Each morning, just about one hour before I head out the door, I get out of bed, I pound a cup of lukewarm or cold coffee, I take up my breviary, trace the cross over my mouth while speaking these words: “Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will proclaim your praise.” Then I pray Psalm 95, which is the psalm we hear in today’s readings: “Come let us sing joyfully to the Lord; let us acclaim the Rock of our salvation. Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving. Let us kneel before the Lord who made us. For he is our God, and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.”

Psalm 95 is “the invitatory psalm,” as it begins the first hour of the Liturgy of the Hours. Also known as the Divine Office, the Liturgy of Hours is the official daily prayer of the Church and consists of psalms, readings and hymns that are recited at stated hours. Deacons and priests make a promise, a professed religious vow, to pray the liturgy of the hours for—and with—the universal Church each day.

Psalm 95 reminds us of our sacred identity, that God lovingly breathed us into existence, and made us for lives that praise and glorify God. So fittingly, we would pray that when we open our mouths – our lips “would proclaim [God’s praise] and sing joyfully to the Lord who made us” – and that in all of our comings and goings, throughout every part of the day, we would allow ourselves to be “guided by God.” The psalm also reminds us to be vigilant, and that our hearts be opened: “Oh, that today you would hear [God’s] voice.”

I’m running an out and back on the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail on this rainy morning. And at the turnaround, I think of how I have prayed these words every morning ever since I entered the seminary in 2008. On the way back, I make a little examination of conscience, and think of the degree to which my words and my actions declare God’s praise and bear witness to God’s glory—and how much I struggle sometimes to trust God to guide my steps.

I hope and pray that today – on this new day, this first day of the rest of my life – I will “hear God’s voice” and “harden not my heart.” Almost as if in response to that prayer, I am reminded of God’s inspiring words, spoken through the Prophet Joel in the antiphon before today’s Gospel: “Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart, for I am gracious and merciful.”

Kind of the whole point of Lent in a single verse.