Pray
At All Times: a Meditation
One of the most beloved books in
Christianity is the Russian classic The Way Of The Pilgrim. The narrator, an
un-named 19th Century peasant wrestles to live out St Paul’s
instruction to ‘pray without ceasing’ (1 Thess. 5:17f). This is something every
sincere Christian has to work at sometime in his or her life. The pilgrim
resolves his problem by continually reciting the Jesus Prayer (Lord Jesus
Christ, have mercy on me) and he is filled with joy and peace.
One route to praying at all times is
the way of St Francis who loved and relished the beauty of creation and use
that to “offer God and an un-ending, sacrifice of praise”. (Hebrews 13:15). In
the Rule of the 1st Order St Francis demands his Friars to “pray to
God unceasingly”. (Chapter 10).
He used Creation as a ladder to
God. No one can get to heaven without holiness we read in Hebrews… And holiness
means “Praying at all times” (Luke 18:1) as Jesus exhorted us.
We can “pray at all times” by
praising God at all times — We can follow the lead of the Psalmist who said: “I
will bless the Lord at all times, his praise ever on my lips (Psalm 34:1) and
offer God an “un-ending sacrifice of praise”. (Hebrews 13:15).
Celano
the Chronicler:
Thomas of Celano writes of St Francis:
“Who could ever express the deep
affection he bore for all things that
belong to God? Or who would be able to tell of the sweet tenderness he
enjoyed while contemplating in creatures the wisdom, power, and goodness of the
Creator?
From this reflection he often
overflowed with amazing, unspeakable joy as he looked at the sun, gazed at the
moon, or observed the stars in the sky.
What piety!
What simplicity!
Even for worms he had a warm love,
since he had read this text about the Saviour: I am a worm not a man. That is why he used to pick them up from
the road and put them in a safe place so that they would not be crushed by the
footsteps of passers-by.
What shall I say about other lesser
creatures? In the winter he had honey or the best wine put out for the bees so
that they would not perish from the cold. He used to extol the artistry of the
work and their remarkable ingenuity, giving glory to the Lord. With such an
outpouring, he often used up an entire day or more in praise of them and other
creatures. Once the three young men in
the furnace of burning fire invited all the elements to praise and glorify the Creator of all things, (Daniel 3) so
this man, full of the spirit of God
never stopped glorifying, praising, and
blessing the Creator and Ruler of all things in all of the elements and
creatures. (Daniel 3:17; 3-51).
How great do you think was the
delight the beauty of flowers brought to his soul whenever he saw the lovely
form and noticed their sweet fragrance? He would immediately turn his gaze to
the beauty of that flower, brilliant in springtime, sprouting from the root of Jesse. (Isaiah 11:1). By
its fragrance it raised up countless
thousands of the dead. (2 Corinthians 2:14). Whenever he found an abundance of
flowers, he used to preach to them and invite them to praise the Lord, just as
if they were endowed with reason.
Fields and vineyards,
rocks and woods,
and all the beauties of the field (Sirach 24:19),
flowing springs and blooming
gardens,
earth and fire, air and wind:
all these he urged to love God and
to willing service.
Finally, he used to call all
creatures
by the name of “brother” and
“sister”
and in a wonderful way, and known
to others,
he could discern the secrets of the heart (1 Corinthians
14:25) of creatures
like someone who has already passed
into
the freedom of the glory of the children of God. (Romans 8:21)’’
(1 Celano 29)
“In every work of the artist, he
praised the divine Artist. Whatever he found in the things made, he referred to
the Maker. He rejoiced in all the works of the hands of the Lord, and in
beautiful things he saw divine beauty itself. Whoever is not enlightened by
such brilliance of things created, must be blind. Whoever is not awakened by
their mighty voice, must be deaf. And whoever fails to praise God for all his
works, must be voiceless”. (2 Celano 165).
By seeing Jesus in all Creation
one begins to see the whole of creation as a forest of symbols pointing beyond
themselves to Christ, ‘for in Him were created all things in heaven and on
earth’. (Colossians 1:15). ‘‘Through Jesus all things came to be’’ (John1:3). Gerard
Manley Hopkins said that ‘all things are charged with love are charged with God…
and flow and ring and tell of Him’.
God
is Love:
‘‘How desirable are all God’s
works, how dazzling to the eye... who could ever be sated with gazing at His
glory?’’ (Sirach 42:22f).
