Prayer of Thanksgiving from The Didache

The Didache remains of the earliest descriptions of worship from the sub-apostolic church (circa AD 120). Apparently, The Didache was a manual of how Syrian churches were to be ordered in their various liturgical activities, activities especially including baptism, preaching, Lord's Supper, fasting, and prayer.¹

Below is a thanksgiving prayer the church recited after partaking the sacred supper. The prayer may also be a suitable reflection on this our Thanksgiving Day.

We give you thanks, holy Father, for your holy name which you have made to dwell in our hearts, and for the knowledge and faith and immortality which you have made known to us. Through Jesus, your servant, to you be glory for ever. You are the mighty ruler of all who has created all for your name's sake, and you have given food and drink to human beings for their enjoyment so that they might give thanks to you. But to us, from your generosity, you have given spiritual food and drink, and life eternal, through your servant.

Above all things we give thanks to you because you are mighty: to you be glory for ever. Remember, Lord, your church, deliver her from evil, make her complete in your love, and gather her from the four winds into your kingdom you have prepared for her, for yours is the power and the glory for ever. May grace come and may this world pass away. Hosanna to the God of David. If anyone is holy, let him advance; if anyone is not, let him be converted.

Maranatha. Amen.²

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¹Daniel R. Hyde, "According to the Custom of the Ancient Church? Examining the Roots of John Calvin's Liturgy," ed. Joel R. Beeke, Puritan Reformed Journal 1, no. 2 (2009): 204.

²Thomas O'Loughlin, The Didache: A Window on the Earliest Christians (London; Grand Rapids, MI: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; Baker Academic, 2010), 167–168.