"O God, cleanse me a sinner"

-Lenten Prayer, by St. Ephrem the Syrian:

O Lord and Master of my life! Take from me the spirit of sloth, faint-heartedness, lust of power, and idle talk+

But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant+

Yea, O Lord and King! Grant me to see my own errors and not to judge my brother; For Thou art blessed unto ages of ages. Amen+

+= prostration for first recitation

St. Ephrem the Syrian, deacon

Monday through Friday during Lent this prayer is read two times at the end of each service in Orthodox and many Eastern Catholic churches. When recited the first time a prostration comes after each petition. Between the first and second recitation everyone bows twelve times while saying, "O God, cleanse me a sinner." After this, the prayer is said again followed by a final prostration.

Meum cum sim pulvis et cinis

Father, your will be done

Monday morning is always a good time to be reminded about life's meaning and purpose because it is the day most of us venture forth from home and hearth to engage the world once more. Many people, if not most, are filled with no little anxiety as they set out from home. In order to engage the world as Christians, we need to be prayerful so that all we do is at the service of God. I was reminded this morning that "prayer is not getting man's will done in heaven, but getting God' will done on earth." In that prayer that Jesus has placed on the lips of His Church, the Our Father, this is exactly what we ask God, our loving Father, when we pray "your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." I am happy to pray the prayer of the Kingdom twice daily and three times when I go to Mass and to pray it with the whole Church.

Prayer does not consist in pleading with God to overcome some divine indifference towards me. Rather, prayer is about me realizing how much the Father loves me. His interest in me is about bringing me to the end for which He made me, which is nothing other than Himself. Hence, I must use everything I experience to accomplish this end. It is a fact that God loves me too much to give me everything I ask for because God knows not only what I really need, but what I most deeply desire.

It is a nice thought, but a huge challenge, to pray always with Jesus' caveat, the one He introduced in His prayer in the garden, just before His passion began- "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done" (Luke 22:42). This is what de Cassuade meant when he wrote about abandonment to Divine providence! It is after Jesus abandons Himself, entrusting Himself wholly to the Father, that "there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him" (Luke 22:43).

If the point and purpose of Christian life is to deny myself and to "take up [my] cross daily and follow [Jesus]," then I must pray as He prayed in order to live as He teaches me to live by word and example, not just to the point of laying down His life for me, but taking up it up again (Luke 9:23). So, each day I am confronted with the paradox: "For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it" (Luke 9:24). I will have many opportunities today to live this way. The psalm response we sing each Good Friday is echoing in my mind this morning: "Father, I put my life in your hands."

My dear friend, Sharon, posting over on Clarity, quoted Fr. Massimo Camisasca to the effect that "[e]ros is love as passionate desire for a good that is lacking. Eros is desire striving for what is missing. Ever since God created man, one can say that eros entered into God. He feels in Himself a nostalgia for our return to Him, He longs passionately for the response of our love."

Lord, I need You, heed my plea

Monday morning is an excellent time to be reminded of how much I need the One who accompanies me always. As the now Bl. John Henry Cardinal Newman once preached: "a habit of prayer, the practice of turning to God and the unseen world in every season, in every place, in every emergency – prayer, I say, has what may be called a natural effect in spiritualizing and elevating the soul. A man is no longer what he was before; gradually … he has imbibed a new set of ideas, and become imbued with fresh principles" (from Pope Benedict's homily at yesterday's beatification mass in Birmingham).

As I was praying this morning, petitioning God and praying in an intercessory way for so many people, I was moved to pray to be wholly open to God's will, to trust totally in Him and to stop looking at things from my limited and proscribed perspective, which suffocates me. At the end of my prayer time I read from the devotional I am currently using this excerpt by Richard Foster, who is such a light to me over many years:

"When our asking is for ourselves it is called petition; when it is on behalf of others it is called intercession. Asking is at the heart of both experiences.

"We must never negate or demean this aspect of our prayer experience. Some have suggested, for example, that while the less discerning will continue to appeal to God for aid, the real masters of the spiritual life go beyond petition to adoring God's essence with no needs or requests whatever. In this view our asking represents a more crude and naïve form prayer, while adoration and contemplation are a more enlightened and high-minded approach, since they are free from any egocentric demands.

"This, I submit, is a false spirituality. Petitionary Prayer remains primary throughout our lives because we are forever dependent upon God. It is something that we never really 'get beyond,' nor should we even want to.... The Bible itself is full of Petitionary Prayer and unabashedly recommends it to us." (from Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home).

Lord, sometimes I feel guilty for asking You for so many things, but the truth is I am but a poor beggar, who needs You because You are my daily bread. Help me to recognize that You, too, are a beggar, begging me for my heart each day. Teach me to depend on You, trusting You because You love me, not despite my unworthiness, but precisely because You are moved by my need.