As many of you may know, one of my big bug-bears with liturgy is the way some Churches, including St James, lurch back to the modified traditional form of the Lord’s Prayer in services that in every other respect are in the vernacular. You may also be aware that even on the rare occasions that we use the modern form, we use the Church of England version, which typically is different from the modern form that everyone else has. The difference is in the penultimate petition where the Church of England version retains ‘Lead Us Not Into Temptation’ – which thanks to the modern understanding of ‘lead’ is a prime example of how the changes to the English language over the centuries result in a form of words that is at best obstructive to a modern audience understanding what the prayer is actually asking. Needless to say, we need to go back to the original translation, and as part of her most recent posting to her blog, Mum looks at the original text in order to try and explain what it means. Incidentally, the text of the Jim Cotter version of the prayer that she mentions, which is included in the New Zealand Prayer Book too can be found here.