Several subscribers testified their sorrow for not having found a special prayer in our Imitation of the Gospels According to Spiritism*, a prayer for a habitual use in the morning and at night.
We must point out that the prayers in that book do not constitute a recipe that to be complete must contain a much larger number of prayers. They are part of the communications given by the Spirits; we gathered them in a chapter dedicated to the analysis of the prayer, as we added to each of the other chapters the communications that could be used as their references. By removing those that could be used in the morning and at night we did so on purpose to remove from our work a liturgical character, that being the reason why we limited ourselves to those that had a closer relationship with Spiritism. The others each person may find among those of their private cult. Despite that, and in order to attend a desire that was expressed to us, we provide below the ones that we believe to best attend the objective. We precede them, however, with some observations so that their reach can be better understood.
In the Imitation, number 274, we pointed out the need for the intelligible prayers. Someone that prays without knowing what is said gets into the habit of giving more importance to the words than to the thoughts; for that person it is the words that are efficient even without the participation of the heart. Therefore many consider to be free after reciting some words that subtract them from the need of improving themselves. It is like making a strange image of the Divinity, believing that God is satisfied with a few words more than with actions that attest a moral betterment. In fact, here is what St. Paul says about it:
“If I don’t understand the meaning of the words I am like a barbarian to the one to whom I speak and the one that speak to me will be a barbarian. If I pray in a language that I don’t understand my heart prays but my mind goes without a fruit. If you praise with the Spirit only how come one of those men that can only understand their own language will say Amen at the end of you prayer, considering that he cannot understand what you say? That does not mean that your prayer is not good but the others are not edified (St. Paul, 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, Chap. XIV, verses 11,14,16 and 17).”
It is impossible to condemn in a more formal and logical way the use of unintelligible prayers. One may be surprised by the fact that the authority of St. Paul is not so much taken into account in this matter whereas it is so much invoked in so many other points. The same could be said about the majority of the holy writers, considered as the lights of the Church, and whose precepts are all far from being implemented in practice.
An essential condition of the prayer, according to St. Paul, is that of being intelligible so that it may speak to our soul. For that it is not enough for the prayer to be said in the language understood by the one that prays for there are prayers in vulgar language that speak as much to the mind as it would do if spoken in a foreign language and for that very reason do not reach the heart because the rare ideas that they carry are frequently muffled by the super abundance of words and the mysticism of the language.
The main feature of the prayer is to be clear, simple and concise, without useless phraseology and the luxury of epithets that are nothing but sequin on a garment. Each word must have its reach, awake a thought, move on fiber, in a word must be food for thought. It is only with this condition that the prayer may reach its objective, otherwise it is only noise. Notice also the air of distraction and gibberish with which they are said most of the time! One can see the lips moving but by the expression of the face and tone of voice one can identify a purely mechanical act from which the soul remains indifferent.
The most perfect example of concision, in the case of prayer, is without doubt the Our Father Prayer, a true masterpiece of sublimity in its simplicity. In the most reduced form it summarizes all mankind’s duties to God, to oneself and one’s neighbors. Due to its very brevity, however, the profound meaning carried in the few words it contains escapes most people; the comments already made about it are not always live in one’s memory or are even unknown to the majority and for that matter it is generally said without the thoughts directed to the actual application of its parts. It is said like out of a recipe whose effectiveness is proportional to the number of times it is said. It is generally one of the cabalistic numbers three, seven or nine taken from the old belief in the virtue of numbers that are also applied in magical operations. Think or do not think in what you are saying but repeat the prayer so many times and that is enough. Now that Spiritism strictly repeals any efficacy attributed to words, signs and formulas, the Church accuses it of resuscitating old superstitious beliefs.
All former and pagan religions had their sacred and mysterious language, only intelligible to the initiated but whose true meaning was hidden to the general public that used to respect it in proportion to the lack of understanding. This could be accepted at the time of intellectual infancy of the masses but nowadays that those masses are spiritually emancipated the mystical languages make no sense any longer and constitute an anachronism; people want to see religious things as clearly as they see things in their civilian life; there is no more request to believe and pray but a need to understand why we do believe and what must be requested when praying.
Latin, of frequent use in the first days of Christianity, became the sacred language to the Church and it is due to a little prestige left to that language that the majority of those that don’t know it say the Our Father Prayer in that language other than in their own language.
One could say that the more value is given to something the least it is understood. Certainly it was not Jesus’ intent when dictating it and that was not St. Paul’s thought when he said: “For if I pray in a foreign language, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful.”** Even if in the absence of intelligence the heart always prays it would only be half-bad, however, unfortunately quite often the heart does not pray more than the Spirit. It the heart really prayed we would not see so many among those that pray a lot to find so little benefit, or not to be more benevolent or charitable or less defaming of their fellow human beings.
Made that point we say that the pest prayer to be said in the morning or at night is without doubt the Our Father Prayer, said with intelligence, from one’s heart and not only with the lips. In order to bridge the blank left in its concision we will add with, by advice and with the assistance of the good Spirits, a development to each proposition.
