A Lenten Meditation

Friday, 20 March 2009
By Robert Louis Wilken

A traditional prayer recited before Lauds and Vespers in the Church's Divine Office reads: “Open, O Lord, my mouth to bless Your holy name: cleanse my heart from all idle, distorted, and wandering thoughts; enlighten my understanding, set fire to my affections, and grant that I may be able to pray this office worthily, attentively, and with devotion, so that my prayer will be worthy of rising before your divine Majesty. Through Christ our Lord.”

I first learned this prayer in Latin at the Benedictine monastery of St. Anselmo, on the Aventine hill in Rome, and I have said it for years before praying the several offices in the Liturgy of the Hours. In a few brief words it expresses the thoughts that go through one’s mind at the beginning of a time of prayer. Prayer has to do not only with the words we say, but the disposition of the heart. Wandering thoughts and a distracted mind easily turn us away from the business at hand, but it is the heart that holds us to God. Hence the petitions: “cleanse my heart” and “set fire to my affections.” Without love, without a heart fixed on God, prayer is a futile exercise, words vanishing in the air.
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