Prayer for the Day

by Revd Canon David White

19th July 2026 - 7th Sunday after Trinity

Eternal Light, shine into our hearts;
Eternal Goodness, deliver us from evil;
Eternal Power, be our support;
Eternal Wisdom, scatter the darkness of our ignorance;
Eternal Pity, have mercy upon us;
that with all our hearts and mind and soul and strength we may seek
thy face and be brought by thy infinite mercy to thy holy presence;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

This prayer was written by Alcuin (pronounced with a ‘k’ as in Alkuin), a renowned Anglo/Latin scholar who was born sometime in the 730s and died in 804. He was educated in York at a time when that city was a centre of excellence in religion, the arts and science. He became a teacher there but progressed into Europe where he became known for his expertise in mathematics, theology, philosophy, liturgy and literature (he was also a poet). He returned to this country in the 790s. The English poet Siegfried Sassoon wrote a poem called “Awareness of Alcuin”, the last stanza of which is:

Alcuin, from temporalities at rest
Sought grace within him, given from afar.
Noting how sunsets worked around to west,
Watching, at spring’s approach, that beckoning star,
And hearing, while one thrush sang through the rain,
Youth, which his soul in Paradise might regain.

In today’s prayer Alcuin addresses God as the eternal one of ‘infinite mercy’. It is a deceptively simple prayer which may be said most appropriately in an evening as we reflect on the day that is past, and offer ourselves into God’s hands and all that the future holds.