The Lord's Prayer

Yesterday was an ordinary sort of day in my parish life. For some reason though I noticed I was saying the Lord's Prayer quite a few times with various people and groups - this in itself is not unusual - the Lord's Prayer is often our common and gathering language when we meet. But, and some of you might know what I mean by this, sometimes the ordinary just hits you between the eyes as extraordinary.
I was already warmed up by Morning Prayer when I got to a local nursing home to celebrate communion. Stupidly I had put the modern words on the order of service so we started slowly and quietly, but no matter, soon the room of about ten older folks - some who struggle quite a lot with various things - were booming out the traditional words. I just listened to the last couple of sentences - realizing that these words they knew so well were being offered from the heart and thanking God for that. Then several more folk to pray with - each holding the loved words carefully as they spoke.
Repeating things, as we tend to in our liturgies, can seem a bit pointless. There is a real danger of over familiarity but well worn words, like comfortable shoes, can sometimes carry us well. We all have days where we rush through words thinking of dinner or putting our feet up but then there are the days like yesterday when suddenly all that repetition, all those hours and years and decades of saying and doing seem to make sense as God picks up our words and dances with them.
It is one of the great privileges of priesthood to witness this dance in folk, and sometimes even to get to join in. These moments when God takes the ordinary and the familiar and lets His light shine through it remind me that no matter how many times I say that same well known prayer - every time I am talking to my Creator - and every time God is listening.