Eventide & Altar

The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness. We do not know how to pray as we ought - but the Spirit intercedes with inexpressible groanings, and the one who searches hearts knows what the Spirit intends. There is a prayer happening on your behalf that you cannot access with words. It goes on when you cannot pray. It rises from the place too deep for language.

The evening is often that place. The day is done, the words are few, and what is left is the groaning that is also prayer. Bring it. The God who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness - he hears what the Spirit says from inside you.

The Glorious Mysteries begin with the Resurrection - the wheat brought into the barn, the righteous shining like the sun. Pray them tonight as a meditation on the harvest that waits at the end of the mixed field.

• For those whose prayer tonight is only a groan, that the Spirit would give it words before the Father, we pray to the Lord.
• For the wheat in the mixed fields of our lives, that we would not lose heart before the harvest, we pray to the Lord.
• In this Precious Blood month, for the Precious Blood of the one who judged with clemency and governed with much lenience, we pray to the Lord.

Before you sleep: say the name of one person you love who is in a mixed field right now. Hold them before God for one minute. You don't need words. The Spirit has them.