Today is World Book and Copyright Day, a day that celebrates and promotes the enjoyment of books and reading. It is a day I have shared about on social media and a day that I like to remember simply because reading has always been a favourite pastime, and books provide a gateway to so much magic.

While looking around for a prayer to share, I found the adaptation below. I think that it is perfect for our present day when there is so much to read and so many choices about what to do with our time.

Reader’s Prayer

Leave me not, O gracious God, in such hours as I may today devote to the reading of books, magazines, internet websites, newsletters, academic papers, blogs or newspapers.

Guide my mind to choose the right books and written works and having chosen them, to read them in the right way.

Help me and strengthen me to overcome with wisdom and faith the discouragement of so many books to read with insufficient time remaining to read them, and give me the confidence and peace that I will choose what to read according to your will and for your purposes, and to use my time wisely, both for profit and for recreation.

When I read for profit, grant that all I read may lead me nearer to you.

When I read for recreation, grant that what I read may not lead me away from you.

Let all my reading so refresh my mind that I may more eagerly seek after whatsoever things are pure and fair and true.

Adapted from A Diary of Daily Prayer, Day 21, Morning Prayer by John Baillie

peace,

Renee Arundhati