I Will Repel Them

Psalm 118:10-14

10  All the ungodly encompass me; *

            In the name of the Lord I will repel them.

11  They hem me in, they hem me in on every side; *

            In the name of the Lord I will repel them.

12  They swarm about me like bees; *

      they blaze like a fire of thorns; *

            in the name of the Lord I will repel them.

13  I was pressed so hard that I almost fell,*

            But the Lord came to my help.

14  The Lord is my strength and my song,*

            And he has become my salvation.

We have been on the edge of a war zone twice in our lives; once in the early nineteen-seventies crossing the border from Ulster to Ireland where the crossing was bombed an hour after we passed through it; and once in the nineteen-eighties at the Allenby Bridge between Jordan and Israel where we could here bullets ricocheting off the rocks.  The former crossing between Ulster and Ireland had some tangible danger and that delicious tang of fear in the belly, and the latter may have been some Palestinian cowboy having a little bit of fun.  However that border crossing inspection took six hours because the week before some tourist’s hand was blown off by a bomb that had been placed in his suitcase.  In neither instance could we with a straight face say “All the ungodly encompass me; * in the name of the Lord I will repel them.”[i]  Yet the Psalmist’s testimony in Psalm 118 does have a deep personal relevance.

St. Benedict gives us a clue to the application of this passage from Psalm 118 in the Prologue of his Rule when he says, “This is the one who, under any temptation from the malicious devil, has brought him to naught (Ps. 14:4) by casting him and his temptation from the sight of his heart; and who has laid hold of his thoughts while they were still young and dashed them against Christ” (Ps. 137:9).”[ii]  There is often in Holy Scripture several layers of meaning much akin to the layers of meaning in poetry.  Indeed much of the Bible is poetry, including all of the Book of Psalms.  The verse Benedict is interpreting actually applies to an unpalatable malediction on the children of one’s enemies, “Happy shall he be who takes your little ones, and dashes them against the rock! (Psalm 136:9).  The sixth century saint Benedict, casts temptations as the little ones that need to be dashed against a rock, and he is quite right.

Applying that interpretation to this passage from Psalm 118 yields the following insight.  There are times when the temptations from our malicious enemy the devil encompass us; we feel harassed, surrounded, and overwhelmed.  Frankly, even more dangerous are those times when we don’t even recognize that we are being tempted, but that is a discussion for another time. 

The Psalmist points the way to dealing with these spiritual assaults when he says of these overwhelming enemies, “In the name of the Lord I will repel them!”  Benedict says, “Take these thoughts and dash them against the Rock who is Christ!”  St. Augustine gives poignant voice to difficulty that ensues, “The triflingest of things, the very hollowest of things of the hollow-headed, had stalled me—my entrenched lusts, plucking me back by my fleshly clothing, whispering low: Can you cast us off?  And: From this moment, never more to be with us!  And: From this moment never to do this, not ever, or to do this?”[iii] 

It is so very difficult at the outset not to heed the siren call of those unholy little ones that beset us.  The Psalmist says in response They hem me in, they hem me in on every side; in the name of the Lord I will repel them.”  But these thoughts are insistent, “They swarm about me like bees; they blaze like a fire of thorns; in the name of the Lord I will repel them.  I was pressed so hard that I almost fell, but the Lord came to my help.”  When these seemingly overwhelming temptations swarm about us we will find that if we actually take those little ones, those thoughts, and in prayer dash them against Christ by asking for his help in the midst of temptation, that the greatest difficulty is at the outset, at the beginning; and if we persist we will discover that His grace will meet our need.

Note that the phrase “in the name of the Lord I will repel them” is a declaration that we ourselves, by grace, take authority over our temptations.  That is the declaration we make in our baptismal vows, “Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God?  I renounce them.”[iv]  Augustine would remind us that God will give us grace that we might actually decide to repel those temptations, and that when we have decided to renounce them, that God himself will give us the grace to carry through our intent to repel them.  God chooses not to act instead of us, but hand in hand with us that we might experience his victory as we strive to repel the temptations sometimes swarm about us like bees.

Then with joy we can cry out:

“The Lord is my strength and my song,*

                        And he has become my salvation.”

---

[i] Those who have lived through one of the many wars of the last century have an even more direct experience of the nature of war, and for they have a deeper appreciation of “they blaze like a fire of thorns.” 

