I was sent this recently - and thought I would pass it on here for reflection and comment
"Lord and Master of my life, take from me a spirit of sloth, idle curiosity, love of power and useless chatter
Rather accord to me, your servant, a spirit of sobriety, humility, patience and love
Yes, Lord and King, grant me to see my own faults and not to condemn my brother, for you are blessed to the ages of ages. Amen. "
In the first verse, we read:
"Lord and Master of my life, remove from me the spirit of sloth, idle curiosity, love of power and useless chatter! "
The prayer begins with a reaffirmation of our acceptance of God as our Lord and Master over our entire life, all that we are, have and do.
Nothing less is expected of any Christian. At our Baptism, we were consecrated to God and to His service, to live in Christ as branches are attached to the Vine.
In the times of the Greek philosophers, one became learned in the ways of philosophy by attaching oneself to a particular teacher and fulfilling all that the teacher said and expected of his pupils.
The teacher was truly the "master" over the lives of his disciples who tried to conform their way of life to his as the best indicator of the fact that they had appropriated his particular form of wisdom.
In the Gospels, this pattern of discipleship is imitated with the radical difference that the "Lord and Master" to whom such discipleship is conducted under is none other than the Incarnate Word of God, God Himself, Jesus Christ.
The same word for "Lord" or "Kyrios" that is used to refer to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the Old Testament is used to refer to Christ in the New.
And the terms of discipleship are the same. Only God Himself could expect the kind of comprehensive commitment of our lives and dedication to Him that Christ commands and receives in the Gospels.
By affirming that Christ is Lord and Master over our lives, we affirm also that our love for Him is rooted in the conforming of our lives to Him by means of His Grace.
To live in Christ, means to be on a constant pilgrimage in this life to root out all that is not "of Christ" in us, in our fallen human nature that was darkened and made ill by the effects of Original Sin and our own personal sinfulness.
The ongoing process of inner healing with us begins by our coming to the Divine Healer by Whose Grace alone we are transfigured within.
At the same time, we come to Him acknowledging our sinfulness and the great sins to which all humanity is inclined as a result of our fallen state - sins that lead us to commit all others, in fact.
Laziness is the first one, but this is no legitimation of the Protestant work ethic!
This has to do with spiritual laziness that occurs when we are slow to live the life in Christ and to appropriate the means of Grace that God through His Church has placed at our disposal.
Prayer, both private and public, fasting, good works, spiritual reading and other disciplines are not "punishments," but medicines to help root out the "old Adam" within us.
In fact, spiritual sloth is the most deadly sin that affects the "immune system" of our souls. Without constant openness to the spiritual means of Divine Grace, we are powerless to live the life in Christ that we are called to, powerless to participate in the Salvation and Theosis in Christ that God intended us to.
No wonder this sin comes first in the list . . .
Next is the sin of "idle curiosity." A harmless preoccupation one might say - why is it so bad?
This sin affects our constancy in our spiritual focus on Christ. The Christian life is about commitment, the kind of commitment that one lives daily.
Time is something ordained by God to be used by us for our salvation and sanctification. We are always called to use it wisely. In time, we prepare for eternity.
Spiritual curiosity reflects a waffling soul, a soul that exemplifies lack of faith and trust in God, that, at worst, finds the spiritual life distasteful and looks around, so to speak, to see if perhaps it can "get out of" its responsibilities . . .
As such, spiritual curiosity is the offspring of sloth, that which quickly leads one into sloth.
Thirdly, the first verse refers to the sin of desire for power. Love of power is not only something that characterizes "control freaks," but it is also the foundation of "spiritual independence" to which it ultimately leads.
The way of humility and obedience is based on our sense of "need" for God, our dependence on Him and the means He has placed at our disposal to achieve union with Him, by means of and in His Church.
Power is not only rooted in the sin of pride and self-exaltation, it is deadly to our spiritual lives because it convinces us that we are "independent" of God and have no need of Him in our lives. Whatever needs doing, we ourselves can do it by ourselves.
