Lip Service

It's amazing how the last word of my previous post resulted in emails and comments on my normally quiet blog. And ironically, this email also happens to feature a franciscan.

It all started on tuesday when the Gospel had Jesus saying that the scribes and pharisees honor God with "lip-service" (Mk 7:6). And that word led to much entertainment at our table for breakfast, lunch and dinner. So when our "Intro to Liturgy" lecturer used those words in his lesson, I had to try hard not to laugh out loud.

I was also reading our Salvation History textbook, on David and Solomon, since that has been the text of the first readings, and I learnt that although Solomon was wise, and built a wonderful temple for the Lord, he also fell away from the Lord, and thus started the downfall of the Israelite nation. During the years following, the Israelites led sinful lives, and they thought that by offering lots of burnt offerings and prayers they would be able to reconcile with God, thats why Isaiah scolded the Israelites for offering "lip-service while their hearts are far from God".

So with all this reminders of just praying with our lips but not our hearts, at today's Divine Office & Psalms lesson, we were reminded once again, that praying the Divine Office isn't about "spitting psalms" at one another. That it should not be seen as an obligation, as something that we have to fulfill. The challenge is to be able to grasp the full meaning of the reason why we pray the Divine Office, so that our morning, afternoon, evening and night prayer don't become a routine, a discipline or even worse a chore.

Firstly, the Divine Office contrary to my previous belief, is not a personal prayer. I've always been told that the Divine Office is the official prayer of the church. So I used to think that I was joining in with the whole church to say this common prayer, but it was still my prayer. So it was quite hard to relate to the psalms. How to sing a psalm of Praise, when we were struggling, or a psalm of struggle, when everything is going well in my life. But as I learnt, we are called to pray it "not so much in my own name but in the name of the entire Body of Christ". So we pray and feel with the psalm because there are fellow brothers and sisters, who are feeling that emotion. And they might not be as privileged as us to spend time in prayer to the Lord, so we pray for them.

Secondly, the more active part of it is to re-contextualise the psalm. Meaning, just as the psalms were composed by people at a time that they were giving praise or feeling burdened, can these psalms apply to the lives of people today. An example would be like the family who lost a father, or a new mother thanking God for her new-born child. This gives us meaning to why and how we pray it.

Of course it does not come easy, as has happen the last few weeks, where after the lesson, we come out with enthusiasm to pray the Divine Office, but then after that find ourselves going back into the routin of things. So have to practice this awareness of why we pray it. Today's evening prayer's second psalm 31(32), I was able to think of the people who had gone for confession today, and were giving praise to God, recognising the burden sin had on their lives, and the love and forgiveness of God.

Hopefully I can remember this or at least remind myself to keep trying when I pray the Divine Office, and in my other prayers too, not to just be self-centered and pray for my own intentions. Or even worst, to just offer Lip-Service to my God.

Oh yah, so where does the franciscan come in? Seeing how distracting the word was previously, I left it to the end so that you won't be distracted. Our lecturer for the Divine Office & Psalms class is Friar Clifford.