[ii] The Rule of St. Benedict, Prologue, v. 28

[iii] Garry Wills, trans. The Confessions of St. Augustine, (New York: Penguin, 2006), p.179-180

[iv] The Book of Common Prayer, p. 302

Late Have I Loved You

                         

Late have I loved you,

Beauty so ancient and so new,

      late have I loved you!
Lo, you were within,
      but I outside, seeking there for you,
      and upon the shapely things you have made
            I rushed headlong – I, misshapen.
You were with me, but I was not with you.
They held me back far from you,
      those things which would have no being,
      were they not in you.
You called, shouted, broke through my deafness;
      you flared, blazed, banished my blindness;
      you lavished your fragrance,

I gasped; and now I pant for you;
I tasted you, and now I hunger and thirst;
      you touched me, and I burned for your peace.[i]

……………………..

Hymn:  O Beauty, Ever Ancient           Robert O’Connor, Pub. OCP

Oh late have I loved You,

Oh late have I turned;

turned from seeking you in creatures,

fleeing grief and pain within. 

Refrain

O Beauty, ever ancient,

O Beauty, ever new;

You the mirror of my life renewed,

Let me find my life in you.

http://welcomingspirit.blogspot.com/2009/01/o-beauty-ever-ancient-video-from-new.html

……………………………. 

The Confessions of St. Augustine are written as one extensive prayer from the opening words, “‘Vast are you, Lord, and as vast should be your praise’—‘vast what you do; what you know is beyond assaying,’”[ii] to the final sentence, “Only to you can we pray, only from you can we hope, only at your door can we knock.  Be it granted, be it fulfilled, be it opened.”[iii]   

In preaching about the love of God Augustine moves seamlessly from theology to testimony to prayer. “Where we are then to abide and Whence we are to draw Life? Let Holy Scripture speak for us lest we should seem in mere conjecture to be saying things contrary to the teaching of the Word of God. Hear the words of one who knew: If God be for us who is against us? [Rom. 8:31] The Lord, he says, is the portion of my inheritance. [Ps. 16:5] He saith not: “Lord, what wilt Thou give me for mine inheritance? All that Thou canst give me is worthless! Be Thou mine inheritance! Thee do I love! Thee do I wholly love! With all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind do I love Thee! What, then, shall be my lot? What wilt Thou give me save Thyself?” This is to love God freely. This is to hope for God from God. This is to hasten to be filled with God, to be sated with Him. For He is sufficient for thee; apart from Him nought can suffice thee![iv] (Sermon, cccxxxiv. 3). 

There is mingled sorrow, longing, and joy in his prayer, “Late have I loved you, Beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you.”  Some indeed have never known at time in which they did not know Love Himself; others share with Augustine that sense of longing; the wish that they had known Love forever.  Many of us, who have walked some years with the Him still sense that feeling of lost opportunity, “If only… if only, if only I had known Love sooner,” and the yearning stretches into the future. 

Day by day, dear Lord,

of thee three things I pray:

to see thee more clearly,

love thee more nearly,

follow thee more nearly,

day by day.[v]   

That yearning is what C. S. Lewis referred to as joy; for there is a joy in our longing for God that is the leading edge of the prayer of union; those fleeting moments when we are lost in the God whom we adore.  St. Teresa of Avila exclaims, “Oh, the greatness of God, that a soul should come out like this after having been hidden in the greatness of God, and be closely united with Him, for so short a time—never, I think, for so long as half an hour.” [vi]  The whole will of the soul is then “set on desiring to have ever increasing fruition of its Spouse; and His Majesty, knowing our weakness, continues to grant it the things it wants, and many more.[vii] 

Augustine confesses that in his search for God he was looking in the wrong places.  He says, “Lo, you were within, but I outside, seeking there for you, and upon the shapely things you have made I rushed headlong—I, misshapen.”  Augustine’s search took him in many bypaths of sensuality, intellectual enquiry, and into the heresies of Manichaeism.  He says, “I had ‘gone down deviant paths’ with the help of a false and blaspheming religion.  I did not so much accept it as true—I simply preferred it to the one I was not virtuous enough to pursue but was viciously resisting.”[viii] 

The problem, as it so often is, is the surrender of the will.  We want to will the right thing, but we are double-minded, and a double-minded man cannot receive anything from the Lord.[ix]   Augustine says, “For my willing was as halfhearted as my nilling.  I was a war within, was exiled from myself.  My exile was unwelcome to me, caused not by a second nature within me but by the cost of sin.”[x]  All the while he confesses that God was within him, seeking him, but he could not find him.   

