The Pettiness Prayer
Keep
us, oh God, from pettiness.
Let us be large in thought, word, and deed.
Let us be done with fault finding & leave off self-seeking.
May we put away all pettiness & meet each other face to face,
without self-pity & without prejudice.
May we always be patient,
never hasty in judgement & always tolerant.
Teach us to put into action our better impulses,
straightforward & unafraid.
Let us take time for all things; make us calm, serene & gentle.
Grant that we may realize it is the little things
in life that create differences,
That in the big things of life we are as one and
may we strive to touch and to know the great common heart of us all.
And oh God, let us not forget to be kind.
Let us be large in thought, word, and deed.
Let us be done with fault finding & leave off self-seeking.
May we put away all pettiness & meet each other face to face,
without self-pity & without prejudice.
May we always be patient,
never hasty in judgement & always tolerant.
Teach us to put into action our better impulses,
straightforward & unafraid.
Let us take time for all things; make us calm, serene & gentle.
Grant that we may realize it is the little things
in life that create differences,
That in the big things of life we are as one and
may we strive to touch and to know the great common heart of us all.
And oh God, let us not forget to be kind.
I had never heard or seen thid prayer before. I like it!
ReplyDeleteAny help with where in the book or which book this is in?
ReplyDeleteThis is attributed to Mary Stewart who was Mary Queen of Scots. This is a Catholic church linked prayer not found in AA literature but sometimes adopted by members and others because it is thought provoking.
ReplyDeleteThis is inspiring thank you so much
ReplyDeleteFor years I looked for a prayer that touched on my every character defects.
ReplyDeleteThis prayer touches the essence of what AA lives for, a life outside our own.
Mary Stewart
ReplyDeleteThe Collect was written by Mary Stewart, in Longmont, Colorado, in 1904, as a prayer for the day, not for any particular person or group. Miss Stewart had it published as a Collect for Club Women because, at the time, she believed that women working together with wide interests and important goals was new, and that a special meditation of their own would give them a sense of unity. The Collect soon was adopted among working women throughout the world.
The first printing of the Collect was an obscure paragraph in a column of club notes in the Delineator. Copies later were printed locally. In 1909, Paul Elder and Company, San Francisco, printed it as a wall card, and it has since been reprinted in many forms, in American yearbooks by national organizations and in other publications around the world.
Miss Stewart, who until 1910 signed the Collect with her pen name Mary Stuart, died in 1943.
The Collect was officially adopted by the National Federation of Business and Professional Women/USA in 1920.