We are still in the week before Great Lent begins. But on Wednesday and Friday we do some Lenten services as a kind of warmup for what's to come. At Wednesday Matins, we found ourselves praying the Lenten Prayer of Saint Ephrem of Syria, practiced throughout Lent at weekday services and in the personal prayers of the faithful:
O Lord and Master of my life,
give me not a spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk.
(prostration)
But give rather a spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to thy servant.
(prostration)
Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to judge my brother,
for blessed art thou unto ages of ages. Amen.
(prostration)
While there are many variations in local practice, the prayer is never said without prostrations.* This feels to me like a lesson in the truth that a Christian is a unity of body, soul, and spirit.
The whole person, body and all, is what we must bring before God in worship and repentance, and what will stand before God on the last day.
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* Obviously not everyone is physically able to make a full prostration. We do what we can.
Image: Icon of the Publican and Pharisee
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