O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to you.

The response for the verses taken from Psalm 102 is "O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to you." The psalmist continues: "Hide not your face from me in the day of my distress. Incline your ear to me; In the day when I call, answer me speedily."

O Lord, hear us today we pray. There is so much that needs fixing in our world and only with Your power can it be accomplished. We are poor instruments and need You.

Jesus tells the Pharisees in the Gospel (John 8: 21-30): "I am going away and you will look for me, but you will die in your sin. Where I am going you cannot come."...."When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM, and that I do nothing on my own, but I say only what the Father taught me. The one who sent me is with me."

And then comes one of my favorite sayings of Jesus: "He has not left me alone, because I always do what is pleasing to him." That is what he wants from us: to do always what is pleasing to the Father. We have Jesus with us always to make this possible. He has not left us alone; let us desire with all our hearts to do always what is pleasing to him.