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| Kathe Kollwitz – “Lament” |
Our own feelings should never be the barometer of prayer. At
times the words may seem very foreign to our experience: the liturgy gives us
words of rejoicing and our heart is breaking, or we may find ourselves wailing
with the author of Lamentations when we are bursting with joy. This is the
prayer of the Church, and for someone, somewhere – perhaps someone who has
asked us to pray for them – these words express all they would say if they
could. So when we are thrilled by good news and yet find ourselves complaining
with the psalmist that God seems far from us and our enemies surround us, we
are praying for the elderly widow in a high-rise block who is afraid of the
drug pushers outside her door, or the person who feels abandoned by God as they
watch a loved one dying in hospital. And when we are inarticulate in our grief,
the psalmist can loan us words that countless people over the years have
similarly borrowed and made their own, reminding us in the process that our
current feelings are not the last word on the matter.
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