Metropolitan Georges Khodr: Prayer is breathing
Original text here:
The way we are with our
Lord is that we are always tormented and the Lord always heals us. It is not
for us to wonder why we are like this-why we are in suffering, why we exist in
suffering. Divine inspiration does not give an answer to this question. It does
not say why we are subjected to pain, to pain of the body, to pain of the soul,
to pain of the conscience. The Divine Scripture is content to observe this and
to start off on this basis in order to reveal to us how we can leave this
suffering, how we can bear it and change it into the power to create and
approach God, turning it into a ladder by which we go up to heaven.
In the Divine Scripture
we have promises of healing, and of sure salvation from sin. When he promised
the joy and revealed the life that will come when we accept the mystery of God
and obey him in all the afflictions of the world that we taste, whether in
spirit or in body. When we are in such a state, in torment like what those who
sought healing from the Lord were in, we cry out like them: “Lord, have mercy!”
“Son of David, have
mercy on me.” “Lord have mercy on my son, for he suffers greatly…” We observe
that all these words are seeking mercy, which in more comprehensive than
healing. When we ask for healing, most of us ask for healing of the body, which
is something good, but we have not reached the point of suffering from sin
leaking in to us, so we ask for it to be removed from us and we remain Christ’s.
What is our stance toward the stricken after we fall into evil, after darkness
engulfs our souls? What prayer do we pray? Do we trust that God Himself will
come down to us if we pray? Do we know that God wants us to speak to Him? For
us to enter into dialogue with Him?
Naturally, God is
capable of responding at all times, and he responds effectively if we ask or if
we do not ask because He knows all our needs. However, the Lord prefers for us
to speak to Him so that we might be trained in His friendship. He asks this boldness
of us, the boldness of children with their Father. This is what we ask him in
the Divine Liturgy, before we recite the Lord’s Prayer, when we say, “And make
us worthy, O Lord, that with boldness we may call You Father…”
God wants to be among
us, to be friendly with us, so that we might know that we have risen to the
rank of divinity and so we might realize that God has come down to the rank of
humanity. If God has come own to our souls as they are, as we know them to be,
in their weakness, in their disgrace, in their filthiness, if God visit these
soul then He is their Healer.
The problem of modern,
contemporary man is that he is content with himself because he has made
puppets, toys that he plays with and he thinks that this is enough, especially if
he has acquired some wealth and spared himself hard living and so closes
himself off and does not ask about anything. This is mankind’s evil in this
generation that we are in and for this reason the Lord says, “You unbelieving
and perverse generation, how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put
up with you?” (Matthew 17.17). If a person completely closes all the windows to
himself, he suffocates because he cannot breathe. When we are content with toys
that we have made, we close the window to heaven on ourselves and we suffocate.
People do not only suffocate through their lungs, their mind also freezes,
their heart withers, their conscience goes idle and they spiritually die.
What is prayer before
this situation? Prayer is us opening the windows when we feel shut in. it is us
opening the windows of the heart to heaven so that God can visit our souls. Only
then are we able to love.
Prayer is breathing. If
we are certain of this we can conquer all the world’s trails because our
spirits will be filled with the air of grace.
No comments:
Post a Comment