The redemption of humankind began with a humble prayer. It was offered by an elderly woman. Her dwindling life was being lived on the margins. She was despised, shunned, an outcast. In response, she assumed the signature posture that would characterize her future grandson. She went to a solitary place to pray. From the Protoevangelion of St. James regarded by the Early Church as Scripture:
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And Anna was grieved exceedingly, and put off her garments of mourning, and cleaned her head,
and put on her wedding garments, and about the ninth hour went down to the garden to walk. And she saw a laurel, and sat under it, and prayed to the Lord, saying: "O God of our fathers, bless me and hear my prayer, as You blessed the womb of Sarah, and gave her a son Isaac." And gazing towards the heaven, .... [she] made a lamentation in herself, saying: "Alas! Who begot me? And what womb produced me? Because I have become a curse in the presence of the sons of Israel, and I have been reproached, and they have driven me in derision out of the temple of the Lord. .... Alas! To what have I been likened? I am not like this earth, because even the earth brings forth its fruits in season, and blesses You, O Lord." And, behold, an angel of the Lord stood by, saying: "Anna, Anna, the Lord has heard your prayer, and you shall conceive, and shall bring forth; and your seed shall be spoken of in all the world." (Protoevangelion of St. James, 3-4) |
Every fiber of her being — her mind, her soul, her body — became one focus of prayer. God was near to her, palpable, her intimate.
The essence of this prayer was that her life not be wasted, but that she might be used by God to fulfill His purposes. For the eyes of the Lord are ever searching the earth for one who is worthy. Do we not hear this central principle echoing throughout the Scriptures?
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For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong
on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him. (2 Chron 16:9) |
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The LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men,
To see if there are any who understand, who seek God. (Ps 14:2, 53:2) |
And again,
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"Here is what I have found," says the Preacher, ....
"One man among a thousand I have found, But a woman among all these I have not found. Truly, this only I have found: That God made man upright, But they have sought out many schemes." (Eccles 7:27-29) |
In this we see revealed "the meaning of life." For God Who alone is good works His will on earth only through each of our lives. This is the meaning of the perfect prayer:
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Thy Kingdom Come.
Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. |
God's goodness, His rightness, His vision for harmony and a loving world might only be fulfilled through our emptying ourselves such that we become One with His holy will. This is the purpose of Christian life: to follow the Son in forming ourselves into the Image of His Father .... or to state it more precisely, to fill out the Divine Image already traced within us at our conception.
In practical terms, we carry out God's work on earth. God is Spirit. We are to be His hands, His feet, His heart, His voice, His Presence. But to enter into this finely wrought One-ness with God, that God might dwell in us and we in Him, we must first become vessels hospitable to His Holy Presence. As His Son taught us:
| "Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in Heaven is perfect." (Mt 5:48) |
The entry into this garden of perfect life with God begins and ends in prayer. Jesus was the "One Who prayed."
The founder of the Taizé community, Brother Roger, wrote,
| "God does not need our prayers. It is a mystery that He sets such store by them." |
We began this morning by saying that the redemption of humankind was set into motion with a human prayer.
Until we pray we do not know who or what we are.
Many years ago, I applied to a writer's workshop accepting only a few candidates. The application was daunting. It had one question: "Why do you write?"
I pored over this most basic question. I looked in my heart. I thought back through my life. Why do I write? Finally, I offered this equally brief reply: "I write in order to know what I think, what I believe, which is a true path to discovering who I am, what I am."
Years later, as a young university professor I challenged my students with a similar problem. I presented them with a question (it really doesn't matter which question) and then gave them five minutes to sketch out a response. "Don't hold back," I said. "Let it pour out of you. Tell me what's on your mind."
After collecting these brief stabs at an essay, I then asked them to write a ten-page paper fleshing out this same subject, this time thoroughly. In many cases, the students discovered that they did not really believe what they had claimed they believed.
How often does this happen! We express an opinion. Sometimes we try to align ourselves with "the herd" only to confront ourselves later with a realization: "I don't believe that!"
You see, it was only after committing themselves to a process of closely reasoned thought through exposition did their actual beliefs come to light. Contradictions came to light. Connections they had not foreseen were made. This is what writing! Each idea naturally arises from the other. You do not know what these arisings will be until you get down into the exposition.
Once the students had completed a first draft, they could then think about what they had said .... riding on the bus, standing in line at the bank .... and go back and rewrite.
It is a holy structure, for it leads us down through our inner labyrinths toward the light within ourselves, which we now put on a lampstand, that all who enter the house may see this light.
What is the alternative to writing? It is to go through life with a mind that is something like a vast, dark sea. Unfamiliar reatures surface from time to time but then dive back down again into the darkness. That is, we have impressions. We have passing thoughts. We adopt opinions. Sadly, many of us submit to the "thought police" who prowl the precincts of our present "woke culture." In this, we become not the splendid humans God made us to be, but rather "empty suits," "talking heads," "wasted space" .... facing the terror of St. Anna who feared that her life would become a place of desolation.
She prayed. And then she prayed some more. One thought led to another.
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God does not need our prayers.
It is a mystery that He sets such store by them. |
Prayer is basic. Prayer is at the core of our life. It is a mystery.
He sets such store by them because prayer, prayer spoken aloud to God, is our only way to part the vast, dark sea of our minds and spirits. Only through this articulated conversation with God do we become alive in Him and He in us.
St. Anna's husband Joachim also went to a place apart:
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And Joachim was exceedingly grieved, and did not come into the presence of his wife;
but he retired to the desert, and there pitched his tent, and fasted forty days and forty nights, saying in himself: I will not go down either for food or for drink until the Lord my God shall look upon me, and prayer shall be my food and drink. (Protoevangelion of St. James, 1) |
.... until the Lord my God shall look upon me.
Until when we come into the Presence of the Lord mindfully opening our every sense to Him, pouring out our thoughts, does life really begin. And with our spiritual senses awakened, then we must listen and watch for His response. He will write His messages on the walls of our daily experiences. As Jesus taught us in our Gospel lesson this morning:
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"Therefore take heed how you hear. For whoever has, to him more will be given;
and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him." (Lu 8:18) |
Here, we have unlocked a verse that has troubled many Christians over the ages. (It's so unfair, you see, ..... that is, if we look out on the world through materialistic eyes.) It means, whoever has parted the vast, dark sea of their minds, to them more and more clarity will be given. But the slothful one who never really knows what he believes, much less who he is, that one will be doomed to ever murkier waters.
Joachim and Anna prayed. Joachim pitched his tent in the desert and fixed his every thought upon the Lord, fasting and prostrating himself over a course of forty days. And the Lord heard their prayers, and to them who sat in darkness a great light has shone. A most holy child is granted to them who had been barren. And this child, spoken of through all the earth, would bring forth the Light of the World. And He would be the Savior of mankind. All this was brought about through a humble opening in a deep darkness, which began with the words of a lowly and sincere prayer.
As Jesus has taught in this morning's lesson,
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For nothing is secret that will not be revealed,
nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light. (Lu 8:17) |
This is the secret of prayer: coming to light.
We say when something dawns on us, "Something has come light."
But this is a "coming to light" following by a "coming to light" followed by a "coming to light" ....
which leads to a coming to Light.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.