Living with Christ Morning Prayer

Living with Christ Morning Prayer
Monday, December 23, 2013

He spoke blessing God. 

Here I am Lord, two days before Christmas,
thinking about Zechariah and his tablet.

All those months of silence…
It must have been hard on the patriarch of the family—
the one used to giving orders—
to be reduced to gesturing and writing on a tablet.
I wonder if Elizabeth could even read
(or if she pretended she couldn’t)?

And what joy he felt
when he could finally toss
aside his tablet and his frustration
and give voice to his praise—
a magnificent hymn that we will hear
proclaimed in tomorrow’s gospel.

Lord, I was not there to hear Zechariah
sing his praise of you.
I usually encounter it written down—
words on some modern equivalent of his tablet.
But clearly this is not a hymn meant just to be read,
but to be spoken and sung and lived.

Today, Lord, help me not be silent.
Help me to put aside my own frustrations and
to sing your praise with loving words and deeds.
I may not be as eloquent as Zechariah’s canticle will be tomorrow,
but with your help, I will be able
to share something of its joyful praise.
Amen.

For the O antiphon for today, see page 191 in the December issue of Living with Christ.