Divine Hours: A Manual for Prayer by Phyllis Tickle

I have been trying to practice the daily offices with more regularity since last summer.  I was shooting for three or four, but I usually only hit one or two.  I’m looking at Lent as a new beginning with the hopes that more frequent repetition will help me to assimilate some of these prayers into my general stream of consciousness, or unconsciousness.  Penetration of my brain and eventually my heart is the goal.

This week’s “prayer for the week” in Phyllis Tickle’s version of The Divine Hours is,

Most loving Father, whose will it is for us to give thanks for all things, to fear nothing but the loss of you, and to cast all our care on you who cares for us:  Preserve me from faithless fears and worldly anxieties, that no clouds of this mortal life may hide from me the light of that love which is immortal, and which you have manifested to us in your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

I can only imagine the value of having said this prayer four times a day for a week.  Practically memorizing these words.  That my only fear would be the loss of Jesus, nothing else.  No faithless fears or worldly anxieties.  To ask for such a blessing twenty eight times.  Would it make a difference in my heart?  Surely.