Half a lifetime ago, the Lord taught me a prayer. Although I have lived it for the last three decades, I still have a long way to go to live it fully. Along the way I have taught the prayer to countless others and each time the reaction is the same. The head nods, the eyes fix on the words, and a quick knowing breath sounds a wordless Amen: "Let it be so." It is as if the same spirit in each of us recognizes the prayer's utter challenge.

Teaching me the prayer was the Lord's response to my battering God with all that was not right about my ministry as a priest and me as a person in that ministry. For at least two weeks I had filled my morning time of contemplative prayer with anxious worrying, the kind we pray about at every Mass just at the end of the Our Father. The priest says, "In your mercy keep us free from sin and protect us from all anxiety, that we may wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ."

If volume is any indication, the Lord must have gotten his stomach full of my anxious worrying. I heard from the tabernacle a loud command, "Stop that!" Then there was awesome silence.

While I knew the voice must be in my head, its sheer force was enough to make me look around the church to see the reaction of the other early morning worshipers. Each of them continued with their devotions undisturbed. Then again I heard the command, "Repeat after me!" I heeded the voice and repeated the prayer phrase by phrase as it was dictated to me.

"Lord ... help me ... to trust you ... (long pause) ... as much as I mistrust myself."

Oh, how that last phrase stuck in my throat as terror gripped my gut. Jesus taught that a mustard seed of faith was powerful enough to move mountains. The enormity of a faith that was as large as my anxious worrying was more than I could imagine and certainly more than I could ever think myself capable of living. This would have to be the work of grace in me, not my effort alone.

Then as I uttered that challenging conclusion to the prayer there was utter silence, the most telling sign for me of God's overwhelming presence.

Giving retreats or parish missions, counseling persons with addictions or teaching theology, hearing confessions or talking to friends over the years since, I have shared the prayer and my own struggle to live its truth. Now I share it in print, hoping that some of those who read it will pray it and in praying will come to know that God does not leave us alone in our anxious worrying - especially when that worry is about our own brokenness and the fragile, partial way in which we seem so consistently to fall short of the loving call to place all things in God's gracious care.

I hope you found yourself nodding your head, your eyes fixed on the truth of the words, and your breath punctuating a wordless Amen: "Let it be so."

Father Richard Chiola is a certified counselor, pastor of St. Cabrini Parish in Springfield and diocesan director for the ongoing formation of clergy.