Sunday Afternoon Readings

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 19, 27 May 1925, Page 51

Sunday Afternoon Readings

(By Right Rev. Mgr. Power for the N.Z. Tablet.)

We shall consider in this chapter the beau- ' . tiful subject of prayer. Prayer is the breath . of the spiritual life, it is the armoury of the soul’s light against the dark darts of sin, it is the unassailable artillery of love, keeping . the fortress for our King and scattering all -■ its foes. The joys of Heaven are bound up with prayer. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor heart imagined what Heaven has ;■< in store; but prayer has its spiritual sights that no physical eye can catch, its hidden words that are not heard with material ears, its breathings of the Holy Spirit, which the ravished soul feels rather than hears. Prayer makes Clod the soul’s Lover, and this is^pi.at. • Heaven does also. Prayer is Heaven. .It is a. privilege beyond expression. It is also a duty, and as a duty we shall treat it here. Prayer is an elevation of the soul to Clod to adore Him. to bless His holy name, to thank Him for His benefits, and to ask Him , for all necessaries for soul and body. By adoring, praising, and thanking Cod we show our love for Him; by begging blessings ii-; of Him we show our confidence in Him. In this chapter wo shall confine ourselves to first form of prayer, that of wonder and adoration. Cod is the Creator of heaven and earth and all things: of the sea, that lifts itself in wild commotion or spreads itself like a placid lake in wide immensity; of the air that envelops us with rythmic fragrance or is \, charged with roaring thunders and flocked with lightning discharges; of the rugged mountains that stand like sentinels guarding our coasts, and of the green fields and valleys that team with the season’s gifts; of the sun that mounts the heavens in majesty, scattering treasures as he rides; of the distant stars that shine like patiues of bright gold, and sing their mystic song us they roll through the corridors of space; of the giant oak that spreads its leafy brandies and of the tiniest flower that sheds its fragrance to fill us with delight. When all this comes home to us for the first time, we arc filled with wonder; this wonder grows and overwhelms ns the more we contemplate it; and the prayer of wonder and adoration springs to our lips when we think of the Supreme Being, the work of whose hands all these things are. But we also are the work of His hand, the most perfect, since we have an intellect and free will that make ns the peer of the angels. The moment, therefore, when this illuminating intellect recognises the greatness of the Creator in the immensity of His works, it must, under the stimu- , lus of the will, acknowledge that immensity. " v -M This it does, and this it is obliged to do, by / the prayer of wonder and adoration— the uplifting of the mind to God. This homage "v '■ finite man is bound to pay to Infinite Maji y esty. (esty. agnostic Greeks were blameworthy beThe agnostic Greeks were blameworthy bell cause their craggy ridges, that cut so keenly I through the liquid air that enveloped their ' “Islands of the Blest,” did not speak to

XXIX.—THE PRAYER OF ADORATION.

them of Him Who had made them all. St. Paul forcibly reminded them that they should have seen God’s finger in His works, and that they were self -condemned in , not adoring Him. We too are self-condemned if we can behold the splendor of the distant stars without our heart vying with our eyes to gaze and wonder and adore. “Come, let us adore God,” is the -first word that every priest says as he begins the official morning prayer of the Church. And he goes on: “For the Lord is a great God, iifid a, great King above all gods. For in His hand are all the ends of the earth; and the heights of the mountains are His. For the sea, is His, and He made it: and His hands formed the dry land. Come let us adore, and fall down!” This is not only the expression of a pious heart, it is also obedience to a Divine command: “The Lord thy God shalt thou adore.” When Esdras, the scribe, read to the people from the book of the law of Moses, all the people lifted up their hands: and they bowed down, and adored God with their faces to the ground. That is, they first wondered and then adored. Holy Job, recognising the hand of God in his mighty afflictions, “fell down niton the ground and worshipped.” The Magi, finding the Child with Mary His other, fell down and adored Him. The Holy Scriptures, the liturgy of the Church, the lives of the saints are full of this form of prayer so must our lives be. Prayer is more than petition ; it is first and above all adoration, and if we neglect this form of prayer, we are neglecting a grave duty. A beautiful prayer of adoration is that of the eighth psalm ; “0 Lord, our Lord, how admirable is Thy name in the whole earth! For Thy magnificence is elevated above the heavens. For I will behold Thy heavens, the works of Thy fingers; the moon and the stars which Thou hast founded.” Beautiful too is the prayer of adoration that opens I lie eighty-third psalm; “How lovely are Thy tabernacles. 0 Lord of Hosts! My soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh have delighted in the living God.” Another short prayer of wonder and adoration is this: “Wonderful are the surges of the sea! Wonderful is the Lord on high.” Here is a beautiful prayer of wonder from the pen of our Irish poet: “Thou art, 0 God! the life and light Of all this wond’rous .world we see; Its glow by day, its smile by night, Are but reflections caught from Thee. Where’er we turn, Thy glories shine, And all things fair and bright are Thine!

•■■ ■ ■ . : ,- ‘When day, with farewell beam, • delays • Among the opening clouds of even, , ; .- And we can almost think we gaze ~r: ; Through golden vistas into Heaven ; ~ Those hues that makes- the sun’s decline So soft, so radiant, Lord! are Thine.

“When night, with: wings of starry gloom J O’ershadows all the earth and skies, o,f Like some dark beauteous bird, whose plume Is sparkling with unnumbered eyes— That sacred gloom, those fires divine, ~ So grand, so countless, Lord! are Thine.” . . . , y-r v .yi W e are all poets, if we but give ourselves the chance; If we are swift to see the finger | of God in the marvels of nature, if we look . at nature through the mind and heart as well as through the bodily eye, we shall give free play to our sense of wonder, and then y .fall down and adore God. MY PRAYERS. Do I. mean the prayers I offer, do I feel * the words I say, When before our Heavenly Father, I kneel from day to day— When, at morning and at evening, I incline to seek His face, And my voice goes up in pleading to His glorious throne' of grace? When my voice goes up in pleading, does i 1 my heart go with it, too? There are many things I ask Him that His J might and grace may do; Petition on petition goes up to meet His ear- ' Oh, are they such petitions as our Father loves to hear? | I tell Him of ray wants, my needs, but when I turn away, Do I think of what I ask for, do I watch j. as well as pray? Do I strive against temptation, do I seek like Christ to live? Do I use aright the blessings that so freely, He doth give? s My prayers are with much speaking? yet,: 1 when I leave the spot, Mow quickly are its memories fled— how 1 soon, those prayers forgot ! Oh, if the thought that gave them birth so I lightly treasured bo, ’ _ How can I think God’s mercy will remember t them for me? tr n Yet one petition further, Lord, will Thou not deign to hear? sllv 1 “ Oh, lot Thy Spirit breathe anew through all my daily prayer, ! Then help me as I pray, to live, kept by Thy grace divine, And the glory of the prayer and life, alike; II 0 Lord, be Thine.

At our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which' I have laid up for Thee, 0 my Beloved. All that is bitter ■ami painful I keep for Thy sake, all that is j sweet and pleasant I keep■ for Thee.”': —St. John of the Cross.