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.
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In this morning’s Epistle and Gospel, we are given two very difficult questions to ponder. What should we do with unanswered prayer and how do we love even our enemies? St. Paul raises the first question in his second letter to the Corinthians when he insists that three times he asked the Lord to remove a thorn in his flesh and after only the third time did he receive his answer. What are we to make of this heavenly reluctance to respond? How many of us have had similar unanswered prayer and have felt almost like giving up asking? 
I remember so well the first time I stayed overnight in an Orthodox Christian monastery. I dreamed of every Christian camp and conference I had attended up to that point in my life, for they represented the highest and deepest of my spiritual experience. After just one day in the concentrated prayers of the monastic daily cycle, those previous experiences of prayer became as mere foretastes of reality. 
Like Mendicant Monks... 