One of the greatest prayers ever written is St. Patrick’s Breastplate. It is an old prayer which we used translated from the original Irish. We used to sing it regularly during the season of Trinity but somehow, it’s been forgotten, perhaps because it is quite long and the musical setting is quite complicated. It’s still there in older hymn books, but has been left out of newer collections.
The Breastplate is a prayer, a summoning, for protection by the Trinity. It echoes the ideas from Ephesians 6 of being armoured ready for spiritual battle. It includes references to the power of God in creation; the power of Christ’s ministry and His defeat of death; the power of God’s Wisdom and his willingness to empower us in the face of anything that comes against us. It is a prayer of protection for the Church as a whole and for us as individuals in it.
We are meant to go forward in faith, confronting all that is against God’s goodness and love. The last verse is well worth considering in our own prayers:
“I bind unto myself the name,
The strong name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One and One in Three,
Of whom all nature hath creation,
Eternal Father, Spirit, Word.
Praise to the Lord of my salvation;
Salvation is of Christ the Lord.”
Prayer: May I be bold to work in the will of God; prepared to stand firm for all that is good, true and loving. May I be protected by the love of the Father, in the Name of the Son and in the Wisdom of the Holy Spirit so that I may ever be true to the will and commandments of my Lord. Amen