Power thus leads us into being cut off from the Life-giving Springs of Divine Grace that we need to bedew our passions and transfigure them. Power removes us from being "under" God and the Law of Grace and places us not "outside" it, but under the malevolent kingdom of the evil one.
Finally, reference is made to "useless chatter" and the sins of the tongue. The Spiritual Fathers of the Philokalia, the great teachers of the spiritual way rooted in the constant invocation of the Name of our Lord Jesus, take extra care to warn us of this sin!
Christ in the Gospels warned the people of His day who were very concerned with the sins committed by what went into the mouth that what comes OUT of the mouth is what should be guarded against.
Lies, calumnies, evil thoughts of all kinds - all these find their expression in the words that come out of our mouths. Our ears hear them and they are taken deeply into our souls where they eventually find another expression - this time in evil acts - although evil words can be deadly on their own.
All four of these sins represent the four corners, so to speak, of the fundamental "window" that leads us into sin and spiritual tragedy.
By asking God to "remove them" from us, we already express an act of humility that is contrary to the spirit of those four major sins. We affirm that it is only by Divine Grace, and not our own weakened and darkened wills, that we may hope to root them out of our hearts and minds.
We then make a prostration, physically resembling a foetus in its mother's womb, as if to ask God to accept us Who formed us while we were yet in our mothers' womb, as Psalm 50 sings.
"Rather accord to me, your servant, a spirit of sobriety, humility, patience and love "
The second verse of the prayer begins by affirming, once again, our desire to be truly God's servants, a necessary conclusion from invoking Him as "Lord and Master of my life" in the first.
And, as God's servants, we ask God to reflect in us His Grace through the virtues that run counter to the four vices we enumerated in the first verse.
Sobriety is the quality that we must have in undertaking the life in Christ. It is not a sombre spirit or sadness. It is being serious about our salvation and sanctification. It is being level-headed and focused on what we are undertaking, the responsibilities that come with our submission to Christ as our Lord and Master.
Humility and patience underscore the quality of our faith in God. Humility is about seeing ourselves as we truly are, not trying to put ourselves "down" constantly as if God somehow requires us to be bereft of self-respect and esteem!
Humility is ultimately realizing that we are called to sanctification and Divinization in Christ, as He demonstrated on Mt. Tabor. This grand objective of our lives is not because of anything we do, although "doing" is what the Christian life is all about. It is all done because of the transformation Christ effects in us by means of His Holy Spirit, making us Temples of the Holy Trinity!
Patience comes from the Latin root "to suffer." It also means not losing hope that God will answer us and keep His Promises to us, no matter what befalls us now. Suffering, in fact, far from being something to be shunned, is an experience that teaches us how truly dependent we are on God and His Mercy.
And love is asked for because it is the summit of everything in the Christian life. God is Love and we cannot love God Whom we do not see, if we do not love our neighbour whom we do see, as the Scriptures attest. In love is contained the sum total of the Gospel message and the goal of humankind!
Then, following another prostration, we say ,
"Yes, Lord and King, grant me to see my own faults and not to condemn my brother, for you are blessed to the ages of ages."
We again exclaim God as "Lord and King" asking Him for the Grace to see what is sinful in ourselves, rather than what is sinful in others.
We can only truly answer for our own sinfulness, for our own intentions. Only God may judge others. This is why we never say, in public prayer, "have mercy on us sinners" but only "have mercy on me a sinner."
We may surely pray for others and for their spiritual maturation etc. But we may never condemn them. To condemn means, in effect, to have "given up" on them and to consign them to the state of the spiritually hopeless. But God does not give up on any of us. In fact, as St Paul says, He sent His Only-Begotten Son when we are all under the curse of sin to redeem us! God is a God, as Christ says, Who makes His sun to shine over the righteous and the unjust.
