O, Lord and Master of my life....

" O, Lord and Master of my life! Do not give me a spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power and idle talk. But give, rather, a spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Your servant. Yes, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions and not to judge my brother, for You are holy to the ages of ages. Amen"

The Prayer of St. Ephrem is, perhaps, the quintessential Lenten prayer. When you think of it, it should be the quintessential prayer for each and every day of our life. For, in just a few sentences, it expresses the heart of what it means to be a Christian.

"O, Lord and Master of my life..."

We immediately call to mind that our lives are not our own but that we belong to God. Contrary to the philosophical, political, psychological and ethical theories centered on the needs, rights and desires of the "sovereign self" that one can find in just about any bookstore today, we are not autonomous beings and we are most certainly not the "captain of (our) souls--the master of (our) own destinies". We are always dependent creatures--never independent. Deprived of oxygen not a single one of us can live for more than a couple of minutes, no matter how great our intellect, will, or physical courage. Our 'creatureliness' makes us by nature to be dependent on others, and most especially, to be dependent on God. It is when we finally accept this that we can turn to Him as "Lord and Master" and hope to acquire the treasures necessary for eternal life.

" Do not give me a spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk...."

The Greek form of the prayer (the original--or, at least the oldest version we have) implores that God should not give us a spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk. Some of the later versions ask Him to "take from" us those vices. The original version is more striking because it, (like the famous lines in the Lord's Prayer which ask, "lead us not into temptation"), reminds us that God has made us free and will give us over to our inclinations if we will not repent. Think of Pharaoh, whose heart was hardened against Moses and the people of Israel; he was not a good man whom the Lord led astray, but a vain and prideful man whom the Lord "gave over" to his wickedness until he went down in defeat and humiliation.

In St. Ephrem's prayer we are asking specifically not to be handed over to some very common sins. Let's look at them more closely.

Sloth is the state of spiritual laziness, the ennui or boredom and lack of purpose that seems to have become a hallmark of modern life. We are constantly seeking to be entertained, stimulated, distracted. These are symptoms of sloth, the condition in which a person does not take responsibility for his or her own state of consciousness (and conscience!).

Despair is the state of futility or hopelessness; it is the "I give up" mentality that whines that we are not in control of our own thoughts, desires, and habits. Note that this is very different from the false sense of "being in control" that our society so values. It is an inner, rather than outward, state. Despair allows us to make the excuses we use when we fall into sin, the "I can't help myself. It's just the way I am" mentality (spoken outwardly or inwardly) that says we are beyond change and, thus, beyond all hope. Don't be mistaken, this is no small sin; it is one of the very greatest because it blocks the way to repentance. A despairing person may feel remorse by she or he cannot summon up the energy to repent.

Lust of Power is the desire to "be in charge", the "control freak" in us that demands that we "are the captain of (our ) own ship, the master of (our) own destiny"--and not only our own, but everyone else's too! We often think that this sin is requires a position of great power--an important job as a corporate executive, a political leader, or something of the kind. But lust of power can and often is practiced by the parent who tries to micro manage his or her children's lives, the spouse who must always make the plans and give the commands, the small time manager who cannot leave others to make the simplest decisions. We clergy are very often guilty of this one!

Idle talk is not just gossip, though it is certainly that, too. It is all the wasted, silly, meaningless words we utter in the course of a day--the "conversations" that do more to hide our true selves than to reveal them (though we often have reason not to want our 'true selves' to be revealed!). How many office conversations have to do with sexual relationships (0ur own or someone elses) that in themselves are ungodly and demeaning to both partners? How many mean spirited digs do we get in about co-workers under the pretense of 'discussing' a project or job at hand? How often do we murder the reputations of our fellow parishioners by gossipping about their habits, faults, and human short-comings? The psalmist urges us to 'set a guard' over our lips, but how difficult it is to do!

Now, for the positives, "but give, rather, a spirit of chastity, humility, and patience to Your servant". Just as God will give the wicked over to their desires He will also give those who truly desire to be good over to goodness--though it will come with effort. Both evil and good require work. Our goals and desires are not accomplished without effort. Even despair is a habit of the heart and soul that must be cultivated. One cannot have it without screening out the beauty and goodness of God's creation.

Chastity is very far from being a matter of sexual purity alone. It is certainly that--the purity of refraining from sexual relationships outside of marriage and the unselfish and loving enjoyment of them within a Christian marriage is an essential. But, all too often, our understanding of chastity stops with sex, which is profoundly sad. True chastity is a way of being, it is the 'purity of heart' that Jesus spoke of in His sermon on the mount. To be chaste means to approach all things with a 'clean heart' and a 'right spirit' (Psalm 51). It excludes gluttony, sexual lust and perversion, deceit, gossip, and all the other vices. The spirit of chastity is truly beautiful because it refuses to allow anything twisted or sinful to reside within us. It doesn't deny that those things exist; it simply does not make excuses for them--in ourselves.

