February 19/First Monday of Lent
Let the words of my mouth and the thought of my heart find favor before you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer. ~ Ps 19.15
Addressing the Lord
What does it mean for “the words of my mouth and the thought of my heart” to “find favor” before God? To put it another way, what is the “right” way to pray? Many of us struggle with this. Some people, raised on rote prayers, find the formulas of childhood inadequate to the complexities of adult life (while others, of course, find great comfort in their familiarity). Others among us, particularly if we don’t regularly attend church services, aren’t sure exactly where to start. We might think that our halting, ill-formed, skeptical utterances of pain or gratitude, praise or anger, do not constitute an acceptable form of prayer. We might think that, but we would be wrong. God wants all of it, the dark as well as the light: the lamentable wrong turns we take every day, the small acts of thoughtfulness that we perform, the unanticipated moment of real connection with a teenage child, the groanings of our hearts. (The Hebrew word translated “thought” in verse 15 connotes a low sound like the moaning of a dove, or the growling of a lion over its prey). The American poet John Berryman, as reckless and angry a believer as ever lived, laid his soul bare in his amazing Eleven Addresses to the Lord, concluding in #11, “Cancer, senility, mania,/I pray I may be ready with my witness.” God wants our full witness of love and pain, in whatever shape we offer it up to him. We are not judged on form or even content, but on the heart’s stirrings. Giving voice to those is the way to pray.
Almighty God, Make me ready to offer you my witness, however imperfect it may be. Amen.
For today’s readings, click here: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/021918.cfm
To hear “Let the Words of My Mouth” performed by the female gospel group The Caravans, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjfCES6wnAM
