Found It!

The bidding prayer from King's College Cambridge's Service of Lessons and Carols. Isn't it beautiful? I will be adapting it extensively... oddly, I didn't notice in the car that the prayer is "about" God and Jesus, but not, in a way, "to" God. That will change in my version, probably to the detriment of the poetry. But that's the Presby way. I will also not be mentioning King's College, or Eton, or our sovereign lady Queen Elizabeth.

And some music to get you in the King's College Cambridge mood...



BELOVED IN CHRIST, be it this Christmas Eve our care
and delight to prepare ourselves to hear again the message
of the angels: in heart and mind to go even unto Bethlehem
and see this thing which is come to pass, and the Babe lying
in a manger.

Let us read and mark in Holy Scripture the tale of the loving
purposes of God from the first days of our disobedience unto
the glorious Redemption brought us by this Holy Child; and
let us make this Chapel, dedicated to Mary, his most blessed
Mother, glad with our carols of praise:

But first let us pray for the needs of his whole world; for
peace and goodwill over all the earth; for unity and
brotherhood within the Church he came to build, and
especially in the dominions of our sovereign lady Queen
Elizabeth, within this University and City of Cambridge,
and in the two royal and religious Foundations of King
Henry VI here and at Eton:

And because this of all things would rejoice his heart, let us
at this time remember in his name the poor and the
helpless, the cold, the hungry and the oppressed; the sick in
body and in mind and them that mourn; the lonely and the
unloved; the aged and the little children; all who know not
the Lord Jesus, or who love him not, or who by sin have
grieved his heart of love.

Lastly let us remember before God all those who rejoice with
us, but upon another shore and in a greater light, that
multitude which no man can number, whose hope was in
the Word made flesh, and with whom, in this Lord Jesus, we
for evermore are one.

These prayers and praises let us humbly offer up to the
throne of heaven, in the words which Christ himself hath
taught us: Our Father …