"Almighty God our heavenly Father, renew in us the gifts of your mercy; increase our faith, strengthen our hope, enlighten our understanding, widen our charity, and make us ready to serve you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."
The story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego is one I remember from my days singing in the children's choir at my grandfather's church. I don't remember the song (if there even was one) that helped me learn it, or if I just remember the story because of the names of the young men in the story. It's a story, though, of their great faith in the midst of persecution and God's deliverance of them.
Canticle 13, which is one that we sing at St. Paul's each time we have morning prayer, is a song of praise that is attributed to them. The story goes that it was this hymn that they sang to God as the fires of the furnace burned around them. This is from an apocryphal book, and it's a great one to have included in our liturgy.
None of us can really know what being in the presence of God will be like. This canticle, though, gives us an image of God that really can't be shaken, and I am filled with great hope every time we sing it.
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