The Church teaches that God is love
(1 John 4:16) and created the world out of love. Jacob Sharman wrote that: “God
first loved them [creatures] into being, continues to sustain them by this love
and will somehow transform them further in love… Seeing God’s creation can
invite us into a deeper admiration for God and His handiwork. In nature,
surrounded by His creation, we may feel closer to Him. The beauty of creation
is a reminder of God”. (Church Times 19 February 2016***)
Laudato Si’ reminds us that the
“material universe speaks of God’s love, for us”. (No. 84).
Revelation
of God in Nature:
‘‘The glory of the stars makes the
beauty of the sky’’ (Sirach 43:9)
There is revelation of God in
nature and Saints have talked of the two books: the book of Scripture (the
Bible) and the book of nature or creation. That there is revelation of God in
nature, the Psalmist knew well when he wrote: ‘The heavens declare the glory of
God’. (Psalm 19:1) the author of the Song of the Three young men in Daniel,
chapter 3, shouted it! St Paul was aware of it: “Ever since the creation of the
world God’s invisible nature, namely his eternal power and deity has clearly
been perceived in things that have been made”. (Romans 1:2). An early Father of
the Church, Pope St Leo was conscious of it when he said, ‘the wonderful beauty
of these inferior elements of nature demands that we intelligent beings should
give thanks to God’.
St Francis of Assisi exulted in this knowledge for it
was said of him that ‘he beheld in fair things Him who is most fair’ (i.e.
Jesus). The poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning celebrated it: “Earth’s crammed
with heaven and every common bush aflame with God; /and only he who sees takes
off his shoes-/ The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries” (i.e. the
carnally minded, the unconverted see nothing!)
Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote that
‘The world is charged with the grandeur of God’ and the Irish poet J.M.
Plunkett rejoiced to write:
I see his blood upon the rose,
And in the stars the glory of his
eyes;
His body gleams amid eternal snows,
His tears fall from the skies.
I see his face in every flower,
The thunder and the singing of the
birds
Are but his voice: and, carven by
his power,
Rocks are his written words.
All pathways by his feet are worn,
His strong heart stirs the ever
beating sea.
His crown of thorns is twined with
every thorn,
His cross is every tree.
The Scripture scholar Hamish
Swanston meditating on Exodus 33:21 ‘you cannot see my face and live’
wrote the following:
“Your spirit is on the wide white
sand,
Within the air I touched your hand,
And on the silver fish I see
Hallmarks of immortality;
Your love with in the sunlight
flames,
And love the shadowed moon
proclaims,
Till images and shadows pass
And we discard our darkened glass”.
The Franciscan musician John
Michael Talbot pursues these themes in nearly all his bestselling albums. In
fact every converted Christian who has died to sin and lives only for God knows
these things as a cursory look at any Christian hymn book ever compiled shows —
an intense reverence amounting almost to an intoxication with the beauties of
creation as symbols pointing beyond themselves to God — every sunrise and
sunset, spring and winter, day and night “ring out and tell of Him”. Confer the
following: All creatures of our God & King; Morning has broken; Fairest
Lord Jesus, Ruler of All nature; All things bright and beautiful; For the
beauty of the earth; Oh the love of my Lord is the essence etc.
The great St Augustine once wrote:
“All these beautiful things which you see, which you love, He made. If these
are beautiful, what is He himself? If these are great, how great must He be?
Therefore from those things which we love here, let us the more long for Him,
that by that very love we may purify our hearts by faith and his vision when it
comes may find our hearts purified”. (Commentary on the 84th
Psalm)
In the 12th century, St
Bernard of Clairvaux wrote to Archbishop Henry Murdac of his own practice of
praying beneath the trees of the forest: “Believe me who have experience, you
will find much more labouring among the woods than you ever will amongst books.
Woods and stones will teach you what you can never hear from any master”.
A Benedictine contemporary of St
Bernard, Hugh of St Victor, talks at length about the book of creation. After
quoting the Psalmist, O Lord, how great are you works, how deep are your designs”
(Psalm 92:6), Hugh comments: “This whole sensible world is like some book
written by the finger of God, that is, created by divine power. Individual
creatures are like signs, not invented by humans but set up by God’s good
pleasure, in order to manifest the invisible things of divine wisdom… A
spiritual person who reflects on the exterior beauty of something understands
interiorly how marvellous is the Creator’s wisdom… Therefore it is good to
contemplate and admire God’s works, but only if one knows how to turn the
beauty of material things into Spiritual profit”. (Charles Cummings, Echo –
Spirituality, Paulist Press, 1991 p.47.
