Thursday, April 17, 2025
Great and Holy Thursday
Commemoration of the Mystical Supper

Wash me with my tears and purify me with them, O Word. Forgive my sins and grant me pardon. Thou knowest the multitude of my evil-doings, Thou knowest also my wounds, And Thou seest my bruises. But also Thou knowest my faith, and Thou beholdest my willingness, and Thou hearest my sighs.

Nothing escapes Thee, my God, My Maker, my Redeemer: not even a tear-drop, nor part of a drop. Thine eyes know what I have not achieved, And in Thy book things not yet done are written by Thee. See my depression, see how great is my trouble, and all my sins take from me, O God of all, that with a clean heart, trembling mind and contrite spirit, I may partake of Thy pure and all-holy Mysteries by which all who eat and drink Thee with sincerity of heart are quickened and deified.

— Prayer of St. Symeon the New Theologian
Prayers Before Holy Communion, Book of the Hours

I can remember the relief the first time I heard an Orthodox Christian priest pray publicly and spontaneously from the heart. I was raised to believe that this was always how Christians ought to pray, privately and publicly, and I was worried that all the deep, rich prayers I was beginning to learn in the Orthodox Church would preclude this personal pouring out of one’s heart to God. But as he combined his spontaneous prayer that day with some of the more familiar, common prayers from the Church’s holy tradition, I learned that one form of heart-felt prayer need not preclude or replace another.

In fact, as I grew in my knowledge of “said prayers” in general, both in the Orthodox Church and in some traditions less ancient but more native to the English language like the prayers in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, I found that my own personal and corporate prayer life became greatly enriched. Far from merely going through unknown motions or making meaningless repetitions, phrases of these said prayers were beginning to slip into my spontaneous prayers and even teaching me what prayer is about.

C.S. Lewis writes about this process of learning how to pray by first pretending to pray words that we might not fully understand:

If you are interested enough to have read thus far you are probably interested enough to make a shot at saying your prayers: and, whatever else you say, you will probably say the Lord’s Prayer. Its very first words are Our Father. Do you now see what those words mean? They mean quite frankly, that you are putting yourself in the place of a son of God. To put it bluntly, you are dressing up as Christ. If you like, you are pretending. Because, of course, the moment you realize what the words mean, you realize that you are not a son of God. You are not a being like The Son of God, whose will and interests are at one with those of the Father: you are a bundle of self-centered fears, hopes, greed, jealousies, and self-conceit, all doomed to death. So that, in a way, this dressing up as Christ is a piece of outrageous cheek. But the odd thing is that He has ordered us to do it. Why? What is the good of pretending to be what you are not? Well, even on the human level, you know, there are two kinds of pretending. There is a bad kind, where the pretense is there instead of the real thing as when a man pretends he is going to help you instead of really helping you. But there is also a good kind, where the pretense leads up to the real thing.

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

And this hope is precisely what the Orthodox faithful this week aim for, as we attend as many divine services as possible in order to watch and pray as the Lord of Glory accomplishes our salvation by His death, burial, and resurrection. You are cordially invited, if you do not have your own services to attend, to find an Orthodox Church near you and see and hear for yourself these great and life-giving mysteries. And if you hear prayers that you do not at first understand, take them in spirit that C.S. Lewis recommends: as little children playing at prayers too adult for them in the hope that you might mature and the words might work their way from your lips to your heart.

Blessed and Holy Feast of the Resurrection as we await the rising of the One from nothing is hidden: not even a tear drop or part of a drop!