Praying the Gospel
 
 

Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but only say the word and my soul will be healed.

Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in Thy sight, 
and am no more worthy to be called Thy child.
 

God, be merciful to me, a sinner. 
 

No, I do not mean praying one's way through the gospels. Though that too is a good thing to do. I mean, holding these words in your heart, until you realise that they are true of you too. True in your innermost being, and a fit expression of what you are and what you need to do. There are many, many, good ways to 'Pray the Gospels' for now, lets simply sit and ask ourselves a simple question. Is this true? Do I really believe it? 
And lets do it in the context of what the gospel  really considers to be sinful. 

Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but only say the word and my soul will be healed.

The man who said this thought he would be thought unworthy because he was a gentile, not of the Faith and he was praying for physical healing for someone else. Do I consider myself worthy because I am of 'the household of faith?' Or because I'm a good person? Do I really realise that the being whom I address so lightly is so far different in kind from me, that if I saw him in glory I could not bear it ? We need this healing in order perhaps to realise the immensity of the gift that is given us. If we could dwell upon that one word Lord with sufficient understanding, all the rest of the prayer would come to us and we would stand amazed for hours like Saint Francis of Assisi saying grace.

Well, and so we have. We wonder sometimes why prayer isn't answered, why we alone seem not to be forgiven, and why we shouldn't be worthy. After all we are worthy enough to die for. The again,  often I make an excuse. This is, of course, the same as having nothing to repent of. If it wasn't really wrong, why am I wasting his time and mine with it? Besides which, just feeling generally guilty, while it is endemic among religious folk, isn't enough. This prayer comes from a parable. It is the prayer of a young man who didn't value his heritage. Didn't know what he was doing.  It is a prayer of realisation. This was no sin against a parent, though he had hurt his parent, didn't see that he had given away land his father's sweat had dropped into, rocks and twigs and trees his eye had rested on from the beginning. All sin is a debt - but not debt to another human being. It is a failure to see our own true relationship, until it is nearly too late. Do I truly value who I am, and what I am part of ?

Of course there have been times when I've said this, and well and truly meant it, with good reason. But most times, I tend to say it with my lips while my inner soul is rabbiting on like the Pharisee. I'm a pretty good person really, aren't I ? There's lots worse than me?
Well, one is only able to say sinner of oneself, and truly get away with it.. Everyone else is 'just us'. Mercy isn't just 'refraining from punishment' either. It's an act of overwhelming generosity out of the heart of God, overflowing the gap and the lack. I'm so mean sometimes that all I want is to escape the punishment, and here is God offering to live in and with me to overflow the boundaries of my mortal, limited, frightened little existence, with its separations and walls.