Christ Be With Me (The Deer's Cry)

I have finally learnt the complete nine stanza's of St Patrick's breastplate in the last couple of weeks. It is a prayer that is giving me great joy each day, to be able to recite it for each person I love in the home. To pray it for myself, frail creature I am, and in need of daily strength. I can feel this prayer's strength. It is a prayer that imparts peace - peace is the word that keeps coming to mind, peace and power. Because it is powerful. I see this prayer as a deliverance prayer where we cry out to God to be delievered from all evil and even from our own weak selves, our own fallen human nature.

The prayer changes theme at each stanza. A theme of the Trinity. A theme of angels and saints and of holiness and it's power. A theme of the beauty of God's awesome creation. A theme of His continual love and guidance being around us always. A theme of protection against the weakness and sins emanating from our own hearts and of those wishing to harm us in any way. A theme of protection from all conceivable evil and tragedy. The theme of the Holy Name of Christ. An ending theme, once again of the Trinity....

I am teaching my children this prayer at present. They have learnt the first two and half stanzas and the last two so far. It will be their daily morning prayer.

When I was a child my mother taught me Little White Guest and Night is Falling Dear Mother and the Prayer for Priests. They were long, poetical prayers that I still say to this day, every day. So I know how important this prayer can be to my children's lives till the day they die.

I wanted to finish by sharing with you, a most beautiful song that has been adapted from the St Patrick's Breastplate or Deer's Cry, as it is sometimes referred to. It is rousing and soul stirring. I printed up the lyrics for it and sung along. Though closing your eyes and listening to it in peace and quiet is just as moving.

May it bless you today.