We get this knowledge at conversion
for “none can understand the grace, until He becomes the place where in the
Holy Spirit makes his dwelling”.
Scott Hahn contends “God ‘writes’
the world like men write words, to convey the truth and love. So nature and
history are more than just created things — God fashions them as visible signs
of other things, uncreated realities, which are eternal and indivisible. But
because of sin’s blinding effects, the inspired Word of Scripture must
translate the ‘book’ of nature. This in turn calls for a truly sacramental
imagination, which will enable people to interpret history and creation in terms
of the sacred symbolism of Scripture”. (Scott Hahn, A Father Who Keeps His
Promises, Servant Books 1998, p. 22).
Praise
and Thanksgiving:
‘‘The sun as he emerges proclaims
at his rising, a thing of wonder is the work of the Most High’’ (Sirach 43:2).
It is obvious that for St Francis
praise and thanksgiving are very prominent in his life. In Xavier Leon-Dufour’s
Dictionary of Biblical Theology he points out that “in the Bible praise and thanksgiving
are frequently united… Praise and thanksgiving evoke the same exterior
manifestations of joy”. (p. 442).
So we can say that a thankful
person or a praising person is a joyous or happy person - something we need
very much to strive for as happiness is really what we most desire in life. St
Bonaventure said that ingratitude was the source of all sin. So gratitude
should be a constant in our lives.
In fact the Bible seems to suggest
that we are culpable if we do not praise and thank God especially for His
creation: “Never a thought for the works of the Lord, never a glance for what
His hands have done. My people will go into exile for want of perception”. (Isaiah
5:12)
For the carnally minded they see
nothing in creation; delight in nothing: “Earth’s crammed with heaven and every
common bush afire with God; and only he who sees takes off his shoes — The rest
sit round and pluck blackberries”. (Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
Ralph Martin says ‘‘It is good to praise
the Lord even when we do not feel like it – feelings sometimes follow our
praising from our will’’.
St
Bonaventure:
I am sure St Bonaventure the great
Franciscan theologian would agree that we are culpable if we do not seek God in
his works but rather are preoccupied by mundane or carnal things.
In an article on Climbing the
Ladder of Creation with St Bonaventure, Dr Peter Kwasniewski says:
“The Psalms burst with refrains in
praise of a world that leads us back to the Maker, in whom the only explanation
for their being is to be found.
In a way that would surely have
earned him poor marks from many hipster eco-friendly theology faculties, St
Bonaventure insists that the world itself is abused and God sinned against
whenever the “Maker of all things visible and invisible” is not actively sought
in and through the things He has made.
Bonaventure reiterates the warnings
of Church Fathers and medieval masters against the vice they called curiositas, for which the word
“curiosity” doesn’t quite suffice. Perhaps “excessive absorption in mundane
matters” would be the best we could do in English.”
Pagan
Delight in Creation:
If pagan people can delight in
Creation, how much more so should the Christian whose God saw all He had
created and found it “very good”. (Genesis 1:31). The pagan Japanese people go into
raptures in springtime when the cherry trees are fully in bloom with white
blossoms. Whole families go out to gape in awe, to take photographs and picnic
under those trees. The pagan Persians were fascinated by created things like
roses and by nightingales! As Catholics, at every Mass we say at the Sanctus:
“Heaven and Earth are full of your glory”. Do we really mean it? Do we really
see the glory of it all? Or has familiarity made us cold and indifferent and
dulled our perception?
In a wonderful passage in the Book
of Wisdom the author writes of pagans delighted with the beauty of creation and
falling into idolatry: “People were so delighted with the beauty of these
things that they thought they must be gods, but they should have realised that
these things have a master and that he is much greater than all of them, for he
is the creator of beauty, and he created them. Since people are amazed at the
power of these things, and how they behave they ought to learn from them that
their creator is more powerful. When we realise how vast and beautiful the
creation is we are learning about the creator at the same time”. (Wisdom
13:3-5) Good News Bible.
And we believers in the Biblical
Creator and worldview, do we gaze with awe and wonder on the work of God’s
hands? Albert Einstein the great physicist thought we should: “One cannot help
but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity of life, of
marvellous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend
a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy wonder”.
William
Wordsworth:
‘‘See the rainbow and praise its
maker, so superbly beautiful in its splendour’’. (Sirach 43:11f).