Humility is another Christian virtue that is greatly misunderstood. Americans do not hold it in high regard because we often interpret it to mean one must "act like a doormat" and allow herself or himself to be "stepped on". True humility means to have a proper sense of our mortality, our limitedness, our status as creatures. Humus in Latin refers to the earth we walk on, the elements from which we are taken and to which we will one day return. It is the profound recognition that we are not self-sufficient and that our hopes rest not in our own accomplishments and strengths but in the love and mercy of God.

Patience is another virtue that is often honored in the breach by modern Americans. We are a people who want things to happen "yesterday". We don't like to wait for anything; our whole culture is geared toward action. We create "labor saving devices" so that we can find other things to do! But Jesus tell us, "in patience you posses your souls" (Luke 21:19). Indeed, we cannot even begin to make spiritual progress until we admit that we are in it for the long haul, meaning for the rest of our lives. There are no quick fixes in the spiritual path, no easy "enlightenment". Orthodoxy rejects the idea that a simple declaration of faith in Jesus is enough to save us (for, again, as the Scripture teaches, even the devils believe--but to no good end). To be a follower of Jesus is to patiently carry our cross to the end. This means that we accept the fact that our life will be one of constant struggle with many set backs. The only way to make it through is to plod ahead, patiently, day after day knowing that we are never left alone in our struggles. The Lord is with us along with the entire company of saints and our guardian angels. And we are given the great grace of sacramental confession and absolution when we fall. All that is required of us is repentance and patience that, with God's help, we will be triumphant in the end. The greatest danger is giving up (the spirit of sloth and despair).

Love is perhaps the least understood of the virtues. The word is so misused that we have almost forgotten its true meaning. We say we love our car, our house, our various possessions. We confuse mere sexual attraction and fornication with loving another leaving the greatest of the virtues dispossessed of its beauty and depth. Christian love always involves a relationship that requires giving up something of oneself for the sake of another. It is profoundly sacrificial and absolutely never concerned with self satisfaction. Clearly, this eliminates the vast majority of situations that modern people associate with "love". Our contemporary understanding of the term usually involves first and foremost self fulfillment and self satisfaction; love, in this case, is about what one gets not what gives. This is the absolute opposite of what is meant by love in the New Testament. When St. John declares, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son" (Jn 3:16), he is declaring what God gave to us in Christ; he is setting the stage for the great mystery of the Divine Self-sacrifice for the sake of our salvation.

Love requires a response--either positive or negative; we can embrace the One who loves us or spurn Him but cannot remain indifferent because the Divine Lover will not go unanswered. Likewise, those who claim to love God must also love their neighbor (which the gospels have shown to mean everyone). Those who don't (or at least aren't trying to) are liars. This commandment is even more powerful when it comes to those who are closest to us. In America today over half of all marriages fail. People who declared that their love was so deep that they wanted to be united for the rest of their lives often abandon each other within a couple of years. Why? Obviously because they understood marriage in terms of what they could get, not what they could give but for what they could get. For when the guaranteed day arrives when they realize that their partner is incapable of giving them everything they desire, they abandon the relationship, (though it is questionable whether any real "relationship" ever existed in the first place). Marriage, as anyone who has been in one for a long time knows, is far more about giving--and forgiving-- than with taking.

Yes, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own faults and not to judge my brother. For You are holy unto the ages of ages. Amen.

The final lines of St. Ephrem's prayer take us back to Jesus'steaching about fault-finding, where are told to "remove the plank from (our) own eye" (Matthew 7:5-7) b efore we go about taking the "speck" from an other's. Orthodox spirituality is very serious about the need for each person to acknowledge his or her own sins. In the prayer before communion we speak of ourselves as "first among sinners" and this is not hyperbole. We are called to believe it! Why? Because we can only be responsible for repenting of our own sins. We can only work out our own salvation and no one else's (Philippians 2:12-18). Our broken nature, however, makes us want to concentrate on "improving" others--our spouse, our children, our students, our fellow workers, the people in our parish and so on. It is so easy to see their shortcomings and so hard to acknowledge our own!

But the gospel makes it abundantly clear that if we do not learn to point the finger at ourselves we, like the Pharisee in the parable of the Tax Collector and the Pharisee, will find ourselves locked out of the Kingdom. Our attitude towards the faults of others must always be to look within ourselves. It doesn't mean that we excuse evil, but we look for the first (and ultimately the only place) where can actually do something about it. And, if we practice the habit of self examination, we will generally discover that what we hate in others can be found in ourselves. Do we call someone else neglectful? Where are we being neglectful ourselves? Do we call someone else manipulative? How are we attempting to manipulate others and so on.

The very last reminder in the prayer is of God's holiness. He is the only truly "good" one and, just as we began the prayer by acknowledging Him as "Lord and Master" we end it by proclaiming that He alone is set apart (the true meaning of 'holiness') from sin. The Christian confession that Jesus is God, the eternal and only-begotten Son, reminds us that there is only One good enough and strong enough to save us from the multitude of sins that we commit both "willingly and unwillingly". The only hope we have for moving from the sinful spiritual states described in the first part of the prayer to the righteous state of the latter part is through uniting ourselves to Christ and His Church, remembering that the Church is the 'school-house of salvation" according to the Fathers. Our lessons are life long and we will not master them completely in this world. Our "homework" each and every day of our life is to keep trying.