Prayer of St. Richard of Chichester

St. Richard of Chichester, an English bishop, is said to have prayed these words on his deathbed in 1253. The prayer was little known outside England until the twentieth century, when its closing lines — "to know thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, follow thee more nearly" — became famous through the musical Godspell. It is short, warm, and entirely about relationship rather than request. Pray it as a daily act of thanksgiving and as a simple statement of what you actually want from the Christian life.