Thy Merciful Ears

Let thy merciful ears, O Lord, be open to the prayers of thy humble servants: and that they may obtain their petitions, make them to ask such things as shall please thee; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen. - Collect for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity, Divine Worship: The Missal.

‘Prayer is the effort we make to take advantage of the open-handedness of God. If the open ear and the open hand belong to God, the open mind must belong to us. We need to learn what kind of gifts we should ask for, and what sort of petition is better left unsaid. Therefore we must have a mind ready to receive instruction so that we can learn what things are most pleasing to him.
 
Solomon won his way to God’s heart by abstaining from any selfish petition and asking only that he might have the wisdom necessary for the good ordering of God’s people. We who belong to the Christian Church and have the revelation of Christ behind us are in still better case, for we can judge God’s character so much more easily and accurately through knowing Christ. “Let this mind be in you”, says St Paul, “which was also in Christ Jesus”.
 
If we must possess the mind of Christ, what is foreign to him will be impossible for us. We shall instinctively reject what is bad and cultivate what is good. We shall be guided to understand better our own needs, and so to ask for the things that are really worthwhile. We shall not be afraid to ask in the name, that is, in the person of Jesus. We shall know that what is important is not the manner of asking but the thing asked for. We shall have special confidence in our petition being answered because we shall be saying the right prayer, and shall thus be observing the protocol of heaven’. 

from Reflections on the Collects, 1964
​by William Wand KCVO, 1885-1977 (Bishop of London 1945-1955)