Does God really need us to remind him of how great he is?

Is God an ego maniac that hungers and thirsts for our worship in order to slake His cosmic thirst?

Is God absent minded such that He often forgets our needs and will not answer us unless we constantly remind him with our petitions?

Of course these are silly rhetorical questions, and yet this is how we often relate to prayer and why many end up abandoning the practice.

What if we think of prayer as a divine tuning fork? A time to calibrate the strings of our humanity to the divine, universal notes? A time to come into resonance with the Holy Spirit.

Prayer and worship is not for placating God or attempting to manipulate God. It is a time for tuning our heart to His. God does not “need” our prayer, we need it, in order to be transformed into his likeness and become attentive to His voice.

We are often drawn to prayer from a place desperation and despair, seeking a healing or an answer to a petition, but if we take the time to just sit in God’s presence and allow His love to envelop us, we can discover a deeper level of security that is rooted in His being, and not in the circumstances of our life. In this kind of “tuning” prayer our whole perspective changes. This is the miracle of detaching with love that takes place in the divine encounter. It leads us out of our ego narrative traps, our deep irrational fears, and the narrow constricted places we get caught. This kind of prayer leads us out into a wide open space, a deep interior freedom. We may still want that healing or petition answered, but often not in the same way or in desperation because we have found a new resonance in Christ, in the living incarnate Word. With Him and in Him we can say to the Father: I love your will, may it be done. Glorify your name in me.

What about liturgical and sacramental prayer? We return over and over again to these ancient forms and we are tempted at times to say they feel like empty practices. But once we realize that worship is not about me or about getting my emotional needs met, but about finding that resonance with all of creation by entering into Christ’s own priestly offering to the Father, then we begin to allow the liturgy to “tune” our instrument to join in the orchestra, the one that sings in unison a response to God’s Love. This resonance can carry us when we feel empty, just by our showing up and being present. It can drawn us out of our isolation and into communion.

The four last things: heaven, hell, judgement, and death are to be reflected upon with love, not fear.

How can we do this?

Heaven is the easy one, the ultimate expression of God’s love is that he desires to spend eternity with us.

Hell is ultimately about our refusal to accept God’s love. God never rejects his own, so its up to us, we are free to enter into his loving embrace or not.

Judgement is perfect mercy and perfect justice coming together. We can’t conceive how this is possible except to look upon the Cross of Christ. Imagine the eternal Father seeing you in and through his own Son and smiling with delight.

And lastly, death is the great release from the pain and limitations of the body. It can also be a fearful letting go of all that is beautiful in this physical world. It is the final frontier of our journey. We should not think of Death as an ending but as part of life itself, and the two are really one, one cycle, one journey of learning to let go, and allowing ourselves to become one with God.

It is Love, not fear that beckons us to contemplate these last things.

The Seed of Baptism

When a new baby is announced it is a moment of incredible joy and wonder. We look at the little face and the miniature features and we are in awe. Why?

Perhaps we are in awe of how everything is present in the little bundle, all the genetic material is there for growing into a full adult.

Perhaps we are in awe of the great mystery of life, and that the heart and soul of this new being will be tested, and will suffer much and also experience great joys.

At baptism we are born again as a child of God. We are set on a journey to become Christ in the world. The Holy Spirit fills us and provides all that we need to become a Christ in the world. All the divine genetic material is there, just like a seed planted in in the ground. If we can perceive how the whole tree is potentially present in a tiny seed, then we can glimpse the profound mystery of baptism.

As we behold the vulnerability and potentiality of an infant gazing up at us, let us call to mind the seed of baptism within each of us. Are we protecting, and nurturing this infinite potential, this boundless grace? We look all around us for what we think we need when its already there, planted within us.

The fact that Christ was crucified in the middle is highly symbolic. To hold the center is to suffer for the common good.

There will always be radical and diabolical forces attempting to pull us apart. Who among us will suffer the tension of holding the middle?

To hold the center is to live the incarnation, with all its limitations and it’s inevitable pascal mystery.

To hold the center is to follow the person of Jesus, including a commitment to both his mystical body and His flawed institutional church.

To hold the center is to become Christ in the world through our own kenosis, our own act of self-emptying love for humanity.

To hold the center is to resist escaping into ideology and conspiracy, and to ground ourselves in the Word made flesh, and accept our own humanity.

We go through life building our resumes, as if they are our true identity. Even in our religious obligations, and our service we are unconsciously collecting our little badges and points. What we often fail to realize is that at our Baptism God throws away our resume, because we have become his beloved child. We no longer need a resume, just like a child does not need a resume to be accepted in his own home. If we can understand this simple message, that what the Father said to Jesus at his baptism was also meant for us:

“This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased”,

then we have everything we need to succeed in life’s journey.

When we look upon the elevated bread, two realities are becoming one. Our life and Christ’s life are held up before us.

And as we gaze upon the altar, two other realities are merging: the table of feasting and thanksgiving with the altar of sacrifice and worship.

This encounter happens in one particular place and time but it also opens out onto a vast terrace of all times, places, and persons.

When the priest’s fingers grasp the host to lift it, so too our God is holding us and elevating us. As the bread is broken open, so to is our life. We all must leave the womb of security to be birthed into this vulnerable and broken world, and as we break into this life, we are also broken for the world, and thus become bread for each other. It is the Christ who reveals to us this purpose for humanity and invites us to join in.

This pascal mystery is all around us and within us. Just consider the bread we consume, with its supply chain of brokenness and self emptying love. First the earth must be broken open in order to accept the seed, and then the seed must fall and die, and then the sky must also break open and let go of the water she has stored so the broken seed might spout, and the farmer must suffer the hard labor of Cain to gather and harvest the wheat, and the grain must endure the threshing, crushing and grinding down.

Why so much falling, breaking and letting go? Is this what we must bring to the table of abundance and joy? Perhaps it is our self-emptying love joined to His that prepares the table of abundance before us. And what is left, but to give Thanks.

We sit and gaze upon this unfathomable mystery of bread transformed into a real divine presence. And we reflect on the mystery of our own lives offered up and joined into God’s life.

Does it seem strange that the highest form of worship is a meal together, a feast of thanksgiving that is at the same time a memorial of sacrifice?

And what do we make of this cup that is lifted up? This wine mingled with water. The wine of intoxication, and of the Holy Spirit and joy; but also the blood of sacrifice. And the tiny drop of water, our human nature, falling into the cup, being united with a vast sea of divinity. This is the cup of your life that is being held up before you. Can you accept it ? Will you drink all of it? Can you recognize the divine nature within the brokenness, and growing ever fuller within you? Can you see how everything comes together at this table, both the joy and the sorrow? This is the Eucharist, the joyous gift of communion, of becoming one, and of giving thanks?