Psalm 54

"Apa Pambo, one of the ancient Desert Fathers, was once questioned by a searcher after truth regarding the means of salvation. He replied, 'Find your heart and you will be saved.' He was advising the disciple not to seek external things, but to begin an inner quest. To find one's heart is to penetrate to the deepest level of one's being, unlayering stage by stage all that is unessential. To find one's heart means discovering also that at one's inmost center one is not alone."

Michael Casey, Towards God     

   

"In honor of your own good name, O God, 

save me by your strength, 

take up my cause and defend it as your own. 

Hear this very human prayer of mine.

As I speak it, listen to my every word.   

Take all the evil that stalks the good 

and crush it, Lord, 

till it is forever gone. 

Then in honor of your name I will offer up to you

whatever by all right is yours, my God, 

For you're the one who rescued me, 

and I myself have seen with my own eyes, 

how the ruthless ones, 

and all the arrogant do fall."

Psalm 54:1,5-7 

Ancient Songs Sung Anew 

Lynn C. Bauman  

    

  

Psalm 53

I am reading an engaging book entitled, "Toward God, The Ancient Wisdom of Western Prayer," written by Michael Casey, an Australian Cistercian monk and prior. I find much reassurance in this comment about prayer: "There is no perfect prayer - except insofar as it corresponds to one's real situation and represents a total turning toward God. The ecstatic prayer of a mystic is in no way superior to the agonized stumbling of a sinner weighed down with guilt and deformed by lifetime of estrangement from God; both are real, both are 'successful.' Both remain imperfect, too, because perfection does not belong in this life; it is to be expected in the next." 

   

We can and should come to God just as we are.  If God accepts us, and indeed created us, why do we struggle so with simply being ourselves?  It is our honest prayers that will lead us to God's healing presence, and this is one of the lessons of the psalms. Regardless if we pray from our anger, our mourning, a profound sense of failure, or euphoric joy, if our prayers are honest, we will experience God's love because it is always there for us. This is so good to know and take to heart. 

   

"Those lacking in understanding may say, 

'There is no Divine Presence.'

They have not yet opened their hearts 

to the Blessed One, 

to the Beloved, who dwells within. 

 

The Holy Spirit seeks out hearts 

that have been broken, 

Ever ready to bless them with 

strength and new life."   

 

Psalm 53, abridged 

Psalms for Praying, 

Nan C. Merrill