Ostium Catholic

Jeremiah's prayer arrives at one question: can the false gods send rain? He has catalogued the failures - the sword, the famine, the false prophets who said everything would be fine. He has recognized the guilt and named it plainly. And at the end of all of it he is left with the only thing still standing. Is it not you, O Lord our God, to whom we look? You alone have done all these things.

This is what honest prayer looks like from the inside of genuine catastrophe. Not composed, not theologically tidy, not arriving from a place of peace. Eyes streaming, city collapsing, and the question becoming an act of faith because there is nowhere else to look.

The years of early adulthood are years of accumulating evidence about what can and cannot send rain. The achievements that were supposed to settle something and didn't. The relationships that were going to complete something. The plans that failed in ways that were instructive. The question Jeremiah asks at the end of the drought can be asked before the drought, if you are honest about what your rain-sources have actually been producing.

At the end of the age the righteous will shine like the sun. Not the triumphant or the comfortable - the righteous. The ones who stayed wheat in the mixed field. Whoever has ears ought to hear.

What have you been looking to for rain? Not in the abstract - what specific thing have you expected to provide what only God can? Name it. Then turn Jeremiah's question into a statement and say it plainly.

Lord, you alone have done all these things. I have looked elsewhere and found what Jeremiah found. Is it not you to whom I look? Yes. Precious Blood of Jesus, save us. Amen.