John Calvin’s student prayer

I just returned from a professional development colloquy with theological faculty from various schools. During one of our worship sessions a colleague shared John Calvin’s “Sudent Prayer” as part of the worship. It’s been a while since I’d read it and I was again struck by its elegance. It reminded me of Thomas Aquinus’ “Prayer Before Study,” which I’ll share later. Calvin’s prayer is a good reminder that learning is as much a matter of the spirit and affect (one’s attitute and predisposition for learning) as it is of the mind, and that all meaningful learning has an intentional end to it (“For what purpose and to what end do we learn?”).

Here is Calvin’s student prayer:

O Lord, who are the fountain of all wisdom and learning,
since thou of thy special goodness has granted that my youth is instructed
in good arts which may assist me to honest and holy living,
grant also, by enlightening my mind, which otherwise labors under blindness,
that I may be fit to acquire knowledge . . . in whatever kind of study I engage,
enable me to remember to keep its proper end in view, namely,
to know thee in Christ Jesus thy Son, and may everything that I learn
assist me to observe the right rule of godliness . . . .
I entreat that thou wouldst be pleased to turn me
to true humility, that thus I may show myself teachable and obedient
first to thyself, and then to those also who
by thy authority are placed over me.
Be pleased at the same time to root out all vicious desires from my heart,
and inspire it with an earnest desire of seeking thee.
Finally, let the only end at which I aim be so to qualify myself in early life,
that when I grow up,
I may serve thee in whatever station thou mayest assign me.
Amen.

Source: Calvin’s Tracts, vol. 2, trans. Henry Beveridge (Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society, 1881), quoted in John Leith’s edited work of Calvin’s spiritual writings, The Christian Life (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984), pp. 80-81.