...the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and with golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. (Revelation 5:8)
This week it's my turn to offer Mass in the mornings with the Capuchin Sisters of Mother Rubatto. Today I landed on the image above to preach on, the golden bowls of the citizens of heaven, filled with the prayers of the saints.
When prayer becomes difficult, or when we feel we are losing our taste for it, when our devotion goes dry and our meditation desolate, it is good to remember that the prayers of God's holy ones are held precious in heaven.
5 comments:
Awesome, as usual. :)
Keep a-postin' !
May our prayers rise like incense, our hands like an evening offering. Would that prayer always came as easily as incense rises into the air. But our prayer is often tinged with struggle, struggle to concentrate, or like me, struggle to stay awake, struggle to comprehend, struggle to surrender, struggle to live the life for which we pray, struggle to allow ourselves to be crucified with Christ so that our life is no longer our own. How committed am I to a life of prayer so that I have that incense to offer to the Lord. It is not fully in practice yet. I do not give it the time necessary. I am so easily distracted by other things. Father ask the Lord of the harvest to work in the field of my soul so that I can give Him a rich harvest of true prayer.
When we come into the presence of God to try to meditate and pray tonight, He will welcome us with love in the state of mind that He finds us. The very things that are the stuff of our distractions and worries are the very things He wants to hear about and the things He can help us with. In our thoughts and prayers and life, he knows where we really are at that moment and the real person, struggles and all, is the person He wants to encounter. We mustn't feel that we failed miserably if we started out on one line of thought,or prayer and then found ourselves distracted on to a completely different thread--- God can fill in the blanks! Cecily.
Cecily,
Very nice reflection :)
Thanks to you. Very kind.
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