Adoration with your mind

We will learn again today from hearing the prayer of another. We are going back to 350 AD to let this Second Prayer of St. Basil inform and shape our own prayer of adoration. Read it through three times. First silently. Then read it out loud. Then read it as a whisper…

We bless Thee, O most high God and Lord of mercy, Who art ever doing numberless great and inscrutable things with us, glorious and wonderful; Who grantest to us sleep for rest from our infirmities, and repose from the burdens of our much toiling flesh. We thank Thee that Thou hast not destroyed us with our sins, but hast loved us as ever, and though we are sunk in despair, Thou hast raised us up to glorify Thy power. Therefore we implore Thy incomparable goodness, enlighten the eyes of our understanding and raise up our mind from the heavy sleep of indolence; open our mouth and fill it with Thy praise, that we may be able undistracted to sing and confess Thee, Who art God glorified in all and by all, the eternal Father, with Thy only-begotten Son, and Thy all-holy and good and life-giving Spirit, now and ever, and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Saint Basil the Great

Adoration with your affections

Now read the prayer very slowly … phrase by phrase … and make this prayer your own. Pause after each sentence or statement and add your own words of adoration.

Adoration with your will

Identify something in your life that resists adoring God, something that makes it difficult to praise Him. Bring that before the Lord by telling Him that you choose praise, by faith, because God is worthy, always worthy of praise.