Lift Up Your Hearts

The Gift of Hope in a Troubled World

Photo by Bruce Hong on Unsplash

Opening Prayer

Take a moment to become still. Lift up your heart - whatever that means to you now. Take a few deep breaths.

Reading

Lamentations 3: 19-26, 40-41

The thought of my affliction and my homelessness
   is wormwood and gall!
My soul continually thinks of it
   and is bowed down within me.
But this I call to mind,
   and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,^*
   his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
   great is your faithfulness.
‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul,
   ‘therefore I will hope in him.’

The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
   to the soul that seeks him.
It is good that one should wait quietly
   for the salvation of the Lord.

Let us test and examine our ways,
   and return to the Lord.
Let us lift up our hearts as well as our hands
   to God in heaven.

Reflection

Sursum Corda! That’s Latin for ‘lift up your hearts’ or literally, ‘upwards hearts’. You won’t catch me posing with Latin very often, but I rather like the way it lends mystery and association to a simple invitation. Some of you will recognise it as part of the opening dialogue of the Eucharistic prayer. It’s found in all the ancient versions of that liturgy.

I can never hear these four words without thinking of Primrose Pearl (real name!). Primrose was a member of L’Arche London, a community for people with learning disabilities and those of us drawn to its radical-gospel spirituality. Whenever Primrose heard those words, she would clutch her chest tightly just beneath her breasts and push vigorously up, thereby adjusting her heart accordingly! Primrose was more than ready to lift up her heart whenever the occasion called for it. Though her life was complicated and grief-stricken, I recall her at such moments, smiling a great big, sassy smile.

The truth is, life is complicated for most of us, if not personally then collectively: we live daily with the knowledge of so much brutality and suffering, and with a background of intense anxiety. What does it mean to lift up our hearts when there is so much to be really down-hearted about? What it doesn’t mean, I think, is to feign happiness or to force oneself to be positive. What it does mean, I think, is to lift up everything in us to God, to Love: a whole-hearted and courageous offering.

The word courage comes from the latin word ‘cor’ which means heart: Brene Brown reminds us that this implies not steely bravery but, quite the opposite, vulnerable trust. We can’t really do that unless we have some connection or sense of belonging: at the same time, it’s true that to deepen in that connection, we must find the courage to open our hearts to one another and to God.

What Primrose reminds, in a somewhat humorous way, is that how we hold our body in life and in prayer makes a difference. Try lifting your heart right now. A change of stance changes the mood. In a less defensive posture we are able to offer much more openly what is in and on our hearts. That opening releases us from closed-circuit pre-occupations and habitual feelings and allows us maybe to sense the reality of something larger, higher, greater.

There is a time to nurture and to hold our hurts, tenderly, in the darkness of unknowing or the agony of loss. And there is a time to lift them up to the light.

Our small offering of ourselves, and our willingness to hold both sorrow and hope, is a gift to the world.

If you want to complete that body prayer of offering, lift up your hands as well! We are shy of expressing ourselves through our bodies - but posture and movement are very powerful ways of expressing ourselves, as those who practice yoga or worship in Charismatic churches know. Doing so, we engage more fully in prayer.

Returning to the association of these words with the Eucharistic liturgy, we are reminded that we lift hearts to a God who is not remote but very near: one who meets us in our down-heartedness and raises us up: whose love reaches our darkest places and brings light. Our faith promises that one day it will reach the darkest corners of our world.

For now, let’s lift up our hearts, undefended, in stillness and silence; allowing the light to reach us. Let’s lift up our hearts knowing that even those sighs too deep for words will be received and cherished. Let’s lift up our hearts with courage, trusting that all is held and transformed in the mystery of Christ

Sursam Corda!

A Time of Silence

Suggestion: 20 mins. But take even a few minutes if you can!

Silence is not always easy. The mind is hard to quiet. If you don’t yet have a way, you might find a single prayer word or phrase - perhaps from something you’ve just read - and return to it each time you find your mind wandering. Don’t worry. It will wander. Just gently return.

Widening the Circle

Take a moment to give thanks for the grace of silence, and extend that grace to all those on your heart and mind right now…

The Lord’s Prayer

I invite you to lift up heart and hands as you pray the prayer that Jesus taught us.

The New Zealand Lord’s Prayer (below) captures beautifully the profound elements of a prayer that for some of us has become too familiar. Or pray the version you like best.

Poem

Send Love, It Matters

Somewhere someone needs help.
Send love.
It matters.

If you can’t get there yourself,
then take a deep breath.
Breathe in the weight of their troubles.
Breathe out and send all those burdens
into the Light
where sorrows can be held
with the most tender and infinite grace.

Breathe in what you can do.
Breathe out what you can’t change.
Spool out a thread of connection,
send courage and calm.
For the nights can be long
and filled with shadows,
and sometimes terrible
unexpected waters will rise.

Somewhere someone needs help.
Send love.
It matters.

Carrie Newcomer

And so, may we send love to the people and places on our hearts today. May we breathe in sorrow and breathe out light. May we pray for courage and calm for those whose nights are long: may we lift up hearts and hands to the one whose mercies are new every morning, who abounds in steadfast love. 

And the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Amen.

Music: In celebration of Primrose and L’Arche!

Question for the Week: Journal Prompt

How would your body express the prayer that is inside you today? What in your heart would you like to lift up to the light? How might you hold both sorrow and hope before God?

The New Zealand Anglican Lord's Prayer

Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:

The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth.

With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.

For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and for ever.
Amen.

- The New Zealand Book of Prayer | He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa