Transformers: Dec. 11, Third Sunday of Advent

I very much like the word “transform” descriptive of our relationship to God and God’s to us in prayer. Prayer is transformative. True, it’s not difficult praying, “conversing” with God as Father, “Poppa God” the childlike way I was first taught to speak with God. Or as the late, beloved Auxiliary Bishop of the NY Archdiocese Patrick Ahearn liked to say, “Daddy God.” Once traveling in the Holy Land the Bishop saw a Palestinian child stumble scraping his knee then run to his Father crying, “Abba, Abba,” the same word Paul used to describe God. Intrigued Bishop Ahearn asked the child’s Father what was the boy saying, and he replied, “It’s equivalent to Daddy.” And so, to the Bishop and many others, God became “Daddy God!” Praying to God that way is easy. However, praying to God simply as Creator, as “Transformer” is hard. That’s exactly what Creation and prayer creativity are and continues to be, “transformative.” I mean what you start out with changes “evolves” into something other, intrinsically connected to its beginning, but different. Like Creation, prayer is developmentally tumultuous, unstable, swirling. Then Light happens, wired to the prayer offered at the end of the essay, on which I am posting. God, “Put right what is wrong in my life.” As the priest at our wedding a few months shy of fifty years ago reminded my wife and I, “Sacrifice is usually irksome. Love makes it easy, perfect love makes it a joy!” True too, of righting what is wrong in our life, not easy, but doable through prayer and works, the latter becoming kin to prayer by a decision of the Will and the heart. For sure real prayer creaks and stumbles scraping its knee, and “Abba” God the Transformer, becomes the wash of the wound, its antibiotic, its band aide, its healing scab. Then whatever is lame, leperous, deaf, through less than sincere attachment to God, will be raised from the death of indifference and laziness, eager to proclaim the good news. This leads to a “well-made bed.” Then the music begins, but not for long, as prayer is a never ending journey into God. Figuratively as the shadow that is “earth” namely the one at prayer, passes over the “Sun” which is God, an eclipse of God happens and darkness covers earth. One must await the return of the music which will surely come, content to know that in prayer, like God, darkness and light are mysteriously the same. As Jesus said, “Pray always and do not lose heart.” Experientially ay least this is how I see it.