April 1/Fifth Wednesday of Lent
“Praiseworthy and exalted above all forever.” ~ Daniel 3.53
Sometimes prayer flows easily from our hearts to God’s ears; other times, particularly when we are buried under extra layers of stress, the heart is silenced by anxiety or doubt. In these moments of incapacity, we might consider reaching for the Bible, to let God pray through us and with us in the words of sacred scripture, even and especially when we just don’t “have it in us” to pray, as may be the case for many people right now. “If you think your heart cannot pray, then pray with your mouth, kneel down, fold your hands, speak loudly,” advised the great Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner in The Need and the Blessing of Prayer. Today’s happy-hearted song, drawn from a later Greek addition to Daniel, lends itself beautifully to “speaking loudly,” and embodies the relationship of God to humankind that is at the center of the Christian life. As we say the words aloud, we fall into the rhythmic refrain that governs these verses: “praiseworthy and exalted above all forever.” The repetition can become incantatory, drumming the concept of God’s ineffable goodness into our variable human hearts, drawing us into a visceral awareness of God’s glory. That refrain — fixed, unchanging, reliable — points to the very nature of God as the fixed, unchanging, reliable foundation for our lives. Twentieth-century British mystic Evelyn Underhill described God as “the changeless and absolute Life, manifesting itself in all the myriad nascent, crescent, cadent lives.” We may experience many fluctuations and variations during our earthly sojourn, but if we anchor ourselves in the divine glory, as this joyous refrain invites us to do, we will come to know, deep in our hearts, that our lives truly begin and end through God, and with God, and in God.
God of wisdom and truth, As I journey through the busy and splintering world, may I stay grounded in my love of you. Amen.
To hear “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty,” as sung by the Plymouth Choir and Congregation of First-Plymouth Church, Lincoln Nebraska, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SHDNs7Dt5M
For today’s readings, click here: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/040120.cfm
