When the psalms and prayers do touch us

  • Often the words of psalms and prayers do not touch us, their inner mean­ing seems strange and incom­pre­hen­si­ble to us. And this is quite nat­ural, for the whole set­ting and struc­ture of our life — out­wardly well-organized and inwardly empty — have so very lit­tle in com­mon with the deserts and monas­ter­ies in which the prayers were com­posed, with the spirit which inspired them.

    At rare moments — in great afflic­tion, in soli­tude, if we escape for a time from the bonds of the world — there arises from our heart, as if it were our very own, the cry of lamen­ta­tion: ‘O Lord, come to my help!’ Then we under­stand the expe­ri­ence of the man of silence and the recluse.

    FR. ALEXANDER ELCHANINOV
    “THE DIARY OF A RUSSIAN PRIEST”

    Ironic that I read this today at a time in my life when I’m in a sun­nier place, actu­ally and emo­tion­ally, than I’ve been for some time. But the rip­ples of recent sor­rows haven’t sub­sided to the point that I don’t remem­ber the kinds of times that Fr. Alexan­der speaks of. A per­son would have to be cra­zier than I am to wish for hard times, but when they come, they’re not with­out their ben­e­fits to our spir­i­tual struggle.

    (Greg, who’s a fine pho­tog­ra­pher in my unbi­ased, wifely opin­ion, “stitched together” some pho­tographs of the desert to make this image. Click­ing on it will bring up the whole thing.)


    Related posts:

    1. Why is faith so difficult?
    2. The hope­ful sower
    3. Read­ing the lives of the saints
    4. The destruc­tion of hearths
    5. Wait­ing for the echo when you pray

    October 2nd, 2011 | Grace | 3 Comments |

3 Responses and Counting...

  • debd 10.02.2011

    wow Grace, I’m not sure how this could be any more per­fect for me. Thank you.

  • Dana

    The quote from Fr. Alexan­der really res­onates with me. Imme­di­ately fol­low­ing a breast can­cer diag­no­sis three years ago, I found immense com­fort in read­ing the Psalms. Noth­ing else seemed to help soothe my fears and speak my heart to God like the Psalms. Funny, now that time has marched on and I’ve com­pleted treat­ment, my Psalter sits less and less used on the night­stand. One of my fears through­out the year of treat­ment was that I would for­get both the suf­fer­ing and God’s mercy. Thanks for the reminder.

  • erica

    Love this!

Leave a Reply

* Name, Email, and Comment are Required