His search among all the shapely things that God had made was a hindrance and he cries out, “They held me back far from you, those things which would have no being, were they not in you.’  But what are the shapely things of the world that hold us back from that surrender?  Is it the delight of knowing, or even the delight in not knowing?  Beware, contemporary Christians don’t always want to be intellectually challenged; and rather than stretch to understand they sometimes cry out, “Dumb it down, so that I can understand!”  Do we search through the shapely things that He has made; through the beauty of the world; through delights of the flesh; even through the lesser loves that can supplant the greatest Love when they are loved without that Love that redeems all things? 

It is hard to let go and to cast our all upon the Lord of Love.  It ultimately means abandoning ourselves. 

It reminds me of a Monty Python Sequence, 

Bring out your dead . . . bring out your dead… 

Here's one -- nine pence. 

I'm not dead!  

What?   

Nothing -- here's your nine pence.  

I'm not dead!   

Here -- he says he's not dead! 

Yes, he is. 

I'm not! 

He isn't. 

Well, he will be soon, he's very ill. 

I'm getting better![xi] 

Right to the very end we struggle against death to the world and death to ourselves.  But the mercy of God is that He continues to pursue us,   

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;

  I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

  Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears

I hid from Him 

  Halts by me that footfall;

  Is my gloom, after all,

Shade of His hand, outstreched caressingly?[xii] 

Augustine cries out, “You called, shouted, broke through my deafness; you flared, blazed, banished my blindness; you lavished your fragrance, I gasped; and now I pant for you; I tasted you, and now I hunger and thirst; you touched me, and I burned for your peace.”   

I remind you of something you should already know.  There are two forms of grace, Infused Grace, and Acquired Grace.  The distinction between Infused Grace and Acquired Grace is evident in St. Diodochus of Photiki in his discussion of Initiatory Grace.  Initiatory Grace is itself an Infused Grace.  There are moments of blessed, unsought, unexpected Infused Grace, but a common error of revivalism is the attempt to relive the experience of Initiatory Grace instead of humbly accepting the discipline of Acquired Grace.  St. Diodochus says, 

If we fervently desire holiness, the Holy Spirit at the outset gives the soul a full conscious taste of God’s sweetness, so that the intellect will know exactly of what the final reward of spiritual life consists.  But later he often conceals this precious and life-creating gift.  He does this so that, even if we acquire other virtues, we should still regard ourselves as nothing because we have not acquired divine love in a lasting form . . . It is therefore necessary to work upon the soul forcefully for a while, so that we may come to taste divine love fully and consciously . . . Those who have advanced to perfection are able to taste this love continually, but no one can experience it completely until ‘what is mortal in us is swallowed up by life. (2 Cor. 2:4)[xiii]

C. S. Lewis differentiates between longing and longing.  In a marvellous passage from Out of the Silent Planet there is a linguistic discussion between Ransom and the hrossa Hyoi who is one of the intelligent creatures inhabiting the planet Malacandra.  “There were two verbs which both, as far as he could see, meant to long or yearn; but the hrossa drew a sharp distinction, even an opposition, between them.  Hyoi seemed to him merely to be saying that every one would long for it (wonderlone) but no one in his senses could long for it (hluntheline).  That is to say that there is a longing that is grace-filled (wonderlone), and a longing (hluntheline) the end of which is only a satisfaction of the flesh.  I remember Martin Luther’s expression, junker fleisch, which means roughly, “little lord flesh,’ or perhaps, “squire flesh,” a term of self-mockery.

The true longing of the soul is to see the face of God, not a longing that the flesh might be satisfied, but a longing of the spirit that ends in surrender and union with God, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is of no avail.”[xiv]  The Psalmist prays, “You have said, ‘“Seek my face.’ My heart says to you, ‘Your face, LORD, do I seek.’  Hide not your face from me.’”[xv]  And again the Psalmist says, “Seek the LORD, and his strength: seek his face evermore.”[xvi] Our longing to see the face of God springs from the deepest desire of the human heart, freed by grace, for union with the Lord whom we love.  Augustine gives voice to this longing saying, “I gasped; and now I pant for you; I tasted you, and now I hunger and thirst.”   

