Prayer To Pierce the Clouds

I love it when I find that my work has already been done. After struggling and wrestling to write about the perspective necessary for those who wish to pray "through the grille," I ran into an article that said exactly what I would have said had I been able to say it.

"Prayers used to look to God and long for heaven," writes Msgr. Charles Pope. "More commonly today, even when they look to God, they speak more of this earth and ask God to make it more comfortable.... I notice that many, if not most prayers, ask God to fix something here: 'Fix my finances, Lord; fix my health; fix my situation at work; help people who are suffering; fix it all Lord!'... Now, of course it is not wrong to pray for any of the things above. But it is the silence about heavenly things that most concerns me...."

It concerns me, too. Make me happy. Make me comfortable. And I'm not forgetting about others, so please make my family and friends and the folks in my parish comfortable too.

But why am I trying to write this? Msgr. Pope has said it wonderfully.

Click this line to see for yourself.

"Perhaps our prayer, while not neglecting worldly needs and concerns, should once again pierce the clouds and set our minds on heavenly things?" 

Set our minds on heavenly things. Oh yes indeed. I ask it, Lord, for each of us.

Teach us prayer that pierces clouds. Teach us to pray, really pray, "through the grille."


Painting: Walter Moras, 1913, in US public domain due to age

But Take Courage!

'The one peculiar and characteristic sin of the world is this:

that whereas God would have us live for the life to come, 

the world would make us live for this life.'

(John Henry Cardinal Newman)

'You will suffer in the world, but take courage!

I have overcome the world'

(words of Jesus in John 16:33)

Painting: José García Ramos, Leaving a Masqued Ball 

our eyes on Home

Finding the "view through the grille" is a bit like putting on a pair of glasses.  Viewing situations through the lens of Scripture and Church teaching, we begin to see life as it IS.  Not merely as we'd like it to be, not as the world around us and the media present it, but as it truly IS. 

The view through the grille is a long one, perhaps more akin to one seen by a telescope than through a pair of spectacles.  The telescope, after all, brings into view sights that are light years away; things actually in the past.  Scripture brings into view not only what is before our eyes today, but also realities awaiting us in eternity: truths revealed by God to help us keep our eyes on the vision of Home. 

"Now we see indistinctly, as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face." (1 Corinthians 13:12)

"Heaven is the ultimate end and fulfillment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness.  To live in heaven is 'to be with Christ.' " (Cathechism of the Catholic Church # 1024-1025)

"We will see face to face and very clearly the Divine Majesty, the essence of God, and the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity."  (St. Francis de Sales) 

"The pleasant companionship of all the blessed in heaven will be a companionship replete with delight.... the joy and gladness of one will be as great as the joy of all."  (St Thomas Aquinas)

"When you awake in that world, you will find that nothing could tempt you to return to this! (St. Elizabeth Ann Seton)

Text not in quotes © 2012 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.
thecloisteredheart.org