On another thread, commenter Benyamin Abrams asks: <\/p>\n
Most prayers are addressed to Heavenly Father and closed in the name of Jesus Christ. The Sacrament prayer has both the opening and closing in the opening. I asked some members of my Ward if there were any other prayers with the same format. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It’s an interesting question. After all, the phrase “in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen” is practically synonymous with LDS prayer. But does the name of Christ really have to come at the end of the prayer, rather than (for example) at the beginning?<\/p>\n
I’ve sometimes heard the name of Christ invoked at the beginning. Particularly in ordinances such as confirmation, I have heard the invocation of Christ’s name done at the same time as the statement of priesthood authority: “in the name of Jesus Christ and by the power of the Melchezidek priesthood . . .” But in my experience, those prayers generally end in the name of Christ as well. Is that really necessary? It seems that a prayer of that form would not need a second mention that it is being performed in the name of Christ. That is, it could go:<\/p>\n
“Brother X, in the name of Jesus Christ and by the power of the Melchezidek priesthood, we confirm you . . . [blessings] . . . Amen.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Perhaps, for the sake of sounding more prayer-like, we would want a nice rhetorical bookend, like: “and all these blessings we give you in accordance with your faith. Amen.”<\/p>\n
That prayer would be unusual in tone. But would it still be valid? I think it probably would.<\/p>\n
What about prayers on the food? A simple, common structure goes along these lines<\/p>\n
“Dear Heavenly Father
\nWe thank thee for this food
\n and ask thee to please bless it
\nIn the name of Jesus Christ
\nAmen.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\nWouldn’t it be equally valid to structure the prayer:<\/p>\n
“Dear Heavenly Father
\nIn the name of Jesus Christ
\nWe thank thee for this food
\n and ask thee to please bless it.
\nAmen.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\nI’m curious. Is there a compelling reason why the standard form is so widely used? Does anyone have any experience or thoughts about praying in a form that invokes Christ’s name somewhere other than the end of the prayer?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On another thread, commenter Benyamin Abrams asks: Most prayers are addressed to Heavenly Father and closed in the name of Jesus Christ. The Sacrament prayer has both the opening and closing in the opening. I asked some members of my Ward if there were any other prayers with the same format. It’s an interesting question. After all, the phrase “in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen” is practically synonymous with LDS prayer. But does the name of Christ really have to come at the end of the prayer, rather than (for example) at the beginning?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2166\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}