Lectionary # 481

Scripture: Lectionary # 481. Romans 8:26-30. Psalm 13:4-5.6. Luke 13:22-30:

"All my hope is in your loving-kindness, O Lord!" This is our psalm
response and it continues the theme of hope that Paul has begun and
continues to develop for us. Hope is dependent on prayer and the Holy
Spirit. Paul is aware of this relationship of prayer and hope and wishes to
develop it in the Christian community of Rome. We too are meant by the
perennial message that all of Scripture contains. We just need to take some
time out to reflect on what is being said or read from Paul. Paul urges us
to pray continually elsewhere, but here he is showing us how to start
prayer and not be upset with our problems dealing with prayer. The Holy
Spirit is ever present to us and dwells within us. "We do not know how to
pray as we ought." By allowing the Spirit to pray within our hearts during
times of dryness of even times when we do not know how to pray, we do pray
while groaning inwardly.

Even the great saints went through periods of dryness and had a feeling of
abandonment, the Spirit was alive within them. Their sharing with us
through their writings helps us to persevere in our prayer by surrendering
it to the Spirit. The Spirit then makes intercession for us because the
Spirit is the one "who searches hearts and knows what we need; the Spirit
intercedes for the saints as God wills."

The psalmist prays through the Spirit today as we listen to the lector or
cantor say, "Though I trusted in your kindness, let my heart rejoice in
your salvation; let me sing of the Lord, "He has been good to me." By
remembering the Psalm response and continuing to hope in God we are
actually praying through the Spirit. When we feel most isolated from God,
that is when God is most near in our hearts. We sing out, "All my hope is
in your loving-kindness, O Lord."