For me a reductionist interpretation is not adequate.  I do not want to avoid the obvious surface meaning.  With Moses I cry, “Show me Your Glory.”[xvii]  My Lord, show me Your face.  If it is not possible to see Your essence, the cry of my heart is at least let me see the “effulgence” of Your glory,[xviii] the outraying of Your Essence in the face of Jesus Christ.   May I see Your glory as the eye sees.  Let me see You with a ‘spiritual sensing’ even as Paul was caught up to heaven, whether in the body or out of the body he did not know.[xix]  Let me see You as John saw You walking among the golden menorah of the Churches.  Why? Because I love You?  Not a shadow of how You love me!  No!  Because You command it, and say “Seek My face,” and my seeking, which is commanded, will make Your heart glad even as it leaves me “rapt” in Your love.[xx] 

Our experience of God is uneven because we are uneven. Apart from grace we have no freedom of will, but like Augustine in his struggle towards surrender, we are driven by the nature and nurture that we have inherited from Adam and we do not always wish to be freed from the old Adam.   Augustine tells us, that “We can, however, ourselves do nothing to effect good works of piety without Him either working that we may will, or co-working when we will.”[xxi]  It is grace that sets us free, free to will, free to choose, free to act.  But we must will, choose, and act, all by our own choice.  You will recognize that as an instance of truth in tension; the human mind is not expansive enough to incorporate even a fraction of the mysteries of God.  That is why we pray: 

O God, from whom all good proceeds: Grant that by your inspiration we may think those things that are right, and by your merciful guiding may do them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.[xxii]

---

[i]   St. Augustine, The Confessions, Book 10, III, 38

[ii]   Garry Wills, trans. St. Augustine, The Confessions.(New York: Penguin, 2006), p. 3

[iii] Ibid. p. 353

[iv] Augustine: Sermon, cccxxxiv. 3

[v]   St. Richard of Chichester, 1197-1253, Hymnal 1982, Hymn 654

[vi]              Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle, trans. ed.(E. Allison Peers, New York: Doubleday, 1989), p. 106

[vii] Augustine. p. 148

[viii]             Ibid. p. 174

[ix]              James 1:7-8

[x]   Augustine, p. 177

[xi] Monty Python and the Holy Grail

[xii] Francis Thompson (1859-1907) The Hound of Heaven

[xiii]             Kallistos Ware, trans. “St. Diodochus of Photiki,” The Philokalia, (London: Faber and Faber, 1979), Vol. 1, p. 289.

[xiv] John 6:63

[xv]  Psalm 27:8-9, ESV

[xvi] Psalm 105:4, KJV.  The Hebrew word panyim. Is accurately translated as face in the KJV, while other translations paraphrase it as presence.

[xvii] Exodus 33:18

[xviii] John Calvin, Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews 1:1-3

[xix] 2 Corinthians 12:2

[xx]  Richard Rolle, The Fire of Love

[xxi]   St. Augustine, De gratia et libero arbitrio, 17: PL 44, 901

[xxii]   Proper 5 The Sunday closest to June 8

The Law of Undulation

C. S. Lewis’s character Screwtape, the Senior devil in The Screwtape Letters, has an interesting take on human nature. He observes that our lives have a natural rhythm, an ebb and flow, a series of troughs and peaks that affects every area of our lives—our interests, our loves, our work. We go through times of spiritual insight and responsiveness, and times of dryness and dullness.

That shouldn’t surprise us; the rhythm is written into nature. In simpler times I have sat by sea and watched the waves, not just the rhythm of the waves breaking on the beach, then retreating to break interminably upon the beach again, but the long ebbing of the tide, its flowing back, a rhythm governed by the cycle of the moon upon the earth.

The rhythms of our lives are part of the dance of life that all God’s creatures dance. The dance becomes un-rhythmical, disharmonious, erratic, when the dancers fail to move with the dance and try to force their way unnaturally. This often happens when the dancers fail to notice that they are dancing the dance, and that the law of undulation is a natural law.

Some of God’s children try to force their way into perpetual spiritual highs, others surrender to the lows and allow depression to govern all their days. You can’t live on the heights, and you best not camp permanently in the low valleys of our experience.

