Daily First Prayer

It has been one year precisely since I last posted on this blog. More than one person has asked me why I stopped blogging, and urged me to pick it up again. It has been a trying year, but now I am ready to resume blogging. As I look over this blog’s statistics in the past twelve months, I note with satisfaction that the number of followers of this blog increased during the silent year from 43 to 53.

So now I have ideas for several blogposts that I hope to put here in the next few weeks. Working titles are “Sabbath and Retirement”, “Chrysalis”, “The Joy of Explosives”, “Paul in Jerusalem”, “Forests and Cities”, “Moses”, “Sky and Sea”, and “His Blood Be On Us”.

But I’ll begin with “Daily First Prayer”.

For many years I have maintained a prayer journal. It is a living document—that is, I am constantly writing and rewriting it as my life changes. A small part of it has been creating and refining what I call “Daily First Prayer”. I start each day with the following words (or similar words—I don’t just read it, but rather pray it from memory).

Thank you for the beginning of this day,

with its promise and potential

I commit myself to the practice and pursuit this day

of sanctity above all else

Guide and bless my labors and doings this day [especially ___ ]

Defend me in all times of assault, danger, and temptation

            Give me a strong sense of the constant fellowship of your Saints

Help me, like them, to choose and desire only what is good

and to cleave to it;

to resist, reject, and abhor all that is evil;

and to be able to discern the difference

when it is difficult for me to do so

Grant me grace that I may show forth the fruits of the Spirit,

and that my life may be a radiant and effective testimony to Jesus

I love you, O Lord my God; help me to love you

with my whole heart, mind, soul, and strength

Help me to trust in your guidance and providence in all situations,

and to look for and find blessings in all circumstances

Grant me grace that I may truly love all people,

freely receive love from others in the way they offer it,

and strive always to see myself as you do, as the rule of self regard

On Wednesdays and Fridays I add

Whenever I sin, bridge the gap of my failings

and bless any who might be harmed because of me

Then show me my sin, bring me to repentance and confession,

have mercy on me, forgive me, restore me to you, and

grant reconciliation with any whom I have offended

Help me to forgive those who have sinned against me

and to find blessing in the circumstances of their sin

Give me desire and grace for amendment of life

It’s taken several years to refine this prayer, and I suppose that it isn’t finished yet. Line by line, this is what I mean by it:

Thank you for the beginning of this day,

with its promise and potential

Each day begins with hope and intention for my coming more and more to know and love and serve God. Such an attitude or commitment dispels depression and discouragement at the beginning of the day, and puts the focus on God first.

I commit myself to the practice and pursuit this day

of sanctity above all else

Some years back I changed a request that God make me holy to a commitment or promise to practice it. That turns what could have been a constant petition into a proactive intention. Always asking implies that I am comfortable remaining immature in Christ. If I am truly to become holy, I must ask for it indeed, but must also make decisions and choose actions that are holy. Adding the word “pursuit” shows that I recognize that growing in sanctity must be a lifelong pattern.

Guide and bless my labors and doings this day [especially ___ ]

            Clearly, the day’s specifics are mentioned here. This will include prayer for all the people with whom I expect to have any contact, whether by email, telephone, or in person; and every task or errand or time of rest that I can anticipate. I lay the day’s realities before God and put them under his sovereignty.

Defend me in all times of assault, danger, and temptation

I pray God’s protection in wisdom, patience, and all virtue whenever someone attacks me for any reason and by any means (it’s usually by email); whenever danger threatens in any way; and whenever I am drawn to something apart from the will of God.

            Give me a strong sense of the constant fellowship of your Saints

            It is a great strength of the Catholic faith and one of the great birthrights of and gifts to each believer that we are “surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1). Every date has a variety of the heroes and heroines of the Faith associated with it. Each disciple must keep his eyes and desires away from what is worthless and deceptive and turned toward what is within the will of God, and the Saints’ examples, encouragement, and living prayers are resources of incalculable power.

Help me, like them, to choose and desire only what is good

and to cleave to it;

“Choosing” what is good will often comes before a desire for it. Making a choice is an act of will, and choice is a primary characteristic of human nature. God gives us the dignity of choice in all things, and by our choices we shape our souls. So first we choose it, then we come to desire it, and finally we cleave to what we have chosen. I ask that the Saints’ influence will be a resource to help me become like them in these matters.

to resist, reject, and abhor all that is evil;

Though we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, we are also “assaulted by many temptations”. Just as choice precedes desire, so resistance must precede rejection. Cleaving to what is good is enhanced by an abhorrence of all evil.

and to be able to discern the difference

when it is difficult for me to do so

Moral and spiritual blacks and whites do abound, but in most instances we perceive shades of gray. Although ignorance of God’s will is taken into consideration by him, and our good desires are evidence of our striving to walking the road to heaven, many of our real life situations can be very complex. In such times, a prayer for discernment is needed that we may be shown the will of God.

