An attempted collect on the regulation of bodily functions
Why the need for a collect on the regulation of bodily functions?
It's because people like me do actually pray—often with some fervour—about the bodily functions of the children for whom they are responsible. That's right, we pray about the absence, presence, frequency, infrequency, texture, colour and quantity of poo. We do it mostly because such things can flag a problem in young children—especially when they are only a few weeks old (at least that's why I pray about such things; others may have different reasons).
It's because praying about such things is completely natural for a Christian. Not only is God interested in the ‘small’ things in our lives, he is eminently competent to resolve such issues, having made us and therefore being capable of ‘regulating’ us, and/or giving us the wisdom to know when to go for medical help. Unlike some medical professionals, he never communicates that we've wasted his precious time by mentioning to him our concerns—even about poo.
It's because if Cranmer had had the leisure, and wasn't busy trying to manage a certain megalomaniac monarch while helping reform England, he may well have extended his prayer book to include miscellaneous prayers for more occasions. And maybe he'd have included a prayer about such matters.
Finally, it's because Cranmer's collects always seem to demonstrate the utter validity of our prayers for earthly concerns, and yet prompt us to think too about things from an eternal perspective. So even though I haven't really prayed the collect below, the exercise of writing it has helped me to remember that there are more significant things to desire and pray for in my boys than merely the regulation of their bodily functions (as important as this might be for their health). More significant are the kind of people they are and are becoming, and that they so “pass through things temporal that they finally lose not things eternal”.
The collect:
Almighty God, the giver of all life, who has formed and known us from our earliest moment, grant, we beseech thee, the proper regulation of bodily functions in this, thy little one. In your mercy, so prosper his life that he may grow in strength and wisdom, and may by your grace know you, whom to know is life eternal, through Christ Jesus our Lord and for his glory.
I love the idea, and your execution of it! However I do think some mothers tend to over-focus on their child’s digestive output, shall we say, at the expense of looking at the child’s eyes, mood, behaviour and so on. So we’ll have to add something about maternal perceptions as well!
Martin Luther was probably the first theologian in the history of the church to have changed nappies. And he wrote this:
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