Praying With Just the Right Notes

On this 2nd Sunday of Lent  we focus on prayer – which in fact is one of the 3 spiritual disciplines we are encouraged to consider during these 40 days as we seek to draw closer to Jesus – fasting, prayer, and giving.

Many people in times past have written prayers that are filled with just the right notes that can help us open our hearts to God.  Let’s pray along with them today.

We begin with a prayer of confession and request for reconciliation. St. Ambrose got it right with these words, I think:

O Lord, who has mercy upon all, take away from me my sins, and mercifully kindle in me the fire of Your Holy Spirit.  Take away from me the heart of stone, and give me a heart of flesh, a heart to love and adore You, a heart to delight in You, to follow and enjoy You, for Christ’s sake.  Amen 

And then along with Ambrose again, we acknowledge that we know some things and need faith to trust God’s goodness and His presence with us while we wait for what we don’t yet understand to be revealed.

Merciful Lord, the Comforter and Teacher of Your faithful people, increase in Your church the desires which You have given, and confirm the hearts of those who put their hope in You by enabling them to understand the depth of Your promises, that all Your adopted daughters and sons may even now behold, with the eyes of faith, and patiently wait for, the light which as yet You have not made clear to us, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen 

I was introduced to the next prayer back in the 1970’s and it sounded radical to me then and continues to really make me stop and assess who I am, what I have, what I’m holding onto, and what I need to offer up to God. St Ignatius of Loyola helps us with these words:

Take Lord and receive, all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all I have and call my own.  You have given all to me.  To You, Lord, I return it.  Everything is Yours, do with it what You will.  Give me only Your love and Your grace; that is enough for me.

We end today with the familiar blessing that I never tire of praying over myself or on behalf of others.  Receive this blessing:

The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.  Numbers 6:22-27