A Paschaltide Prayer

Monday in Holy Week
March 29, 2010

The Lord be with you

I have a friend who is an ordained Lutheran minister in a different, though conservative, Lutheran body. He is The Rev. Father Fredrick B. Mauney. (That is how they say it in his denomination.) Today I received a letter from him which included a “Paschal Prayer” that I thought was so good I wanted to post it here. (“Paschal” is another word for “Easter,” which is preferred by some. In most of the languages in the world, some form of the word “Paschal” is their word for “Easter.”) Paschaltide is just another name for the Easter Season, which lasts from Easter to Pentecost. (By the way, I changed all the England-English spellings to American-English spellings.)

Thou, O God, by Thy Power and Might didst smash the bonds of sin and death to raise Thine Only-begotten Son Jesus the Christ to Life; send, now, then, Thy Holy Spirit upon us to roll away the stones of discouragement and despair so that we might receive new life in the Same, Jesus the Christ, Our LORD and Savior; that, just as we have died with Him in baptism, so we seek to live with Him, both now and forever; deepen our joy as we celebrate these fifty days of Holy Paschaltide, and strengthen in us the conviction that we need not fear anymore; we ask through the Same Jesus the Christ Our LORD Who is God, and Who liveth and reigneth with Thee, Father, in the Undivided Unity of the Holy Ghost, both now and always, henceforth forever and forevermore even unto ages and ages of ages yet still to come, from Everlasting unto Everlasting, One God, World without end: Amen and Alleluia!

He is Risen. He is Risen, Indeed!

Pastor John Rickert