Psalm 53:4

O God, hear my prayer: give ear to the words of my mouth. (Psalm 53:4 DR)

The sentiment of this passage is a common one found throughout the Psalms, in which the Psalmist pleads for God to hear his prayer, using words such as these or others. One might ask, however, why such a common refrain is used at all? After all, doesn’t our Lord tell us that the Father know what we need before we ask?

And when you are praying, speak not much, as the heathens. For they think that in their much speaking they may be heard. Be not you therefore like to them, for your Father knoweth what is needful for you, before you ask him. (Matthew 6:7-8 DR)

St. Hilary explains that this refrain of the Psalmist proves that he is speaking prophetically, for such demands to be heard are inappropriate from mere men:

Man in his weakness, therefore, has no right to demand that his prayer shall be heard… What we are shown here is the perfect confidence of Him, Who alone sees the Father, Who alone knows the Father, Who alone can pray the whole night through — the Gospel tells us that the Lord continued all night in prayer— Who in the mirror of words has shown us the true image of the deepest of all mysteries in the simple words we use in prayer. And so, in making the demand that His prayer should be heard, he added, in order to teach us that this was the prerogative of His perfect confidence: Give ear unto the words of My mouth. Now can any man suppose that it is a human confidence which can thus desire that the words of his mouth should be heard? …He alone could confidently desire this Who did no sin, in Whose mouth was no deceit, Who gave His back to the smiters, Who turned not His cheek from the blow, Who did not resent scorn and spitting, Who never crossed the will of Him, to Whose Will ordering it all He gave in all points glad obedience. (St. Hilary of Poitiers, Commentary on Psalm 53, 6.)

Our weakness places us in the position of completely dependent suppliants in need of God’s mercy, and it is for this reason that our Lord tells us not to use prayer like the heathen do, thinking that God is somehow convinced to hear our prayers because a specific formula is used or a certain amount of time is expended. God knows our hearts and thoughts before we ever pray, and our prayers do not therefore disclose information to Him that He does not already possess. Neither do we place impositions upon God by means of certain words or formulae, for God owes us nothing and receives nothing from us that He does not already possess.

Our Lord’s prayers—to which the Psalmist gives voice—are thus about communion within the Blessed Trinity, and Jesus in His Incarnation draws the human nature—to which the Divine Word was united—into that communion with God through prayer. He prayed through the night not because God would not otherwise hear Him, but rather precisely because God always heard Him.

When friends or spouses love each other, they do not speak with one another merely to ask for things, nor when they ask for something are certain words required. Sometimes words are unnecessary, as the communion between them is so entire as to make the communion itself communication. The time spent in conversation or even just in presence is the important thing, even though there may be other concomitant ends. This communion with one another brings about a shared vision and purpose; in the case of spouses they become one flesh, and in the case of friends it is sometimes said that they share one heart.

Our Lord—being God Incarnate—was one in will with the Father, and thus His prayer was not to ask for things He didn’t already possess (since as God He possesses all things), but rather to have communion with the Father while in the flesh. And in doing so He leaves an example of how we should pray, not with many words for the sake of the words themselves, but rather with a shared will, seeking after eternal things. As He will command in the Lord’s prayer, we pray that Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done. This eternal vision in which we seek first the kingdom of God makes prayer into a turning of our wills to that of God’s will, uniting our desires and purifying our passions so that we seek higher things in line with what God desires:

O God, hearken to my prayer, in Thy ears receive the words of my mouth. Let the words of my mouth reach Thine ears, because it is not the flower of the Ziphites that I desire of Thee. In Thy ears receive the words of my mouth. Do Thou receive. For to the Ziphites even if there sound my prayer, they hear not, because they understand not. In temporal things to wit they rejoice, good things everlasting to desire they know not how. To Thee may my prayer attain, driven forth and darted out from the desire of Thy eternal blessings: to Thy ears I send it forth, aid it that it may reach, lest it fall short in the middle of the way, and fainting as it were it fall down. But even if there result not to me now the good things which I ask, I am secured nevertheless that hereafter they will come. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 53, 5)

St. Augustine drives this truth home, for our Lord in His hiddenness—as prophetically anticipated by the Psalmist here—cried out to God and seemed—to the perspective of the world—to not be heard. He was, after all, seemingly abandoned on the cross, left to die an ignominious death. This all makes no sense to the men of this world, to the Ziphites whose gaze is affixed to the things of this life.

St. Paul speaks of how Christ—Who in the days of his flesh, with a strong cry and tears, offering up prayers and supplications to him that was able to save him from death, was heard for his reverence. (Hebrews 5:7 DR) Yet how was He saved from death? The Psalmist explains elsewhere:

Therefore my heart hath been glad, and my tongue hath rejoiced: moreover my flesh also shall rest in hope. Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; nor wilt then give thy holy one to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life, thou shalt fill me with joy with thy countenance: at thy right hand are delights even to the end. (Psalm 15:9-11 DR)

Our Lord did not by necessity have to face death, but willingly choose to do so, having the power to both lay down His life and take it up again. He chose to think the things of God, rather than those of men (cf. Matthew 16:23), aligning His will with the Father’s will even unto death.

This prayer of our Lord thus offers a model for how we should pray, not seeking our own desires but seeking the will of God in all we do and in all we ask for. The will that is aligned with the Lord’s will will always be heard, and has confidence that even if the outward appearances of this life seem to suggest otherwise, God is not deaf to such a soul’s pleadings. We ought rather to imitate our Lord in constant prayer, for, as St. James says:

For the continual prayer of a just man availeth much. (James 5:16 DR)

To be continual in prayer is not the vain babbling of the pagans to try and control God’s hand, but is rather the soul seeking after God’s will, emptying itself of its own desires and seeking the will of God in all things. Time spent in prayer is time spent fixing the eyes on heavenly things, with confidence in the eternal rewards that God will lavishly bestow:

Expect the Lord, do manfully, and let thy heart take courage, and wait thou for the Lord. (Psalm 26:14 DR)

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I’m not exactly sure why I decided to go with a graffiti—type look for this, but I did. I found this great font on Adobe Fonts and laid it out in a precomp, and then animated each piece of text with some random movement. I then created a solid with a 4-Color Gradient and animated the points of that gradient and then used the text precomp as a Matte for the gradient precomp.

In the main composition I drew some simple circles and applied Deep Glow to them and then applied a looping wiggle animation to the position. I created some 3D lights and attached them to the ellipses to control the movement of the lights to give the scene a bit of dynamism.

Next I applied Shadow Studio 3 to the text precomp to pull it off the background a bit, and then added some camera shake and color correction to complete the project.

Enjoy.

View a higher quality version of this gif here: