"Christ be with me"

Wherever you are in the state of Arkansas today, you awoke to cooler weather—happy (finally) fall, guys!

As we continue our look at famous prayers, today we are focusing on St. Patrick’s “Christ be with me” prayer. Even though it is over 1500 years old, its simplicity is so needed and relevant for our world today.

“Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.”

This idea that we are asking to be utterly surrounded by Christ is such a powerful one. I imagine myself as a little ball, and Christ as a box in which I am hidden. In this prayer, we are hidden in Christ, He acts as our protection, our shield—the thing that people see when they look at us.

I think there is a two-fold message here, though. It’s not only that Christ is our protector as He covers us from the world, but He is also acting as our representation. So, not only are we encased from the world, but we are reflecting the light of Christ, so that others see us through a Christ-lens.

May we live in such a way that when people think of us, or see us, or hear us—they instead think of, see, or hear the words of Christ. This is a big job, and one that obviously can’t be accomplished in our own strength. This is the very hope of these words, though. We can’t be as holy and loving and sinless as Christ, but we can choose to submit ourselves to God’s will. As we make decisions based on what Christ would do, as we let God fight for us, and as we focus on loving God and God’s people, we gain that protection that only God can give, and we begin to appear as Christ in a way that can only happen through divine power.