The Lenten Prayer

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O Lord and Ruler of Life, take from me the spirit of idleness, despair, cupidity, and empty talking. Yea, O Lord grant that I may see my own sins and not judge my brother. For thou art blessed forever and ever. Amen.

      

This ancient Lenten prayer has been posted around my house this year. I’ve found it to be a good one over the long haul. At first, I read it and thought it a nice prayer, easy to memorize and entirely usable for Lent. Then, it began to seep into me.

Take from me the spirit of idleness, despair, cupidity, and empty talking. Idleness?  Dear Lord, I have eight children who still live at home and are all still homeschooled (except for the infant who is attached to me twenty-four hours a day). How in the world can I be idle? Ah, but I can and I am. When I sit at the computer and mindlessly click away while I nurse the baby, I am idling my brain and, more importantly, my spirit.  After a few weeks of praying this prayer, I have found myself whitttling my Bloglines down to only what I could manage in a fifteen minute sitting first thing in the morning. I promised myself I would not go back and check during the day. I lived without blogs entirely just a short year ago. I'm sure this own't kill me.

I'm spending that nursing time with one of the spiritual books I chose just for Lent (linked on the sidebar) or in the quiet of my room, rocking with a rosary, or next to a couple of children on the couch, reading them a good book. Yes, please, take from me the idleness. Take it and don’t let it creep back in.

What about despair? Honestly, I don’t often feel very despairing. But I’ve noticed it in my household. The spirit is here.  This prayer is for my children—particularly my teenagers—who are all too often held captive by feelings of despair.

Cupidity is a desire, usually for things.  For me, the Lenten discipline is to take good care of the things I have, to be very careful with home maintenance. I don’t desire things but I also don’t outwardly appreciate what I have the way I should.  This is a great big house, with lots of people in it and lots of people have lots of “stuff.” There is no excuse for it to be poorly tended. I have been given much and much is expected. I do not desire more; I desire to do more with what I have. I had a very honest talk with a dear friend yesterday. We went step by step through the realities of my day to try to find time to ensure that my home is good witness for this lifestyle. I will not desire more, but I will desire to do well with the abundance I have.

And empty talking. This really is why I was drawn to this particular prayer. There was a time when women at home were drawn to chatting away over the backyard fence or meeting each other for coffee in a restaurant or wiling away the hours attached to a telephone with an extra long cord. These are not my temptations. I have no fence, I no longer drink coffee and I’m not all that fond of the phone. No, my temptation is captured in a screen. Lord, save me from email and message boards. Save me from hours and hours of philosophical and theological conversations that actually draw me away from You and lead me outside your will.

I cannot live my vocation if my time is taken with idleness and empty talking. Even talking about motherhood, homemaking, and God himself can be empty talking if I talk (or write) about it and I neglect to do it. Time on earth is finite. The days of childhood are numbered.  Distracted mothers are a curse to their children.

There is a place for online support and fellowship. It serves a purpose and can be a blessing. I love friends I have made online and I count them among my blessings and my joys. Online conversations and blogs can inspire us to lives of holiness. They often do just that; they show us how to be better wives, better mothers, better teachers, better Christians.

But I also think that the devil drives the information superhighway. He claps with glee when moms log on. Lent is a time of discipline. Ascetism is about growing in self-discipline. This prayer helps me to see how I must order my time and my attention. Quiet stillness is a good thing. Idleness is not. Concern is a good thing. Despair is not. A home to grow in is a good thing. Chaos in that home is not. Encouragement and support in my vocation is a good thing. Empty talking is not.

Layer by layer, we peel away the things that stand between ourselves and godliness. We make more time for and pay more attention to the good things. And we leave behind those things that are not.

In the Garden of Gethsemane

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There is a moment between "I think we might have a problem" and the diagnosis of cancer that is the loneliest, most painful, darkest moment of all.  It is the moment when you get up in the quiet of the dark hours of the morning and gaze at your sleeping baby and wander back to watch your sleeping husband and you beg. "Please, Lord, take this cup. Please!"

I know that moment, Melanie.  I wish I could reach across the wine dark sea and just let you cry on my shoulder.  I wish I could tell you that you will make it through this time and that your young marriage will grow stronger and sweeter and your child grow ever dearer. And I wish you could see me, whole and healthy, almost exactly seventeen years from my own Lenten despair and Easter diagnosis, just to give you tangible hope.  There is an Easter, Melanie. You will arise from your knees in this garden and you will embrace the cross in front of you and you will carry it well.

And we will help you. We will pray and pray and pray.  And we will even be here, in those dark hours of the early morning. In our own homes, with our own babies, we are mothers who can certainly stay awake and keep watch with you. When you think you are alone with your fears in the night, you are not. We are with you, calling upon the communion of saints to console you. We are with you and we will be there to celebrate your Easter with you, too.

A Call to Prayer

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Lent began with a call to prayer--a jangling, jarring, unmistakable wake up call.  At three o'clock in the morning, the phone rang.  Since there were three cordless phones in the bedroom at the time, the phones rang--and they did so with authority. My husband answered and I could tell he was fumbling for words. I whispered the seven digit phone number into the darkness.  Mike relayed it and doublechecked for accuracy. He talked a little more and assured himself that the caller would indeed use the number provided.  A little more quiet talking. He hung up. Wrong number.

Our phone number is one digit off a local mental health hotline. Every once in awhile, we get a very serious "wrong number" phone call. And it's always in the middle of the night. I suppose we should have changed the number the first time it happened, but we figured it was an isolated incident. Now, we regard those dialing mistakes as opportunities for guardian angels to arrange for prayer vigils. We know how to keep the caller on the phone long enough to be certain he understands what the number really is and to be as certain as possible he'll make the second call. Before I hang up, I always tell the caller that I will be praying for him or her. On one occasion, the lady on the other end asked to pray with me. When it's the middle of the night and someone calls out of the blue and asks to pray, believe me, you sit up and you pray.

Whenever a phone awakens me in the middle of the night, even if it's not a hotline call, the adrenaline rush prevents me from going back to sleep easily. In the case of hotline calls, it's impossible not to wonder about the caller, about the outcome.  Usually, I don't go back to sleep at all. I just stay awake and pray. And for the next few days, every time the call comes to mind (and it is often), I pray some more.  An odd coincidence of numbers has resulted in an unexpected ministry.

There are so many calls to prayer in our lives, if only we hear them. Surely, the sound of sirens is such a call.  In the lives of mothers, the cry of a baby or even the whine of a toddler is a cue to beg divine intervention.  Nearly eight years ago, when my son Stephen was a newborn, a baby was born in California.  He was a fragile little boy, desperately ill.  And every single time my healthy bundle awakened me in the middle of the night, my prayers were offered first for Aidan in California.  It was my first experience asking the intercession of St. Therese. Aidan received a successful liver transplant on the Little Flower's feast day that year.  And I made a nighttime prayer partner for life. Therese and I still begin those nighttime vigils with a prayer for Aidan and now we offer those interrupted nights for all sorts of prayer concerns.

Whether it's the tinny ringtones of three phones or the quiet murmurs of my current baby, I am grateful for the reminder--the monastery bells in my domestic church. It's a privilege to join the company of monks and cloistered nuns around the world who have given their lives to pray.  My life is an active one; I am certainly not a contemplative. But in the dark of the night, often accompanied by the sweet sounds of a nursing baby, my prayers are joined with those of the universal church and the communion of saints as we beg for God's grace for the sick and the suffering.