According to the circumstances and time available one can say the simple Our Father Prayer or with the added comments. One can also add some of the prayers contained in the “Imitation of the Gospels” from those that do not a special objective, like for example the prayer of the guardian angels and to the protecting Spirits #293; the one to keep the bad Spirits away #297, to our loved ones #358, to the suffering souls that request prayers #360, etc. It must be understood that this does not affect the special prayers of one’s cult and that there is no request from Spiritism for that to be renounced.
For those that request from us a line of conduct to be followed with respect to the daily prayers we advise each one to make their own collection appropriate to their own circumstances, to others and to those that have left Earth and develop or restrict them according to the occasion. Once a week, say on Sunday for example, one can dedicate a longer time to this and say all of them, be it in private or in a group, adding to that the reading of some passages of the Imitation of the Gospels and some other good instructions dictated by the Spirits. This is more specially addressed to persons that are repelled by the Church because of Spiritism and that do not feel a lesser need to connect to God through their thoughts.
With the exception of that case, there is nothing that preclude those that feel the need to assist on the days dedicated to their own cults to say, at the same time, some of the prayers related to their Spiritist beliefs. This can only contribute to elevate one’s soul to God by the union of thoughts and words. Spiritism is an intimate faith. It is in one’s hearts and not in exterior acts. It does not prescribe any action that may scandalize those that share this belief but it does recommend, on the contrary, one’s abstention in the Spirit of charity and tolerance.
In consideration and as a way of application of the preceding ideas we provide below the “Our Father Prayer” developed. If some people believe that here is not the adequate place for a document of such a nature we would remind them that our Spiritist Review is not a collection of facts only and that its scope involves everything that may help the moral betterment. There was a time that the only thing of interest to our readers was the cases of manifestations. Today, however, that the serious and moralizing objective of Spiritism is understood and appreciated, the majority of the followers seek here things that are more attractive to their hearts than to their minds.
Therefore those are the ones that we address at this time. We know that our work pleases many if not all through this very publication. That alone would have been sufficient to make us decide if we did not have other considerations about which we must keep our silence and that helped us decide to make it now rather than in another time.
* Later renamed The Gospel According to Spiritism (TN)
** Corinthians I, 14:14 (T.N.)
Our Father Prayer Developed
I. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name
We believe in you, our Lord, because everything reveals your power and your will. The harmony of the universe is the testimony of your wisdom, a prudence and providence that go beyond all human aptitudes; the name of a sovereignly great and wise being is inscribed in all works of creation, from the shoot of the weed and the minor insect to the orbs that move in space; we see the proof of a paternal solicitude everywhere and that is why the one that does not recognize you in your work is blind, the one that does not glorify you is proud and ungrateful is the one that does not praise you.
II.Your kingdom come
Lord, you gave mankind laws full of wisdom and that would bring happiness if they were observed. With those laws there would be the kingdom of peace and justice among them; they would help one another instead of harming as they do; the strong would support the weak instead of smashing them; they would avoid the wrongs that give rise to abuses and excesses of all kinds. All miseries down here come from the violation of your laws because there isn’t a single infringement that would not meet its fatal consequences.
You gave the animals the instinct that give them the limit of the necessary and they mechanically conform to that but to mankind, in addition to that instinct, you gave intelligence and reason; you also gave them the freedom of observing or infringing the laws that apply to them personally, that is, the freedom of choice between good and bad so that they may have the merit and responsibility of their own actions. Nobody can pretend ignorance of your laws because your paternal providence wanted them to be recorded in the conscience of each one, without distinction of cult or nationality. Those that violate them neglect you.
One day will come when everyone will practice them, as you promised. Disbelief will then have disappeared and everyone will acknowledge you as the Sovereign Lord of all things and the kingdom of your laws will be the kingdom on Earth. Please, Lord, speed up your arrival given mankind the necessary light beam to lead them in the path of truth.
III. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven
If submission is a duty of the son to the father, from the inferior to his superior, how much more must not be the submission of the creature to the Creator! Do as you wish, Lord, is to observe your laws and abide by them without moaning against your divine designs; mankind will submit to them when understand that you are the source of every wisdom and that without you nothing is possible; your will shall then be done on Earth as with the elected ones in heaven.
IV.Give us this day our daily bread
Give us the food to keep up with the strength of our body; give us also the spiritual food for the development of the Spirit.
The animal finds its pasture but mankind owns that to their own work and to the resources of intelligence because you created them free. You said: “By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread”.[1] By doing so you turned work into an obligation to lead them to provide the means of survival and well-being by exercising their intelligence, some by the physical others by the intellectual work. Without work they shall remain stationary and will not aspire the happiness of the superior Spirits. You help the person of good will that trusts you for what is needed but not the one that is complacent with idleness and that wanted to obtain everything effortlessly, and nor the one that seeks the superfluous.
