Tuesday 30th November - Music of Eternity Day 3

Day 3; Eternal love brooding over creation

That sounds more ominous than it needs to. Maybe 'brooding' is better thought of as 'watching', or 'mulling over', or even just providing warmth and safety like a hen sitting on her eggs?

For me the real nugget comes at the end, in these paragraphs on prayer, how to respond to this Eternal Love;

In prayer, my soul and God draw near – His fullness to my emptiness. If I realise a little of His Spirit working in my deeps, His action is most directly felt. All my prayer must be penetrated by this sense of my helpless imperfection, quiet abandonment of my formless soul to the Spirit brooding on the waters, bringing order, if I yield to His action. Without God’s grace I’m chaos. With that grace I’m a tiny bit of the Spiritual World being organised for His service. Come! Creator Spirit! Fill with grace the hearts You’ve created. 

So, what matters most in my prayer is not my desires, feelings, asking, efforts – not even my poor little bit of worship: but God, Who calls forth these stirrings of life. God, the Master of the Tides, changing and creating me, bringing, out of my unpromising depths, surprises of His wisdom and love; because my tiny will has made a slight response to His Mighty Will. ‘You have fashioned me behind and before and laid Your hands on me’ (Psalm 139.5). 

Now we turn to souls with whom we’re linked, for whom we must pray. We see them, too, without form, void; they often seem empty of love, trust and adoration; turbulent, uneasy, lacking meaning and loveliness – given over to ceaseless activity; at the mercy of every wind and current; and in their restlessness, so unpromising, so recalcitrant to God. Such easy subjects for our pessimistic indifference, but they too are part of Your raw material. Infinite possibilities are hidden in their deeps. There, too, Your Holy Spirit is brooding with cherishing power, bringing forth unrealised possibilities of life. Keep in my mind Your invisible action and Presence, where it’s most difficult to see – in the callous, greedy, earthly minded, flippant, cocksure; check my arrogance, intolerance, lack of patient, confident love. 

Keep in my mind the boundless possibilities of life, power and beauty hidden in every soul: and Your untiring, loving patience. I’m ignorant of these restless lives surrounding me. You’ve taken the turbulent, unharmonious, sinful, rebellious; and have created Your saints. Teach me to await Your creative action on other souls, and especially in those I’m tempted to dislike or neglect. Teach me reverence for all that unformed human nature on which Your Holy Spirit rests, which You can penetrate, transform, make holy, and in which You did deign to be incarnate, and showed us the Father’s glory.