The Sacred Gift of a Moment with God

 

The Sacred Gift of a Moment with God.

Oh, if only poor creatures knew the immeasurable grace contained in a single moment of true audience with God! How blind we are to the treasure that lies hidden in prayer, that simple, sacred act by which eternity bends down to listen to time. When the soul kneels in the secret chamber of the heart and speaks with her Creator, a veil is lifted between the seen and the unseen, between the fleeting and the eternal.

Prayer is not merely the utterance of words; it is the mysterious exchange between the finite and the Infinite. In that sacred silence where the soul finds herself alone with God, the world begins to fade like mist before the morning sun. The noise of life grows distant, its anxieties lose their hold, and every earthly care is swallowed up in the great stillness of divine presence. Then creatures no longer weigh upon us with their judgments or attachments, for we perceive that our true home is not here. The burdens of mortality grow light, as though wings, long folded by habit and fear, were suddenly unfurled. The soul, thus freed, rises with quiet confidence into the serene immensities of divine love.

In prayer, heaven is not a distant promise but a living reality, tasted in the depths of the heart. It is the holy freedom of the children of God, that freedom which no chain of circumstance can bind, for it springs not from the world, but from communion with the Eternal. One instant of this sacred intimacy outweighs all the glittering satisfactions that the senses can offer. The soul that has once known this holy sweetness will ever long to return to it, for she has glimpsed her true element: the boundless ocean of God’s peace.

If we truly desire our own well-being amid the trials of this earthly exile, we must learn to dwell often in that interior sanctuary. The art of prayer, simple yet infinite, must be cultivated from the earliest days of life, like a tender plant whose roots, once deepened in the soil of grace, will withstand every storm. Let the child be taught not only to repeat holy words, but to feel that he is heard; not merely to speak, but to listen. For prayer is not a monologue, but a communion, a conversation of love between the soul and her Beloved.

In the end, all wisdom, all consolation, and all strength flow from that divine encounter. The one who prays learns to see all things in their true proportion, to bear the weight of the world without being crushed by it, to love creatures without being enslaved by them, and to walk amid shadows with a heart illuminated by the light of heaven.

O blessed prayer, bridge between earth and eternity, breath of the soul, gate of peace! If we but knew thy worth, we would never cease to enter thy sacred silence, where God and the soul meet, and time itself is transfigured into the eternity of love.