How many fail due to their own negligence, improvidence or ambition and for not having been satisfied with what you have given them! These are the architects of their own misery and have no right to complain for they are punished by their own sins. But even those are not abandoned by you because you are infinitely merciful. You reach out to them with your helping hand allowing them to come back to you sincerely, like the prodigal son.
Before we complain about our fate let us question if that is not our own work. In every misfortune that comes to us let us ask if we were not able to avoid it; but let us also say that God gave us the intelligence to take us from the swamp and that it is up to us to make that work for us.
Considering that the law of work is the condition for mankind on Earth give us the courage to accomplish that; give us also the wisdom, providence and moderation so that we may not lose its fruit. Give us, Lord, the daily bread, that is, the means of acquiring the life needed things through work for nobody has the right to claim the superfluous. If work is impossible to us we trust our lives to your divine Providence.
If it is in your design to try us in the hardest trials, despite our efforts, we accept it as a fair atonement of faults that we may have incurred in this life or in the preceding ones because you are just; we know that there aren’t undeserved penalties and that you never punish without a reason.
Keep us, oh God, from feeding any envy towards those that have what we don’t, not even towards those that have the superfluous, even if we lack the necessary. Forgive them if they forgive the law of charity and love towards their neighbors that you taught them.
Keep also from our Spirits any thoughts of denying your justice when we see the prosperity of evil and the misfortune that sometimes upsets good people. We now know, thanks to the new lights that you wanted to give us that your justice is always accomplished and fails nobody; that the material prosperity of a bad person is transient as their physical existence and that it will entail terrible returns whereas the happiness reserved to the one that suffers with resignation will be eternal.
V. Forgive us our debts, as we have also forgiven our debtors
Each one of our breaches of your laws, Lord, is an offense to you and a new debt that sooner or later we will have to repair. We ask your infinite mercy for its remission with the promise that we will make efforts not to contract new ones.
You turn charity into an express law but charity is not only assistance to our neighbor in need; it consists also in forgiving and forgetting the offenses. How can we claim your indulgence if we fail her with those that brought us sorrow?
Give us, oh my God, the strength to muffle in our soul every resentment, hate and grudge; don’t allow that a sudden death may surprise us with a desire of vengeance in our heart. If it is in your plans to take us from here today allow us to present ourselves to you free from any animosity, like Jesus Christ, whose last words were in favor of his executioners.
The persecutions imposed on us by the bad ones are part of our earthly trials; we must accept them without complaint like every other trial and do not slander those that through their evilness open to us the path of eternal happiness for you told us through the mouth of Jesus: “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”[2] We must then bless the hand that humiliates us because the injuries of the body strengthen our soul and we shall be exalted as a consequence of our humility.
Blessed your name, Lord, for you have taught us that our fate is not inexorably determined after death; that in other existences we shall find the means for the repair and atonement of our past faults and accomplish in a new life what we could not have achieved in this one for our own betterment. That is finally the explanation to every apparent anomaly of life; it is the light cast upon our past and future, the amazing sign of your sovereign justice and your infinite benevolence.
VI. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil
Give us, Lord, the strength to resist the suggestions of the bad Spirits that may try to veer us off from the good path, inspiring in us good thoughts.
But we, ourselves, are imperfect Spirits incarnate on Earth to atone and become better. The primary cause of the evil is in us and the bad Spirits just take advantage of our bad and vicious inclinations through which they tempt us.
Each imperfection is an open door to their influence while they become impotent and renounce to any attempt against perfect creatures. Everything that we can do to keep them away shall be useless if we don’t oppose them with an unshakable determination on the good path and an absolute renunciation to evil. Hence it is against ourselves that we must direct all of our efforts and the bad Spirits will then naturally stay away because it is evil that attracts them while good repeals them.
Lord, sustain us in our weakness; give us the inspiration, through the voice of the guardian angels and the good Spirits, so that we can fix our imperfections so that we can shut to the impure Spirits any access to our soul.
Evil is not the result of your work, Lord, because the source of every good cannot engineer evil. We created it by trespassing your laws and by the bad use that we made of the freedom that you gave us. When mankind observe your laws evil will disappear from Earth as it has already disappeared from more advanced worlds.
Evil is not a deterministic need to anyone and it is only irresistible to those that embrace it with satisfaction. If we have the will to do it we can also do good. For that, oh my God, we ask your assistance and that of the good Spirits so that we can resist temptation.
VII. Amen
May our wishes come true, Lord! But we kneel before your infinite wisdom. Above all things that are we are not given to understand may your sacred will be done and not ours because we know that the only thing you want is our good and you know what is useful to us better than we do.
We address this prayer to you, oh my God, by ourselves, for every suffering soul, incarnate and discarnate, for all of our friends and enemies, for all of those that request our assistance. For all of them we ask for you mercy and blessings.
Note: Here we can mention something that we are thankful to God for and something that we would like to us for ourselves or someone else.
* Genesis 3:19 (TN)
** Mathews 5:6 (TN)