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Prayers

The prayer for all in need from the Liturgy of St Mark

A short prayer from the Liturgy of St Mark for the captive, the hungry, the sick, the lost and everyone in need. It closes the liturgy’s long intercession.

Picture: Giovanni Lanfranco, The Miracle of the Bread and Fish, 1620–23

The words of the prayer

Plain English

Set the captives free;rescue those in distress;feed the hungry;comfort the fainthearted;turn back those who have gone astray;give light to those in darkness;raise up the fallen;steady those who waver;heal the sick.Lead them all into the way of salvation,and join them too to Your holy flock.And deliver us from our sins,and be our guard and our helper in all things.

Traditional wording, 1886

Deliver the captive; rescue the distressed; feed the hungry;comfort the faint-hearted, convert the erring;enlighten the darkened; raise the fallen;confirm the wavering; heal the sick;and guide them all, good Lord, into the way of salvation,and into Thy sacred fold.Deliver us from our iniquities;protect and defend us at all times.

Plain English by Wiser Walk, from the Greek of the Liturgy of St Mark, with George Ross Merry’s translation beside it. How the wording is made. Traditional wording: George Ross Merry, Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 7, 1886.

Merry adds “good Lord” and ends “protect and defend us at all times”, where the Greek asks God to be “our guard and helper in all things”.

When it is said

In the Liturgy of St Mark the deacon calls out, “Let those who are seated stand,” and the priest says this prayer. It closes the liturgy’s long intercession.

Its short lines name one need after another, so anyone can pray it at home for people in need, by name or for all of them at once.

Where it comes from

No author known

The liturgy of Alexandria

The prayer belongs to the Liturgy of St Mark, the old liturgy of the Church of Alexandria. It bears the name of the evangelist Mark. The early Church historian Eusebius recorded that Mark was said to have founded the first churches there. No author is named. Its full Greek text survives in the Rossano codex, a manuscript of the 12th century.

Eusebius, Church History, book 2, translated in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 1; F. E. Brightman, Liturgies Eastern and Western, 1896

Older than the liturgy

Nearly the same list of needs is in a letter the church of Rome sent to Corinth about AD 96, known as 1 Clement. Its prayer asks God to “lift up the fallen; show Thyself unto the needy” and to “feed the hungry; release our prisoners”.

1 Clement 59, in J. B. Lightfoot and J. R. Harmer, The Apostolic Fathers, 1891

The Scripture in it

He executes justice for the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets the prisoners free, the LORD opens the eyes of the blind, the LORD lifts those who are weighed down, the LORD loves the righteous.

Psalm 146:7-8 Echoed The Lord feeds the hungry, sets the prisoners free and lifts those weighed down.

I will seek the lost, bring back the strays, bind up the broken, and strengthen the weak; but the sleek and strong I will destroy. I will shepherd them with justice.’

Ezekiel 34:16 Echoed God seeks the lost, brings back the strays and binds up the broken.

Deliver me from all my transgressions; do not make me the reproach of fools.

Psalm 39:8 Echoed Deliver me from all my transgressions.

Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.

In Greek

Λύτρωσαι δεσμίους, ἐξέλου τοὺς ἐν ἀνάγκαις,

πεινῶντας χόρτασον, ὀλιγοψυχοῦντας παρακάλεσον,

πεπλανημένους ἐπίστρεψον, ἐσκοτισμένους φωταγώγησον,

πεπτωκότας ἔγειρον, σαλευομένους στήριξον, νενοσηκότας ἴασαι,

πάντας ἄγαγε εἰς τὴν ὁδὸν τῆς σωτηρίας,

σύναψον καὶ αὐτοὺς τῇ ἁγίᾳ σου ποίμνῃ,

ἡμᾶς δὲ ῥῦσαι ἀπὸ τῶν ἀνομιῶν ἡμῶν

φρουρὸς ἡμῶν καὶ ἀντιλήπτωρ κατὰ πάντα γενόμενος.

From F. E. Brightman, Liturgies Eastern and Western (Oxford, 1896), The Liturgy of St Mark, p. 131.

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Berean Standard Bible