ASTONISHING

As a pendant to my recent post on the importance of thought in faith, I thought I would mention a recent experience of quite another kind. I had been thinking about prayer and what it can legitimately request; and as so often, more and more of the things we tend to ask for came in my mind to resemble Huck Finn’s fish-hooks. To me this is still one of the great mysteries of faith. We are encouraged to pray for others; and if we love them or even merely wish them well, we quite naturally pray for their healing if they are sick, for their joy if they are miserable, for their victory if they are in any kind of battle. And yet such results may or may not come to pass, according to what seems either blind chance or materially explicable results. Clearly to any such prayer we must add a te Deo volente, ‘if it please thee, Lord’. 

For what, then, can we pray unconditionally? For ourselves to come, for others to be brought, to the (greater) knowledge and love of God, was my conclusion. For an increase in these may take place in sickness as in health, in unhappiness as in joy, in defeat as in victory. 
And as, in consequence, I made this prayer, feeling (and saying) that such an increase would be a great blessing for me, I had a sudden and vivid sense of the Risen Lord himself at my side, who said, “Oh, and such a blessing for me!” And who then left.

An extraordinary thought, which I suspect others than myself may also find new and inspiring. We know that from the Incarnation to the Passion, his life was a constant gift of love and humility. But how often do we stop to think that our coming (closer) to the knowledge and love of him may be experienced as a blessing by him? It is of course the point of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and such points we often understand as it were at a distance; but here it was present, personal, and immediate. If you, Aardvark Zygote, in any way increased your openness to his love yesterday, you have given him a day of pure happiness and thanksgiving. Imagine a spontaneous smile of pleasure on his face as he puts another fish on the fire. “Shalom, Aardvark! I was so hoping you’d come! What joy!”


The image is of a crucifix in the castle of  Javier in Northeast Spain, known as 'the smiling Christ'. Probably 15th century.