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Prayer-Book (Euchologion)
St Sarapion of Thmuis, tr. Wordsworth, 1899
Chapter 23
23. Prayer for fruitfulness.
Artificer of heaven and earth, thou who hast crowned the heaven through the choir of the stars, and made it brilliant through the Luminaries, who hast honoured1 earth with its fruits for the profit of men, thou who hast freely given to the race that has been created by thyself, from above to enjoy the ray and the light of the Luminaries, and from below to be nourished from off the fruits of the earth. We pray thee grant (us) the rains most full and most fertilizing.2 Cause the earth also to bear fruit and to produce in great abundance on account of thy loving-kindness and goodness. Remember those who invoke thee: honour thy holy and only3 catholic Church and hear our supplications and prayers, and bless all the earth, through thy only-begotten Jesus Christ, through whom to thee (is) the glory and the strength in holy Spirit both now and to all the ages of the ages. Amen.
Notes
- Honoured = adorned; cp. Horace, Od. xvii. 16, etc.
- There are prayers for rain and for the rising of the Nile in the Liturgy of St. Mark (pp. 119 and 127, Brightman) and the Liturgy of the Coptic Jacobites (ib. pp. 159, 168). The latter prayer was not needed at Thmuis. On the occurrence of rain in Egypt see § 4, p. 31.
- An Egyptian title: see Int. § 4, p. 30.