Lectio: Collect Prayer, take one
Almighty ever-living God, who in the abundance of your kindness surpass the merits and desires of those who entreat you, pour out your mercy upon us to pardon what conscience dreads and to give what prayer does not dare ask. (Daily collect prayer)
Over the weekend of October 4-5 it was my turn to proclaim God’s Word at the Saturday evening Mass. When I do this I am usually a bit distracted by anxiety and mentally going over what I am reading, how I am proclaiming God’s Word, and most importantly reminding myself when I am supposed to approach the altar. It is often an exercise of nerves which I am busy offering to the Holy Spirit. This is all happening at the beginning of Mass, a time when it is easy to go on autopilot. During this time the priest will open with a brief prayer that I often find formal and uninspiring or which is tuned out due to mental distraction. Admittedly what I often hear is the Charlie Brown, “Wah, Wah, Wah.” In the midst of nerves and mental olympics on this day the above prayer broke through and filled me with awe. I sat down with pen and paper the next day and broke it all down. In this simple easily overlooked prayer so much truth, wisdom, reassurance, and encouragement are housed. Today I bring you Lectio: Collect Prayer.
Almighty ever-living God, who in the abundance of your kindness surpass the merits and desires of those who entreat you
Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3)
Pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:16)
Taking just the first half of this short prayer there are three truths that we are invited to call to our consciousness again and again. God is almighty and eternal. I think we hear this so much that we don’t give it time to resonate. God is and He always will be ~AND~ God can, period. Go ahead, fill in the blank. God can ______. There is nothing that our human minds can imagine that He is not able to do, NOTHING. He is the ONLY ONE capable of this. To fully recognize this is to be filled with awe, which is really the virtue, fear of the Lord. It can also fill us with a different fear, the cowering kind. This brings us to our second truth: God’s kindness is abundant. I think each of us has experienced either directly or indirectly power used to harm us. We often transfer those painful experiences wrought by man to expectations of what to expect from the God that can. The God that can, chooses to act in abundant kindness. We also live in a world of quid pro quo. We receive what we give or what we deserve. We are back to square one of that pesky cowering fear. Enter truth point three: God’s kindness surpasses our merit. God is not a God of quid pro quo. The eternal God chooses to be the God who can and will do Good. “How”, we might ask, “are we supposed to respond to these truths?” Jesus’ words answer this question, “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” This statement has challenged me, this idea of poor in spirit. Don’t I want to be rich in spirit? Holding all these things in prayer, it is prayer that answers. To be poor in spirit is to pray. Each and every time that we lift our hearts in prayer we are acknowledging 1. God is 2. God can 3. God is good. St. Paul provides the prescription for maintaining poverty of spirit, pray without ceasing. This is how we attain the Kingdom of Heaven. [Where else does the Kingdom of Heaven meet earth but at the intersection of prayer?] It is much like the “little way” of St. Therese. We are simply asked to lift our arms up to our Father and allow Him to pick us up. Spend time with these truths. May they comfort and encourage you to lift your heart in prayer again and again this week! Stay tuned as I continue Lectio: collect prayer in the next post.