The first correction that we can make is the simple acknowledgment that we have highs and lows; that highs and lows are a natural part of life, and that there is nothing wrong with having highs and lows. Barring chemical imbalance, which is a matter for wise doctors and counsellors, having highs and lows is not a call for some pacifying medication to homogenize our days. Bland is not beautiful.

Rather than that, make use of your highs, those moments of greater energy and joy, and rejoice that your God has made you and all things good. In those moments step into the flow of His creativity and dance the dance with confidence.

In the lows, do not condemn yourself or accept Screwtape’s counsel of despair. Instead, use the steady tools of your faith; pray the prayers of Morning Prayer, read Holy Scripture, especially the Psalms, that book of ups and downs. Talk quietly with your friends, give love, accept love, read quietly things that delight the mind, listen to a symphony, and be at peace; the rhythm always returns and every ebb is always followed by a flow.

St. Benedict reminds us that “We believe that the divine presence is everywhere and that in every place the eyes of the Lord are watching the good and the wicked” (Proverbs 15:3). But beyond the least doubt we should believe this to be especially true when we celebrate the divine office” (RB 19:1,2). First, understand that your Lord is with you in the lows as well as in the highs. Even Screwtape knew that our Lord makes great use of the troughs in our lives, observing, “It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best” (Screwtape, Letter VIII).

Second, observe that steady discipline maintained through both highs and lows is the clearest channel of grace. That is commonly known as Acquired Grace. The simple truth is that if we steadily hold our souls aloft to God, He will pour His blessing upon us. Our daily prayer and Scripture reading doesn’t have to be flashy, it just has to be as regular as we can possibly make it. There is a difference between Infused Grace, that moment of gratuitous spiritual intensity that we so often seek and cherish, and Acquired grace. Infused Grace is temporarily rewarding, Acquired Grace builds slowly but steadily towards a deeper union with the God whom we love.

The distinction between Infused Grace and Acquired Grace is evident in St. Diodochus of Photiki in his discussion of Initiatory Grace. Initiatory Grace is itself an Infused Grace. There are moments of blessed, unsought, unexpected Infused Grace, but a common error of revivalism is the attempt to relive the experience of Initiatory Grace instead of humbly accepting the discipline of Acquired Grace. You can’t force Infused Grace. St. Diodochus says, “If we fervently desire holiness, the Holy Spirit at the outset gives the soul a full conscious taste of God’s sweetness, so that the intellect will know exactly of what the final reward of spiritual life consists. But later he often conceals this precious and life-creating gift. He does this so that, even if we acquire other virtues, we should still regard ourselves as nothing because we have not acquired divine love in a lasting form . . . It is therefore necessary to work upon the soul forcefully for a while, so that we may come to taste divine love fully and consciously . . . Those who have advanced to perfection are able to taste this love continually, but no one can experience it completely until ‘what is mortal in us is swallowed up by life.” (2 Cor. 2:4) [1]

Third, observe that we take ourselves too seriously. That is a result of our misguided view that we are actually in control. Banish the thought from your mind. The Psalmist says, “I am a man who has no strength…I am shut in so that I cannot escape…I am helpless” (Psalm 88:4,8,15 ESV). You only think you are in control. That in itself ought to provide the biggest occasion for self-deprecatory humour, that is, if it weren’t so often painful. Relax into the hands of God, accept His forgiveness, accept His patience with you and extend some of that divine patience to yourself and to others. From a divine perspective, in all our solemn seriousness, we may all be somewhat amusing. That is to say, ease up on yourself and live in forgiveness and divine acceptance.

One of C. S. Lewis’s characters, at the moment immediately preceding her encounter with God, had the following flash of insight, “Supposing one were a thing after all—a thing designed and invented by Someone Else and valued for qualities quite different from what one had decided to regard as one’s true self? Supposing all those people who, from the bachelor uncles down to Mark and Mother Dimble, had infuriatingly found her sweet and fresh when she wanted them to find her also interesting and important, had all along been simply right and perceived the sort of thing she was?” (C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, (New York: Scribner, 1945), p. 315). The question really isn’t, “What do I want to do?”, or “What do I want to be?”, but “What has my Maker designed me to be?”, and “How has he moulded me through the apparent accidents of life?”

[1] Kallistos Ware, trans. “St. Diodochus of Photiki,” The Philokalia, (London: Faber and Faber, 1979), Vol. 1, p. 289.

