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Armchair theologian, eh?

In honor of my being named among the contestants for the Best Armchair Theologian blog in The Crescat’s 2009 Cannonball Awards, I offer you this little ditty.  And hey, when the voting starts, don’t feel bad about voting for me at least once, okay? 🙂  The fact I was even nominated is both humbling and a clear sign someone slipped something funny into Crescat’s box-o-wine.

I’m going to say it once more:  if you’re not praying at least some part of the Liturgy of the Hours (or the Breviarium Romanum for those traditionally inclined) you have simply no idea what you’re missing.  Sometimes it’s not just that you are steeped in the fine sauce of the psalms nor even that you are participating in the Liturgy of the Church that gets you, it’s the very structure of the prayer itself.  During the Office of Readings this past Friday we started off with this pleasant section of Psalm 38:

O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger;

do not punish me, Lord, in your rage.

Your arrows have sunk deep in me;

your hand has come down upon me.

Through your anger all my body is sick:

through my sin, there is no health in my limbs.

My guilt towers higher than my head;

it is a weight too heavy to bear.

Now if that uplifting remembrance isn’t enough to make you want to start praying the LoTH, here’s something to chew on.  By its structure we follow the above Psalm section with:

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:

as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever.

Amen.

When you start to see how the one can be followed by the other, despite their apparent incongruity, you’re starting to think more like God and less like Man.  Just as the crowning achievement of Jesus’ time on earth started with His trip to Golgotha we’re reminded in myriad ways that what at first looks like failure is only the first step to success.  Every day we must be reminded that His ways are not our ways.

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