Eventide & Altar

You do see; for you behold misery and sorrow, taking them in your hands; to you the helpless man commits himself; you are the helper of the orphan. The psalm's lament - why do you stand aloof, why hide in times of distress? - turns in the middle to the confession of what the praying person knows to be true: but you do see. The misery is beheld. The sorrow is taken in the hands.

He will not contend or cry out, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. The servant who is gentle with the bruised and the smoldering does not advertise the gentleness. He does not make himself known. He was warned them not to make him known - the healing was given and the announcement was withheld. The justice that comes to victory comes quietly, through the tending of what remains.

In the evening the day's bruising is visible. The things that are less than they were, the lights that have dimmed from the morning's brightness, the reeds that bent before the day's wind. The servant who will not break or quench is present in the evening too - tending what remains, not giving up on the not-yet-victorious justice.

The Joyful Mysteries include the Visitation - the servant who arrives quietly, without announcement, to tend the smoldering wick of Elizabeth's hope. Pray them tonight as a meditation on what the servant's quiet tending looks like in the specific bruising of this day.

• For those whose faith is a smoldering wick tonight - reduced from what it was, barely lit - that the servant who will not quench it would tend what remains through this night, we pray to the Lord.
• For those who have been planning iniquity and executing it with the morning's power - that the woe-against-this-race would arrive before the fields are portioned out to the captors, we pray to the Lord.
• In this Precious Blood month, for the Precious Blood of the servant who brought justice to victory through the way of the bruised rather than the way of power, we pray to the Lord.

A bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not quench. Tonight: name one person in your life who is bruised or smoldering - not what they were, reduced, barely lit. Name one act of the servant's tending you can do for them this week. Not pushing harder. Tending what remains.