February 29/Saturday after Ash Wednesday
Incline your ear, O LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy.
Preserve my life, for I am devoted to you; save your servant who trusts in you.
Be gracious to me, O LORD, for to you do I cry all day long.
Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. ~ Ps. 86.1-4
Today, as we round out the first four days of this long penitential season — 10% of the way through, for those who are counting — the psalmist gives us an instruction manual for the six weeks ahead. If we are to commit ourselves to walking the way of the Lord, what must we do? First, we approach God through our prayer, asking the One who created us and loves us to hear us, acknowledging our spiritual poverty and weakness. Next, we place ourselves trustingly in God’s hands, letting go (as much as is humanly possible) of our need to be the gods of our own lives. We strive to be faithful in prayer — if not crying to the LORD “all day long,” at least setting time aside to be in God’s presence at each day’s beginning and end, and in the moments of anxiety or doubt that may plague us throughout the day . In such prayer, we lift up our souls to God, offering our worries and sorrows, our successes and joys, with undiluted honesty. We praise, we confess, we thank, we ask. In all these modes of praying, as we offer our souls to God, we are expressing hope and trust in the Giver of all that is good. As the 20th-century spiritual master Henri Nouwen wrote, “If you pray in hope, all [your] concrete requests are mere ways of expressing your unlimited trust in him who fulfills all his promises, who holds out for you nothing but good, and who wants for himself nothing more than to share his goodness with you.” The road map for Lent, and for life, is before us: will we follow the route to the kingdom?
Lord of life and hope, Hear me when I pray for perseverance and faithfulness on the road to you. Amen.
To hear the Lincoln Cathedral choir chant Psalm 86, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvKhq4QXl-8
For today’s readings, click here: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/022920.cfm
