Monday Mornings
Monday mornings are a widely dreaded day as the beginning of the contemporary work week.
Maybe the compilers of the traditional Syriac Maronite office also suffered from Monday morning blues. The classical Christian prayer is anamnesis (remembrance of what God has done) followed by epiclesis (invocation to do it again). This verse from Monday morning does just that:
In the morning Daniel prayed from the den of lions (Dan. 6),
and Jonah prayed from the bottom of the abyss (Jon. 2).
You drew Jonah up from the sea, and Daniel from the pit -
now deliver us from the Evil One and have mercy on us!
It is a rather simple verse; it calls our minds to Daniel, the righteous exile in the land of pagan Babylonia, who is thrown into a lions’ den because he refuses to pray to the king instead of God, and Jonah, who is thrown into the sea by the crew of a ship after he flees God’s mission to preach in Nineveh. Both literally hit rock bottom. Yet God saw that neither was harmed when they called upon Him. The prophets give us testimony again and again and again that God does not abandon his people, given when are grief stricken and mistakenly think they are alone like Elijah. God’s deliverance is not a magnificent promise only to the prophets but all who call on him.
The verse that follows reinforces this notion that God is with us in our travails and hears us:
In the morning trumpets pealed, and the walls of Jericho fell,
and the People of Israel cried, “The Lord is God!” (Josh. 6:1-20)
In the morning raise your voice, O children of the faithful Church,
and sing praise and thanks to the Heavenly King!
Jericho was part of the land promised to Israel, yet formidable Jericho, a fortified city, opposed them. God told Joshua, their leader, that when the priest blow their trumpets and the People give a shout, the walls would fall and the city would be there’s. Perhaps we do not face citadels or walled cities, but we face daunting obstacles every day that might seem insurmountable. Yet even mighty walls fall at those who call to the Lord.
May the prayers of the prophets be our rampart.
