Today I’m going to focus on one prayer in our Book of Common Prayer, the prayer knows as the Prayer for the Seven-fold Gifts of the Spirit.
I mentioned it yesterday in my homily at Pat Braker’s funeral service. It is one of my favorite prayers in the Book of Common Prayer. In the current prayer book it is part of the baptism service and today our focus is on baptism so it seems appropriate. This first Sunday after the Epiphany the focus is always on Jesus’ baptism. Why Jesus was baptized is one of those pesky questions that Christians still debate. I’ve addressed it before. But not today.
Today I want you to appreciate the prayer for the seven-fold gifts of the Spirit. Specifically, it is the second half of the prayer that appears on the top of page 308.
Sustain them, O Lord, in your Holy Spirit. Give them an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works.
In his commentary on the 1928 prayer book, Massey Shepherd writes: “This is one of the oldest prayers in the Prayer Book. Essentially its present form [1928] goes back to the Gelasian Sacramentary, but the substance of it can be found in the rite described by St. Hippolytus of Rome in his Apostolic Tradition (early third century). It stems therefore from the time when Baptism and Confirmation were co-ordinate parts of one continuous rite of Christian initiation…”
The Gelasian Sacramentary is an 8th century manuscript of liturgical rites. The Apostolic Traditions are the oldest records we have of church rites. So basically, this prayer has been associated with Christian initiation for as long as we have records. This prayer is about beginning the Christian life.
Like much in our Prayer Book, it comes originally from Scripture, from Isaiah 11:2. This is the bit in Isaiah that starts out “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,” so it is part of the Messianic prophecy.
A shoot shall come out from the stock of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
Don’t get hung up trying to count seven in the prayer for the seven-fold gifts of the spirit. In Isaiah it sounds like six. Depending on how you count in our current prayer book you can get anywhere from four to eight. If you read Isaiah in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the OT known in Jesus’ day, I guess you get seven.
In the 1928 book, the prayer appeared in the Confirmation services and the version was (in my opinion) not nearly as good as the current one. “…daily increase in them thy manifold gifts of grace: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and ghostly strength, the spirit of knowledge and true godliness; and fill them, O Lord, with the spirit of thy holy fear…” The current prayer book returns the prayer to the primary initiation rite, Baptism, and uses a new version of the prayer which is actually based upon fuller versions of the ancient prayer.
Massey Shepherd quotes The Rev. Dr. A. J Mason, who notes that these gifts are not ends in and of themselves. They are not themselves “moral virtues,” rather they are “gifts which set a man in a position to acquire moral virtues…”
There are two things in particular that I like about this prayer. First, is the reminder that all of these things are gifts. Gifts of the Holy Spirit for our Christian journey. It is one thing to observe the world. It is a gift of the Spirit to discern truth. Courage and perseverance in faith are gifts. It is one thing to see the world around us. It is the Spirits gifts to know joy and wonder. These are gifts. And second, as Dr. Mason says, they are gifts that equip for action. They are tools or skills that we need for the Christian life. They aren’t just gifts that we receive to our benefit and then are done with. They equip us for the Christian life.
As we renew our baptismal vows today, let us also renew our appreciation for the seven-fold gifts of the spirit, given at baptism.
