Eric Milner-White and Prayer

Like most Christians, I struggle with prayer. Am I praying enough? For the right things? With the right words? With the right heart? I know I quickly get tired of the sound of my own praying. I find it really important to enrich my own prayer life with the prayers of others.

A book of prayers that has meant so much to me is "My God My Glory" by Eric Milner-White. He was a High Church Anglican, Dean of Yorkminster back in the 50s. And his prayers always seem to me like they have come from another dimension. Here are some prayers about praying.

Let me come into the church of God
to meet the Spirit of God:
not to give religion an hour,
but to live in the eternal;
not to maintain a decorous habit,
but to bow in the holy place before the Holy One;
not to judge the words of a preacher,
but to draw life from the Word and Truth everlasting;
not to be moved or soothed by music,
but to sing from the heart divine praises;
not that mine eyes roam over architecture or congregation,
but that my soul look up to the King in his beauty,
and my heart plead the needs of his children;
not that my thoughts escape out into the world,
but that they be still, and know that thou art God.

Let me go, and go again, into the house of the Lord,
and be gald, and give thanks, and adore,
my King and my God.


When I pray in my chamber,
I build a sanctuary there.
When I cast a prayer out upon the street,
a spire rises suddenly to the skies.
When, without voice, my soul prays in any place,
my whole being becomes a church.
When my faith kindles and flames into praise
the whole created world becomes a Minster.
Yet none of these were temples except God come to it;
and come he will, if so I build.
But how much more shall he not come
to the Altar himself has built?
whither he has invited, nay bidden us to meet him?
where he has set out the feats
and provided his Life for food,
his Passion for drink?
Here is the temple of temples,
the holy of holies,
himself the light, himself the altar,
himself the host, himself the feast.
Here let devotions rise up like incense,
here union and communion be made with God,
be his abiding here with us
and ours in Him.
Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord;
Hosanna in the highest.

This comes from a liturgical and spiritual place that is different from my own, but I think Milner-White's prayers breathe out an authenticity that never fails to feed me.