Prayer Lanterns

Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent

                                              In your gentle mercy, Lord,

                                                 guide our wayward hearts,

                                              for we know that left to ourselves

                                                 we cannot do your will.

                                                                     Universalis Prayer 

The ways of the world occupy too much of my time; consuming and recreating.  I feel toxic on days like these steeped in self-indulgence.  I need to pray more and love more, practice kindness and self denial.  I need discipline of behavior, I need a desert to kneel down into, I need to fast and give alms, I need Jesus to transform me, to clothe me.  Prayer calls in the desolate land of my own making.  May I enter into dialogue with our Lord carrying prayer lanterns into the darkness of my heart; stepping out of ordinariness into the dazzling chambers of Him.  Out of time the metaphysics of eternity open like the barely perceptible violets over the floors of forests.  

May our prayers awaken us to our duty in this world; to come back down the mountain and resume the radical and difficult and long laboring of following Jesus.  “Listen to Him!” the entire hedge of blood, red-twig dogwoods are chanting in the canticles of dawn.