One of England’s greatest poets
William Wordsworth who was familiar with the rich and aristocrats with their
jaded appetites for pleasure, wrote that “for a multitude of causes, unknown to
former times, and now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating
powers of the mind and… to reduce it to a state of savage torpor”, and
complained that “the world is too much with us — buying and selling we lay
waste our powers”.
He could have been writing of today
where we are slaves to hi-tech and the social media and have no time for the
Biblical idea of deferring gratification. Wordsworth’s answer was the Gospel
one: to be childlike (not childish) for such is the Kingdom of Heaven. He
advocated our getting in touch with the simple things of life like relishing
God’s creation and cultivating a sense of wonder and awe at its magnificence.
For example in his poem the Stargazers
he praises the starry skies and delights in the awe and wonder expressed by the
uneducated stargazers of London City centre.
In one poem Wordsworth delights in
his little son who can’t pass a church steeple without wondering at the
weathervane rooster on top of the Church spire!
The poet himself has a childlike
delight in creation: “My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky. So
was it when my life began, so is it now I am a man, so be it when I shall grow
old, or let me die!
St Paul commands we fill our minds
with everything that is true, good and pure and worthy of praise as Wordsworth
did. (Phil. 4:8-9). One advantage the poet says in doing this is that when we
are ‘‘in a vacant or pensive mood’’ we can recall with delight the wonderful
things we have seen and this is the ‘‘bliss of solitude’’.
As a Protestant he even writes of
the Blessed Virgin Mary as “our tainted nature’s solitary boast”!
Donovan:
Donovan too in his delightful song Colours
delights in the colours of God’s creation and was specially chosen to write the
incidental music for Franco Zefferelli’s movie: Brother Sun and Sister Moon. He
sings of the danger of selfish pre-occupation with self that prevents us
relishing God glory around us:
Brother
Sun & Sister Moon
1. Brother Sun and Sister Moon,
I seldom see you, seldom hear your
tune,
preoccupied with selfish miseries.
2. Brother Wind and Sister Air,
Open my eyes to visions pure and
fair,
That I may see the glory around me.
3. I am God’s creature, of Him I am
part,
I feel his love awakening my heart.
4. Brother Sun and Sister Moon,
I now do see you, I can hear your
tune,
So much in love with all that I
survey.
St Francis Aesthete?
With all this talk of beauty and
beautiful things loved by St Francis (and others) one can perhaps get the
impression that he was an aesthete, a connoisseur of beauty for as Celano
writes: ‘He beheld in beautiful things, Beauty itself’. (2 Cel. 165)
Yes Francis loved the beauty of
creation for God saw it as “very good” (Gen. 1:31) but he loved man more
because he was created in “God’s image and likeness”. (Genesis 1:27). Francis
loved man, especially the poor man because God’s image and likeness was
obscured or marred by poverty. In the hierarchy of values aesthetic ones are
not the most important but rather moral values.
Hierarchy of Values:
Dietrich von Hildebrand the great
German philosopher, warrior against Nazism and Third Order member of St Francis
argues that moral values are the highest among all natural values: “Reverence,
goodness, fidelity, responsibility, truthfulness and humility of man rank
higher than genius, brilliancy great vitality, higher than the beauty of nature
or art, higher than the stability and power of the state. What is realised and
what shines forth in an act of real forgiveness, in a noble and generous
renunciation, in a burning and selfless love, is more significant and more
noble, more important and more eternal than all cultural values”, he says. (The
Art of Living, Franciscan Herald Press 1965, p.1.). Moral beauty is far more
impressive than the beauty of nature and of science, Alexis Carrel maintained,
and he saw moral beauty as the basis of civilisation. That fiery preacher, St
John Chrysostom, who exemplified the role of the prophet to comfort the
disturbed and to disturb the comfortable, said that “Nothing was nobler than to
mould the moral character of the young and that someone doing this is truly
greater than all the painters, and all others of that sort”. So in the Catholic
scheme of things, moral values rank higher than cultural ones.
