The Pastor's Prayer, Part 1 & 2

Heath Ledger's Joker said 'If you're good at something, never give it away for free.' My wife also keeps telling me not to give away my work for free. She was largely thinking of stuff like this. There might have been more profitable ways to publish this, but right now, I'm more interested in making Aelred's prayer available to a wider audience than I am in monetizing a translation of an already public domain text.

Aelred was the Cicstercian abbot of Rielvaux abbey in the 12th century. His spiritual writings include 'On Spiritual Friendship', which is often considered his magnum opus, and 'The Mirror of Charity', which was allegedly written at the request of Bernard of Clairvaux. However, he also wrote a 'Pastoral Prayer', in which he reflects on some of the challenges and insecurities faced by those placed in positions of spiritual authority. He intended it for bishops and leaders of religious houses, but many aspects of it are still strikingly appropriate to anyone with pastoral responsibilities. What follows is a translation of my own, made at a time when I was reflecting on the burdens, expectations, and privileges of pastoral ministry.

The Prayer of the Venerable Aelred, Abbot of Rielvaux. Meant for Prelates and Especially Abbots

Composed and Used by Him

I.

O Jesus, Good Shepherd, [1]

good shepherd, gentle shepherd, faithful shepherd,

to you a certain poor and wretched shepherd cries.

Although weak, although inexperienced, although useless,

even so, a shepherd of your sheep. [2]

To you, O Good Shepherd,

to you, I say, this not-good shepherd cries,

anxious for myself, and anxious for your sheep.

II.

Looking back over my earlier years in the bitterness of my spirit, [3] I panic and tremble at the name ‘shepherd’; I must be out of my mind unless I think I am most unworthy of it. But even so, your holy mercy is upon me to pluck my poor spirit from the depths of hell. [4] You have mercy on whom you will, and show compassion to whom it pleases you. [5] You forgive my sins in such a way, that you neither condemn when you punish, nor shame when you reproach, nor love any less when you accuse. Nevertheless, I am ashamed and unsettled, mindful indeed of your goodness, but not unmindful of my ingratitude.

For behold, behold my confession is before you, the confession of my countless faults. Of your mercy, it has pleased you to liberate my unhappy spirit from their dominion. On their account, all my inmost self [6] pours out as much thanks and praise to you as it can. But I am no less indebted to you for whatever wrongs I have not committed. For indeed, whatever evil I have not done, I have not done it by your guidance, either because you withdrew the opportunity, or corrected my inclination, or gave me the power to resist.

But what shall I do, O Lord my God,

about the wrongs on account of which,

in your just judgement,

you allow your servant and the son of your handmaid [7]

to still be wearied and brought low?

Countless are the things, Lord,

that make my sinful spirit

uneasy in your presence.

Even so, I neither regret nor fret over them

as much as I should, nor as much as I try to.

---

Notes:

1. The obvious reference here is to Christ the Good Shepherd in John 10.11-14. I am indebted to Marsha L. Dutton for her excellent annotations in For Your Own People: Aelred of Rielvaux’s Pastoral Prayer. Rather than simply copying all her notes, however, I shall include the texts of the passages being cited or alluded to, especially when the translation had a particular influence on my rendering of Aelred’s Latin. Except where noted, Scriptural references are to the New Revised Standard Version.

2. Consider as well the exchange in John 21 between Simon Peter and the risen Jesus, who three times tells Peter to ‘feed my sheep’. Peter is being entrusted with the Lord’s sheep against the backdrop of his threefold denial and threefold unworthiness of the task ahead of him.

3. Hebrews 10.32 (NTE): ‘But remember the earlier times! When you were first enlightened…’ and Isaiah 38.15 (NRSV): ‘All my sleep has fled because of the bitterness of my soul.’

4. Psalm 86.13 (BCP): ‘For great is thy mercy toward me; / and thou hast delivered my soul from the nethermost hell.’

5. Exodus 33.19: ‘I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, “The Lord”; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.’

6. [Dutton cites Jeremiah 31.20, but I cannot help but stifle a giggle here. The Latin word viscera is familiar to us in the sense of a visceral reaction. Viscera is usually used as a Latin equivalent for the Hebrew word mê‘ay or the Greek splagna, both referring to the inner organs, or the ‘guts’. Some Scriptural translations render the term ‘my heart’, but the KJV regularly uses the term ‘bowels’. Hence the giggles, that might come from the depths of my own viscera. I have chosen to simply use the term ‘inmost self’ as a helpful substitute.]

7. Psalm 116.15 (BCP): ‘Behold, O LORD, how that I am thy servant: / I am thy servant and the son of thy handmaid; thou hast broken my bonds in sunder.’