St Ambrose on Prayer with Commentary

The Lord Jesus, in his divine wisdom, taught you about the goodness of the Father, who knows how to give good things, so that you might ask for the things that are good from Goodness itself. He urges you to pray earnestly and frequently, not offering long and wearisome prayers, but praying often, and with perseverance. Lengthy prayers are usually filled with empty words, while neglect of prayer results in indifference to prayer.i

Healthy Christian prayer is based firmly on an understanding of the goodness of God. I say “healthy Christian prayer” because not all Christians who pray have a firm conviction that God from His goodness will answer their prayers.  Part of the problem that is when we are faced with serious or painful issues, we are also faced with our own shortsightedness. What we want is immediate relief not what God in his Sovereign goodness desires to give us. Trusting in the goodness of God requires that we trust that the answers that He gives us, “Yes,” “No,” “Wait,” are actually the answers that are good for us.ii

Second, Ambrose gives us an instruction that sounds suspiciously like a remark of St. Benedict in his Rule, or is it that St. Benedict sounds suspiciously like St. Ambrose? Prayer should be therefore be short and pure, unless perhaps it is prolonged under the inspiration of divine grace.”iii Both however sound like Jesus, “When you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.”iv Even in ordinary conversation we Gentiles are tempted to keep on explaining something until we make our point, as though heaping up phrases does anything other than making us boring.

Again Christ urges you, when you ask forgiveness for yourself, to be especially generous to others, so that your actions may commend your prayer. The Apostle, too, teaches you how to pray: you must avoid anger and contentiousness, so that your prayer may be serene and wholesome.

You already know what Jesus said: “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”v At heart you know that prayer won't work well without forgiveness and charity, but don't miss the fact that anger and contentiousness will break your connection with the God of Love and Holiness. One of the problems in the Church today is that righteous people get all lathered up over issues in the world and in the Church and lose their serenity. That is the reason why in our Chapter gatherings of The Oblates and Companions of St. Benedict and St. Scholastica we do not discuss issues in the Anglican Communion or in national politics. It is of paramount importance that our prayers remain serene and wholesome.

He tells you also that every place is a place of prayer though our Savior says, “Go into your room.” But by “room” you must understand, not a room enclosed by walls that imprison your body, but the room that is within you, the room where you hide your thoughts, where you keep your affections. This room of prayer is always with you, wherever you are, and it is always a secret room, where only God can see you.

There is in some circles an emphasis that you must retire to a solitary place in order to pray. While that is in some respects good advice, try exercising it in most families. We have had a number of Benedictine dogs. When it's time for Morning Prayer they will settle down on the floor and wait their turn, well not always; and most dogs are more patient than children. If you are to pray well, you should understand that you carry your prayer room with you, and when you cannot find unbroken solitude, enter into that inner room, but keep your prayers short and pure. It is good to find a quiet time of solitude, but God also wants your friendship and companionship in the busy give and take of life.

You are told to pray especially for the people, that is for the whole body, for all its members, the family of your mother the Church; the badge of membership in this body is love for each other. If you pray only for yourself, you pray for yourself alone. If each one prays for himself, he receives less from God's goodness that the one who prays on behalf of others. But as it is, because each prays for all, all are in fact praying for each other. To conclude, if you pray only for yourself, you will be praying, as we said, for yourself alone. But if you pray for all, all will pray for you, for you are included in all. In this way there is a great recompense; through the prayers of each individual. There is here no pride, but an increase of humility and a richer harvest from prayer.

One of the side-benefits of praying the Morning Office is the word, “our”. When we pray the Morning Office, by virtue of that word we are praying with those the world over who also pray the Morning Office in its variety of forms, throughout the world wide church, over a great span of languages and lands. In praying, “our”, each prays for all. And in the great company of saints there is a rich harvest of prayer for each one of us.
 
i  St Ambrose: From a Treatise on Cain and Abel, The Liturgy of the Hours IV, (New York: Catholic Book Publishing Co. 1975), p. 347-348
ii  Commentary by Dom Anselm, Obl. OSB
iii Timothy Fry, The Rule of St. Benedict in English, (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1982), Chapter 20:4
iv Mathew 6:7, ESV
v  Matthew 6:12, Luke 11:4, The Book of Common Prayer, p.54