Hello, everyone! Recently I’ve been making my way through Stratford Caldecott’s All Things Made New. It’s not a particularly easy read, especially the first section, which is a commentary on the Book of Revelation, but it’s full of little gems that make one stop and ponder. Here’s one that I thought I might share with you. It comes from his chapter on prayer, and has to do with the “sacrament of the present moment,” what Br. Lawrence would have called the “practice of the Presence of God.” Enjoy!

“Let us imagine that I am sitting in an airport. My flight is delayed. I will probably miss an important meeting. There is no other way to get there. My job, my livelihood, and my ability to pay the mortgage on my home, are hanging in the balance. Normally I would be consumed with anxiety in these circumstances. Perhaps, if I am a believer, I remember to pray…

If I am praying as a Christian prays the Lord’s Prayer, and I really want God’s will to be done more than my own, then as I pray for particular things I will always insert a little unspoken proviso; that if God decides not to give me what I want, at least the experience should somehow bring me closer to him. The place I want to get to…is not what I am ultimately most interested in…I am aiming for perfection, for infinite happiness, for God himself.

But there is a stage beyond even this…What I still need to see …is that God is here right now. The goal of my life has come to me already. There is nothing left to want. Not even the happiness of my family, because that happiness, too, lies in the hands of God, who is already with me…

This would change the way I relate to the present. It would no longer be a way-station, a highway; it would become the destination. This does not mean that I will have lapsed into passivity or become inert…The present is a dynamic thing, constantly moving. To remain in the present we must ever be moving along with it….

Let us pretend that my plane is indeed delayed, and I miss the meeting. I am at peace, because I know that God wants me to experience this disappointment for a reason. In fact, I do not even experience it as a disappointment…(I am) interiorly at rest while continually moving…I am conscious of receiving every moment from God’s hand. I am living in faith; I am hand-in-hand with God.

Not there yet? Me neither! Keep trying! And have a great week!