29 January 2017

Grant us, Lord our God,
that we may honor you with all our mind,
and love everyone in truth of heart.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.

This week the Church’s prayer focuses in on a particular grace: rightness of reason, i.e. to have our minds focused on God and our hearts directed by that focus. The opening pray asks for the grace to honor God with all our mind. Often we speak about honoring God with our deeds, and with our words, etc. Perhaps the opportunity to honor and love God with all our  mind is not as frequently a consideration. Does God hold pride of place among my thoughts? When I am considering important decisions, do I consult the Lord? These are some questions to consider so as to join our desires with that of the Church universal.

Something else flows from honoring God with our whole mind, and it is the other half of today’s prayer: to love everyone in truth of heart. What does ‘truth of heart’ mean? Another way to translate the Latin prayer (“rationabili diligamus affectu”) might be “may we love with reasonable affection”. When God occupies our thoughts, then there will be a reasonableness to charity, love will make more sense. It would be a great cause for worry if our heart lacked proper guidance. Then we might run from what we should desire, or seek after something that is not worth our effort. When the heart is filled with the truth, however, we may rest secure that we will love as God made us to love.

As we pray this week, let us continue to ask for this grace, to allow God to be Lord of our whole person, including our thoughts, so that our love might be that of the blessed: a love that is meek and merciful, a love that hungers and thirsts for righteousness, a love that longs for purity and peace, a love which may suffer persecution in this world, but whose reward is great in heaven.