This week we Lectio the Liturgy with the Collect for the 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time.
God of might, giver of every good gift, put into our hearts the love of your name, so that, by deepening our sense of reverence, you may nurture in us what is good and, by your watchful care, keep safe what you have nurtured. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.
There are two parts to this week’s prayer: what we want and why we want it.
What we want is for God to put into our hears the love of His name.
The reason we want it is because of its benefit. We want Him to nurture in us what is good and keep safe what He has nurtured.
Just like the Saints knew all along, when the love of God’s name is in our hearts, we have a greater sense of reverence for the Lord. We revere, not only His name, but we revere God. This reverence is one of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit that we know as Fear of the Lord.
We could use a revival of the Fear of the Lord. It would be pretty counter-cultural, though, but just imagine if every Christian would renew their reverence for God. We would believe, act, think, and speak from our knowing that He is God and we are not. He would receive the respect that is due.
We know that we are sinners, but we know that He is our savior and we want to be with Him. This reverence, the love of His name deep in our hearts, leads us to deeper conversion. This love of His name fills us with awe and wonder about God.
Filled this awe and wonder, we are aware of His good gifts. In this prayer, we learn that His gifts not only include the love of His name, we can also receive the gift of being nurtured, carefully watched, and kept safe.
I encourage you to add your good gifts to this list. What has God given you that you perhaps have not thought about and have not truly thanked Him for? It is easy to look around and thank Him for the things we can see, but have you considered the Church or the Sacraments as gifts? How about your church community? Becoming more aware and thankful for what God has given you is guaranteed to give you a deepened sense of reverence for Him.
As life-giving as it is to ponder that God puts in us what is good, watches over it and keeps it save, that word that caught my attention is the way we address God in the opening of the prayer: God of might.
We often hear how God has power and might. We may often think that those two are the same things. They are often interchangeable and they can be, however, in our prayer today, they are not.
God is omnipotent. He and His words are never void of power. God is able to do whatever He pleases to. But when we say that God has might, it means that God has the authority to do what He wants.
The employee of a business may have the power to open or close the business for the day, but they do not have the authority to change business hours. God has both.
God not only has the power, or the potential to do good things, He has the might, or the authority, to do them.
It is humbling to consider that God wants to use not only His power but also His might for our good and to give us good things. As we meditate on His good, we can’t help but have a deeper reverence for Him and His Holy Name, which the very first good thing we ask for in our prayer.
Thanks for praying with me.