St Francis:
St Paul said that we are ‘God’s
work of art’ (Ephesians 2:9). So man is more important than art or culture,
because he is made in God’s image and likeness, St Francis of Assisi showed
this true emphasis. Though he is renowned for his aesthetic love of nature and beauty,
he would be astounded at Christians who could admire a sunset or a snow-capped
mountain, pamper a cat or pet of some sort and ignore a poor person created in
God’s image. St Francis exemplified this true hierarchy of values when he
changed his designer clothes for poor rags to show contempt for so-called good
taste that emphasises lesser values at the expense of greater ones. He broke a
bowl he was carving once because it distracted him while he was praying to God;
he sent a lute player away once when he was sick and longing for some fine
music to console him because people might be scandalised. So out of deference
to them he did without the music. (28) The great St Bonaventure, the second
founder of the Franciscans, continued this emphasis of St Francis on moral
values over aesthetic ones exemplified in his book On Retracing the Arts of Theology. However, though
Franciscans have produced few artistic works themselves, they have inspired a
tremendous amount in others by preaching the Good News and allowing it to
leaven society. Numerous composers, poets and artists have produced works
inspired by the Franciscan vision.
Israel:
The pre-eminence of moral over
cultural values can be seen clearly in Israel’s history. Christopher Dawson
says that the religion of Israel was unique in all world religions, as the
latter were all linked to some great world culture and Israel by comparison,
was neither rich, nor cultured or highly civilised. But Israel was pre-eminent
in the moral sphere. It had the most sublime morality at the time and was the
envy of surrounding pagan nations. Many cultured and civilised Romans and
Greeks became proselytes of the Jewish faith because of the admiration they had
for its religious and moral values.
The Jewish writer, Haim Kreisel,
said: “It is morality that distinguishes our heritage from the heritage of
Athens and Rome. Morality, not beauty is our overriding concern”. Jerusalem Post, 19/1/95.
Praise Works:
St Francis did not write very much
but what he did write is full of praise for God e.g.
1. “The exhortation to praise God”
2. In the “Praises of God”
3. In the “Praises of God to be said
at all the hours of the Divine Office”
4. And in the most famous of all: in
his Canticle of the Creatures
which the Oxford book of Italian poetry lists as the very first poem in the
Italian vernacular language. We all know it as the popular hymn: “All Creatures
of our God and King”.
Above we quote Thomas of Celano (1
Celano 29) when he says the three young men in the burning fiery furnace
“invited all the elements to praise and glorify the Creator so this man
Francis, full of the Spirit of God never stopped glorifying, praising and
blessing the Creator and ruler of all things”.
Celano is referring to Daniel chapter
3 exhorting “all things the Lord has made, bless the Lord, give glory and
eternal praise to Him”. (v. 57). Obviously that includes us creatures that the
Lord has made, who should give glory and eternal praise to Him. The “all things
the Lord has made” are now listed:
The heavens, sun and moon, stars,
showers and dew, winds, fire and heat, sleet and snow, frost and cold, night
and day, light and darkness, lightning and clouds, mountains and hills,
everything that grows, seas and rivers, birds and animals, and the sons of men
— that is us — are all called to give “glory and praise to God”.
As we have seen above God made
everything in love and we don’t live in a cold, meaningless universe. Sometimes
it may seem that way and so we need to regularly affirm and thank God for “his
great love is without end” as we hear repeatedly again and again in Psalm 136,
the Great Hallel Psalm. We can combine this with Daniel 3:51-90 e.g. It was you
who made the great lights, for your love endures forever, or, It was you who made
the mountains and hills, for your love endures forever etc. In these
Apocalyptic times perhaps we can add Psalm 96: ‘‘All you trees of the wood
shout for joy at the presence of the Lord for He comes to judge the
earth’’.
A good way to start praise and
thanksgiving is to take Daniel 3, go into the garden and see how many of “the
things the Lord has made” can we spot in our garden and give thanks and praise
like the Psalmist e.g. you lightning and clouds O bless the Lord, and you every
bird in the sky O bless the Lord (Jesus said ‘‘not a sparrow falls without your
Father knowing’’ (Matt. 10:29). So if you see one remember God’s gaze is on it
and so there and then ask the Lord to include you in that gaze!
It is impossible for us to leave
home in the morning without seeing God’s creation around us. We should use it
as described above to begin praying at all times as Jesus directed and so grow
in holiness for without holiness no one can see God! (Hebrews 12:14).
Poem by Raymon Lull (Franciscan)
Whatever talk you hear,
Whatever music anywhere,
Juggler or clerk, or bird in air,
The roaring of tumultuous seas,
The wind that murmurs in the trees:
Love of God, I say, in all of
these.
Popular Charismatic Hymn
Thou art worthy, Thou art worthy,
Thou art worthy, O Lord,
To receive glory, glory and honour,
Glory and honour and pow’r;
For Thou has created, hast all
things created,
Thou hast created all things,
And for Thy pleasure they are
created:
Thou art worthy, O Lord!
(See Google for lyrics + music)
