REASSURANCE

After a couple of days of intense anxiety regarding the coming workload for classes as I go back to school, the Lord sent some reassurance right there in the first text I have been reading for my course, Sacramental Spirituality and Disciple-Making Leadership. 

On page 169 of You Are What You Love, James K. A. Smith quotes an ancient prayer of St. Thomas Aquinas called Ante Studium (A Prayer Before Study):

Pour forth a ray of Your brightness
into the darkened places of my mind;
disperse from my soul
the twofold darkness
into which I was born: 
sin and ignorance.

You make eloquent the tongues of infants.
Refine my speech
and pour forth upon my lips
the goodness of Your blessing.

Grant to me
keenness of mind,
capacity to remember,
skill in learning,
subtlety to interpret,
and eloquence in speech.

May You
guide the beginning of my work,
direct its progress,
and bring it to completion.

You Who are true God and true Man,
Who live and reign, world without end.
Amen. 

Well, that's a good reminder! I might be praying this often over the next few years.