Day Eight — 21 February

Hear our voice, O Lord, according to your faithful love.

Lectionary readings (Click the links to see the readings): Additions to Esther 14.3-11 | Psalm 138.1-3 | Matthew 7.7-12

When I was a child

When I was a child, Lord, I didn't know. I didn't know that you can be tired, tired of yourself, and that you can feel that you have missed out on life.

I've known many temptations, but these are the worst: to wish for better health, higher intelligence, a stronger body, a better education, another job and some of the appreciation shown to others. To see others have countless opportunities which I should have liked and advantages I never had. To know that it is high time to live and too late to dream. To know that the impossible will never happen.

To know this, Lord, is to have a guiding light. The dreams are over. What is left now is my life—the real life which I must love! My life such as it is, my poor health, my poor job, and all the rest I never wanted.

I should like to accept all this, Lord. And accept myself, as poor as I am. Help me no longer to torment myself with thoughts of what 'might have been', but to find happiness in doing what I can.

—Paul Geres. Prayers for impossible days, tr. from French by Lucien Jerphagon. Revised edition. Augsburg Books, 2001.

Day 8
"O God, who made me to trudge along the road … Give me great courage and gentleness."—Prayer of the Donkey.

Psalm 138 sung by Westminster Abbey Choir at the visit of the Pope, September 2010.

May God our Redeemer show us compassion and love. Amen.