There’s been a lot of discussion lately on the words we use in prayer. But what about the words we use in our own daily prayers? I’m not talking about the office, here. I’m talking about those moments in the privacy of a corner couch, a daily commute, or a kitchen stove when one has no written text, no hymnal, no breviary to rely on to speak one’s thoughts in private, ritual prayer to God. Just how do everyday people without theological degrees or a liturgical library learn to pray in their every day experience?
In my childhood, Catholic grade school took care of all the standard prayers. Sunday Mass pretty much took care of the rest. I joined the parish choir when I was still in single digits (back in the late 70s—I’m not one of those under 35ers, but I’m pretty darn close!), and by the time I was in high school, I was leading music at two or three Masses a weekend.
But other than Mass, I don’t think I really had a “prayer life.” Once I got to college and joined a campus ministry team, sure, I was praying at meetings and retreats all the time. But even still, I couldn’t honestly say I “prayed” on my own. I think I just didn’t know what to say or how to say it.
However, in my adult years now, there have been many times when I’ve felt drawn to pray in the midst of my day. An event of crisis, a moment of doubt, a surprise announcement full of joy, a question that just won’t let go—these events needed words, yet none of the standard prayers I had memorized seemed to fit.
I searched the Book of Blessings, I read the psalms, poems, and readings in the daily office. Some of these struck a chord, and so much of it was stunningly beautiful, but they still weren’t the words I needed to say.
So, tentatively, I started to make up my own prayers. I say tentatively because I knew the beauty of the office, and I could never match the lyrical grace of the psalms. How could I ever think my own words could be more appropriate than the canticles? They simply couldn’t.
And yet it was these very psalms and canticles that gave me the words to pray for my own. As I started weaving words together in these private moments, I found that I was taking a piece of a psalm here, connecting it to a line in a canticle there, looping through it an image from the Gospels, decorating it with a lyric from a song last Sunday, and tying it together with a phrase from the Mass.
All this time, the Mass, with its psalms, hymns, readings, acclamations, orations, and dialogues, had been teaching me how to pray in my own words. It had taught me how to praise and lament, how to thank and petition, how to grieve and rejoice in language that was not “ordinary” and yet was authentically my own. It was language handed down and made new, so that I could speak my heart in those most intimate times of prayer.
I reflected on these thoughts today as the tiny nation of Haiti suffered a massive earthquake. I have friends with family there, and my heart was moved to pray. Here in California, we know earthquakes, and I personally know what the nights and days are like immediately following a devastating temblor. It is constant fear. Knowing this, all I could think of this evening—and I know, some of you will laugh—was an old Saint Louis Jesuits’ song: “Though the mountains may fall and the hills turn to dust, yet the love of the Lord will stand….” Isaiah, with a little help from Dan Schutte, again gave me the words I needed to say.
A Prayer for Haiti After the Earthquake
Lord, at times such as this,
when we realize that the ground beneath our feet
is not as solid as we had imagined,
we plead for your mercy.
As the things we have built crumble about us,
we know too well how small we truly are
on this ever-changing, ever-moving,
fragile planet we call home.
Yet you have promised never to forget us.
Do not forget us now.
Today, so many people are afraid.
They wait in fear of the next tremor.
They hear the cries of the injured amid the rubble.
They roam the streets in shock at what they see.
And they fill the dusty air with wails of grief
and the names of missing dead.
Comfort them, Lord, in this disaster.
Be their rock when the earth refuses to stand still,
and shelter them under your wings when homes no longer exist.
Embrace in your arms those who died so suddenly this day.
Console the hearts of those who mourn,
and ease the pain of bodies on the brink of death.
Pierce, too, our hearts with compassion,
we who watch from afar,
as the poorest on this side of the earth
find only misery upon misery.
Move us to act swiftly this day,
to give generously every day,
to work for justice always,
and to pray unceasingly for those without hope.
And once the shaking has ceased,
the images of destruction have stopped filling the news,
and our thoughts return to life’s daily rumblings,
let us not forget that we are all your children
and they, our brothers and sisters.
We are all the work of your hands.
For though the mountains leave their place
and the hills be tossed to the ground,
your love shall never leave us,
and your promise of peace will never be shaken.
Our help is in the name of the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
Blessed be the name of the Lord,
now and forever. Amen.
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