Grant me grace that I may show forth the fruits of the Spirit,

            The fruits of the Spirit, namely “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control”, are the outworking or manifestation of a godly life. Inward attitude and commitment must be evident to those in the world in which we live.

and that my life may be a radiant and effective testimony to Jesus

and the consequence of showing forth the fruits of the Spirit must be a pointing to Jesus and his effectiveness in our lives.

I love you, O Lord my God; help me to love you

with my whole heart, mind, soul, and strength

Inspired by the appeal of the man with the demoniac son who said, “I believe! Help me in my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24), so this statement begins with my genuine but only human love of God, which, in its very essence, asks for grace to love God as he commands—that we love him with everything that it means to be human, to be ourselves.

Help me to trust in your guidance and providence in all situations,

and to look for and find blessings in all circumstances

Love of God is immediately applied in how we receive, perceive, and work that love in the complexities of real life. Some situations we face are tremendously painful or otherwise awful. Whether they are God’s will for us or not, they are at least permitted by God, and we are to trust that he is present in them, has not abandoned us, and that there is always a blessing to be found. Very often, however, we must LOOK for the blessing if we are to find it; if we don’t look, we usually confine ourselves to a smaller vision of what we can see and thereby miss many good things that are right in front of us.

Grant me grace that I may truly love all people,

            As Jesus taught, the love of God must include the love of neighbor as one loves oneself. It is easy to love the stranger, and often more difficult to love those we know and see regularly. This petition asks that our love of all people, the “neighbors” of Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, must be “true”—not merely a feeling or sentiment, but a soul-deep reality manifested in attitude and action.

freely receive love from others in the way they offer it,

This line accepts that other people are as flawed as we are, and that their love shown to us may be egregiously tainted or misguided. We are to give them the benefit of the doubt, assume that they are doing their best, not prejudiciously attribute duplicity to them, and trust that they are loving us.

and strive always to see myself as you do, as the rule of self regard

            Yet, whether people love us or hate us or are indifferent to us, or whatever their attitude toward us and whatever their motives behind their attitudes toward us, we are to strive to regard our selves, our own worth, by God’s standard alone. This is how we must love ourselves, which is the basis of our measure of loving others: how does God see us? As a corollary, how does God see others? Any other standard for love will be distorted and deceptive. As Paul wrote, “With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself” (1 Corinthians 4:3). And for every servant of the Lord, “It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand” (Romans 14:4).

Whenever I sin, bridge the gap of my failings

and bless any who might be harmed because of me

            Knowing that I am a sinner, in my confession I ask first not for forgiveness, but I pray first for those who are caused to suffer because of me. The prayer is that God will “bridge the gap”, i.e. make good on whatever harm I have done others by providing a blessing to them through or in place of the hurt.

Then show me my sin, bring me to repentance and confession,

have mercy on me, forgive me, restore me to you, and

grant reconciliation with any whom I have offended

This is the normal order of events in which one is set right with God after a sin. One must first know that one has sinned, then be convicted of the sin or brought to repentance. Confession of the sin must follow that, at which time mercy can be shown. Mercy leads to forgiveness, and after forgiveness the broken relationship with God is restored. Finally, reconciliation with the victims of one’s sins must be a consequence of forgiveness from God, or that forgiveness normally cannot be complete. Of course, reconciliation with others depends upon them as well, and the depth of their own sins and their own sinfulness can delay or prevent full reconciliation. In such a case, their own sins come into play, and one’s own forgiveness from God will not be prevented. No sinner has veto power over God’s mercy and forgiveness shown to another.

Help me to forgive those who have sinned against me

and to find blessing in the circumstances of their sin

Of course, there are times when we ourselves will be the victims of other’s sins, and the procedure described above will apply in that case also, even though we are in a different place in the outworking of mercy. This petition asks that we will be eager for reconciliation and glad to proffer forgiveness when it is our place to do so.

Give me desire and grace for amendment of life

            Finally, we must overall become better in the Christian life, and that will happen only by grace, and grace is almost always preceded by the desire for it. Thus we end near where we began: with the desire for holiness.