2.15.2011

from where does my help come?

We had Matt and Angela over Sunday night and shared our night prayer with them. We're trying to get back into it regularly. We started with a song by the Psalters, "Trisagion." It's from a Greek liturgy, and means "Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us."

Here's the Psalms we use, chanting the second one:

Psalm 121
I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved,
he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade on your right hand.
The sun shall not smite you by day,
nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in
from this time forth and for evermore.

Psalm 131
O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.

But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a child quieted at its mother's breast;
like a child that is quieted is my soul.

O Israel, hope in the Lord
from this time forth and for evermore.

Then a time of quiet prayer, closing with this by Charles de Foucauld:
Father, I abandon myself into your hands;
Do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you—
I am ready for all, I accept all.

Let only your will be done in me
And in all your creatures.
I wish no more than this, O Lord.
Into your hands I commend my spirit.

I offer it to you
With all the love of my heart.
For I love you Lord,
And so need to give myself—
To surrender myself into your hands
Without reserve,
And with boundless confidence
For you are my Father.

And a Taize song at the end: