As we continue our meditations, especially focusing on the Transfiguration, I would like to reflect on prayer. Studies show that prayer is a very common, popular activity. Even many people who profess no belief in God still pray!
But what precisely is prayer—or better, what ought it to be? The Transfiguration is extremely instructive. We hear that Jesus took Peter, James, and John with him “up the mountain to pray.” Now, as we’ve said before, mountains are standard Biblical places of encounter with God. The idea was that the higher you go, the closer you come to God.
We don’t have to be literal about this, but we should unpack its symbolic sense. In order to commune with God, you have to step out of your every day, workaday world. The mountain symbolizes transcendence, otherness, the realm of God. If people say, “I pray on the go” or “my work is my prayer,” they’re not really people of prayer.
Your mountain could be church, a special room in your house, the car, or a corner of the natural world. But it has to be someplace where you have stepped out of your ordinary business. And you have to take the time to do it. Jesus and his friends literally stepped away in order to pray.
The text then says, “While he was praying, his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white” (Luke 9:29). The reference here is to Moses whose face was transfigured after he communed with God on Mt. Sinai. But the luminosity is meant in general to signal the invasion of God.
In the depths of prayer, when you have achieved a communion with the Lord, the light of God’s presence is kindled deep inside of you, at the very core of your existence. And then it begins to radiate out through the whole of your being. That’s why it is so important that Luke mentions the clothing of Jesus becoming dazzling white. Clothes evoke one’s contact with the outside world.
The God discovered in prayer should radiate out through you to the world, so that you become a source of illumination.
"Prayer For A Lonely Soul""Lord, Friend of a lonely heart, You are my haven, You are my peace. You are my salvation, You are my serenity in moments of struggle and amidst an ocean of doubts. You are the bright ray that lights up the path of my life. You are everything to a lonely soul even though it remains silent. You know the weaknesses and You comfort and heal, sparing us sufferings. Amen" THE FAMILY BIBLE
Author Unknown
Old brother Higgins built a shelf
for the family bible to rest itself
lest a sticky finger or grimy thumb
might injure the delicate pages some.
He cautioned his children to touch it not
and it rested there with never a blot
though the Higgins tribe were
a troublesome lot.
His neighbor, Miggins, built a shelf,
"Come children," he said, "and help yourself."
His book is old and ragged and worn,
with some of the choicest pages torn,
where children have fingered
and thumbed and read.
But of the Miggins tribe I've heard it said,
each carries a bible in their head. IF YOU...
Author Unknown
The Savior's words...
**If you never felt pain,
Then how would you know that I'm a Healer?
**If you never went through difficulty,
How would you know that I'm a Deliverer?
**If you never had a trial,
How could you call yourself an overcomer?
**If you
never felt sadness,
How would you know that I'm a Comforter?
**If you
never made a mistake,
How would you know that I'm forgiving?
**If you knew all,
How would you know that I will answer your questions?
**If you never were in trouble,
How would you know that I will come to your rescue?
**If you never were broken,
Then how would you know that I can make you whole?
**If you never had a problem,
How would you know that I can solve them?
**If you never had any suffering,
Then how would you know what I went through?
**If you never went through the fire,
Then how would you become pure?
**If I gave you all things,
How would you appreciate them?
**If I never corrected you,
How would you know that I love you?
**If you had all power,
Then how would you learn to depend on me?
**If your life was perfect,
Then what would you need Me for?
GOD'S EMBROIDERY
When I was a little boy, my mother used to embroider a great deal. I would
sit at her knee and look up from the floor and ask what she was doing. She
informed me that she was embroidering. I told her that it looked like a mess
from where I was, the underside. I watched her work within the boundaries of
the little round hoop that she held in her hand.
She would smile at me, look down and gently say, "My son, you go about your
playing for a while, and when I am finished with my embroidering, I will put
you on my knee and let you see it from my side."
I would wonder why she was using some dark threads along with the bright
ones and why they seemed so jumbled from my view.
A few minutes would pass and then I would hear Mother's voice say, "Son,
come and sit on my knee."
This I did, only to be surprised and thrilled to see a beautiful flower or a
sunset. I could not believe it, because from underneath it looked so messy.
Then Mother would say to me, "My son, from underneath it did look messy and
jumbled, but you did not realize that there was a pre-drawn plan on the top.
It was a design. I was only following it. Now look at it from my side and
you will see what I was doing."
Many times through the years I have looked up to my Heavenly Father and
said, "Father, what are You doing?"
He has answered, "I am embroidering your life."
I say, "But it looks like a mess to me. It seems so jumbled. The threads
seem so dark. Why can't they all be bright?"
The Father seems to tell me, "My child, you go about your business of doing
My business, and one day I will bring you to Heaven and put you on My knee
and you will see the plan from My side."
-- Author Unknown
Psalm 119:1–8 (Meditation for Lent)Happy are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord (v. 1). For some, the practice of religion is a joyless and dour enterprise. But the Psalmist here reminds us that religion and its practice need not be joyless. Indeed, the first result of following God’s Teaching (the real meaning of “law” here) is true happiness. When the Psalmist speaks of Law, the Hebrew word is Torah. The root of Torah is the same as that of “teacher” or “instructor.” This Psalm begins as an alphabetical acrostic in the Hebrew, with each letter starting a new thought of how joyful life can be if we are blameless and righteous. One Jewish teacher described this poem as a “motif woven into a verbal fugue.” Indeed, we are taught how happy life can be if we are not encumbered by guilt and regrets. Following God’s Teaching is the way to boundless pleasure and rejoicing. Lenten Blessings During Lent Let us improve our spirit of prayer and recollection. Let us free our minds from all that is not Jesus. *Mother Teresa of Calcutta* Verse of the Day "Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." Isaiah 53:4-6 |
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