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Be pleased, O lord, to deliver me;
Make haste, O Lord, to help me. - Psalm 40:13
O God, make speed to save us; O Lord, make haste to help us. -BCP, pg. 103
My family was tending to a relative in her last days and we were preparing for the inevitable. I would walk into that hospital room daily and, pausing at the door, I would say to myself, "O God, make speed to save us; O Lord, make haste to help us."
The verse is familiar. It is the opening versicle of Noonday Prayers in the Book of Common Prayer and it is also the versicle that opens most of the hours of monastic prayer. When one is praying according to these forms passed down by the Church, one is repeatedly asking for God's assistance throughout the day. Whether we think we need God's assistance or not, to open prayer with a reminder of our own limitations is appropriate. On our best days we are reminded of the changes and chances that are part of life on earth...our very human condition...we ask God to be attentive to what we cannot see. On our worst days we are asking God to be present, to provide the help we so desperately need.
In lieu of specific requests, it was the perfect verse that summed up my intercession to God. Standing at that hospital door, there was no way of knowing what the "perfect" resolution would be and no way of knowing what I would be called upon to do in the course of the day. And so my most honest prayer for all of us was "O God, make speed to save us..."
