, through his Son… what? ‘The fulness we long for, love and affection for our God, the smile and wisdom of God, the Grace of God’. This echoes Jesus’s teaching that if we seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness, anything else we ask in that spirit will be given us (Matthew 6:33). It is not wrong to ask for material things, but only what we feel we still need, once we know that we are accepted and loved by God and filled with his grace. When we are in that state of peace with him, our desires tend to be much more modest anyway.

The third verse is plural: ‘So may we live on earth’. After we come to God in humility, accept the good gifts he has to offer, then we can turn to others to pray and work together. How do we ask to live? ‘as saints and angels in heaven’. Meaning not that we desire to end this life on earth, yet, because as the text goes on, we want to live ‘each shade and light, each day and night’. Rather it is asking to have the sort of oneness of love and common purpose that we imagine the saints and angels have. St Paul wrote that he longed to stay on earth to do God’s will, yet also longed for the day when after this life he would see God in his fulness (Philippians 1:20-24). It is a balance to be prayerfully sought, neither to despise this earthly life that we have been given, nor to cling to it when the time comes to leave it. The final line wraps it all up: God, give us your Spirit’.

These, then, are the three steps in prayer: to come before God as we understand God to be; to seek the goodness that God offers before we ask anything more prosaic; and to seek to live in harmony with others as long as God grants us life.