Prayer of the Donkey

Prayer of the Donkey

John Honner
I once presented a group of priests with a guided meditation. Think of a time in the past few weeks, I said, when you have really felt you were doing your proper work as a priest: it may have been a painful requiem or a happy marriage, or some inspired preaching or sensitive listening, or a moment of closeness of God in prayer….  Go back to that time and try to enter into it again with your senses: what were the sounds, what did you see, what was the light like, what were the colours, how were the people you were with? And how were you feeling – afraid, consoled, tired, blissfully happy? And then, after some time for reflection, I asked the priests to recall some scene in the gospels that matched this experience of priesthood: which character in the gospel did they identify with? One felt like the farmer in the parable who sowed seed on good soil and rocky soil. Another felt like the good shepherd seeking the lost sheep. A third felt like he was with Jesus on the road to Emmaus … and so on. And then, finally, one who had been comparatively quiet throughout the whole exercise said, “I was the donkey.”
  
Donkey Shelter
My Lord God, my thanks for making me an animal so tame, peaceful, humble, and hardworking to serve my brothers – men and women – in their needs and their difficulties. I do not understand why, since they are created in your image and likeness, they have not those eyes of tenderness, of goodwill, of understanding, that would see us as we really are, and not as they would wish that we were, as their caprices, follies or bad temper takes them.
Humbly I recognise that, like my rational brothers, I have my defects and qualities, my weaknesses as well as my desire to give them greater and better service. But like them I have my sensibilities, my hours of anguish and despair; I also need love, affection, care and patience.
The pity is, Lord, that not understanding the limits of my strength, they put such heavy burdens on my back, beyond my energy and powers. May they remember, Lord, that on this back so beaten, bruised and wounded You set the Mother of Your Son, She who left there the Cross, the mark of her tears, and rode upon me so delicately and meekly.
How many times have I not helped man to carry his load, without his feeling my hunger, my thirst, or giving me a little time to recover from my weariness and restore my lost energies.
I beg, my Lord and Creator, for me and for Man, my brother, that I may be more patient and resigned to bearing his temperament and impatience, and he more compassionate and humane, so that I might serve him with more skill and speed.
I am very happy to be an irrational animal, because as I am I know how to love You without demands and complaints, and how to be useful to my brothers – Man – without expecting reward and payment.
Lord, in me bless all my irrational brothers so that we may live the happiness and beauty of this world that You created for us.
Amen.

From www.donkeyshelter.org.au (2014)