'All our sins, negligences, and ignorances': Penitence and the Prayer Book
We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.
That the Litany draws to a close with this petition, that it is our final petition, reflects Our Lord's words: "So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants".
Morning Prayer has been said. Prayer and praise has been offered. The holy Scriptures have been read. The Litany has been said, with its petitions for all sorts and conditions. And after all this, we remain "unprofitable servants", who must seek forgiveness for our sins and grace for amendment of life.
That it may please thee to give us true repentance ...
True repentance. Passing regret is not true repentance. In the words of Jeremy Taylor: "Repentance implies a deep sorrow, as the beginning and introduction of this duty; not a superficial sigh". And for this we pray, recognising that it is a divine gift, the means of renewal and restoration. As Taylor declared elsewhere: "There is indeed a shame in confession, because nakedness is discovered; but there is also a glory in it, because there is a cure too".
to forgive us all our sins, negligences, and ignorances ...
All. The public sins and the very private sins. The sins obvious to ourselves and those around us, and the sins buried deep within. The sins we have known over our lifetime and the sins that "the craft and assaults of the devil" have brought forth in us more recently. Sins, negligences, ignorances: our active wrong-doing, our lazy carelessness, our foolishness. Seeking forgiveness for all these, we again wisely recognise that "there is no health in us".
the grace of thy Holy Spirit ...
The One who is the Comforter, who bestows the "dew of thy blessing", who "Anoint[s] and cheer[s] our soiled face": He it is who ministers to those who have "no health in us". This is the One - as was invoked at the outset of the Litany - "proceeding from the Father and the Son" is, thus, God everlasting. And so the "the Lord, and Giver of Life" renews and restores us, we who are broken, sullied, and grievously wounded by sin.
to amend our lives according to thy holy Word ...
In the holy Scriptures there is the pattern of life that makes us to be "like a tree planted by the water-side". The way of wisdom that is "a tree of life". Like a house "built upon a rock". The final petition of the Litany therefore concludes with a prayer that the words of the Venite, said day by day at Morning Prayer, would take root within us: "To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts"; that we might be those who "with meek heart and due reverence, they may hear, and receive thy holy Word; truly serving thee in holiness and righteousness all the days of their life".
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