Second Friday in Great Lent
Kathisma 6 (Psalms 37-45)
“I said: I will take heed to my ways, lest I sin with my tongue. I set a guard for my mouth.” (Psalm 38)
Here is a Lenten discipline: silence. How hard is it to remain silent? Without a miracle, it is impossible. When is it hardest to remain silent? The Psalmist kept silent while an enemy was reviling him. He didn’t answer a word, since he suspected that whatever came from his mouth would be sin. Wisdom! Let us attend.
St. James addresses this problem of the untamed tongue in his letter. “The tongue is also a fire! Among all our members, the tongue is a world of wrongdoing which defiles the whole body. It sets on fire the course of nature and it is set on fire by the fires of hell. Every kind of animal, bird, reptile and sea creature is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. But nobody can tame the tongue! It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.” (James 3:6-8)
Setting a guard on your mouth is one of the hardest things in the world to do, but if there is ever a time to try it, Great Lent is it! It is much easier to govern what comes out of your mouth when you are already governing what goes into your mouth. It isn’t what goes into a man that defiles him, after all, but what comes out of him. (Matthew 15:11) What point is it to zealously keep the Fast if we aren’t also willing to struggle with the other discipline of the tongue?
Christians around the world sing these words every single evening: ‘Set, O Lord, a watch before my mouth, and a door of enclosure round about my lips. Incline not my heart unto words of evil, to make excuse with excuses in sins, with men that work iniquity; and I will not join with their chosen.’ (Psalm 140)
This is serious stuff, this taming of the tongue, and it is really difficult stuff, too. It isn’t something we can accomplish by force of will. St. James says that nobody can tame the tongue, but that doesn’t mean it can’t ever be done, since Christ our Lord has said that ‘what is impossible for men is possible with God.’ (Matthew 19:26) It can be done, but only as a miracle by the grace of God! Prayer and psalmody are an important part of setting a guard upon your tongue and a watch upon your mouth. The Psalmist says that by remaining silent he learned humility. Pray that the Lord will give you grace to tame the tongue and learn humility with the Psalmist, and with those countless Christians devoted to prayer and psalmody and silence.
