HAPPINESS AS THE END OF PRAYER

SOLEMNITY OF ALL SAINTS  

Apoc 7:2-4,9-14; Ps 24:1-6; 1 Jn 3:1-3; Mt 5:1-12

The Essence of Happiness and End of Prayer

We bring our reflection on prayer to a close as we celebrate the solemn feast of All Saints. We celebrate all those who walked the path of prayer rightly and duly to arrive at the goal of prayer. As we have noted, prayer is the seeking of God’s face, a longing or desire for our ultimate good. God places this desire within us at our creation as an emptiness that can only be filled or satisfied by Himself. Our turning away from God in sin caused us to wander about in the world of creatures for what would fill the spiritual abyss within each of us. Experience teaches that no creature can satisfy the yearning of our hearts that is for God alone. The absence of any meaningful satisfaction for our deepest yearning is the mystical meaning of death; the absence of spiritual or eternal life in the world of material things without God. Man died when he turned away from God in search of life and meaning among creatures. Each of us can testify to this death within, manifesting as meaninglessness and darkness in our temporal life, when we pause from external engagement and reflect on our lives and activities. Many of us, like ostriches hiding their heads in the sand for the illusion of escape from danger, hide in the abundance of external activities and amusements. We attempt to hide from ourselves without success, for the emptiness keeps coming to us when alone.

Only those who allow themselves to be found by the word of God discover their true selves and the meaning of human life in God. God made us for himself. Away from the divine will, we can have no true meaning of life. Hence, only the word of God can reveal man to himself. Therefore, it is a bounden duty for us to attend to the word of God daily, to be informed and directed in our temporal life towards the eternal life God planned for us. The instruction God gave to Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil contains as much. In that simple instruction was the path to our adoption as children of God. The title is now reserved for those who turned from their sinful ways to faith in the Word of God, who became man, suffered, and died, to redeem us from our sins and evil. Saint John testifies to the love of God in bringing us back to his original plan. “Think of the love that the Father has lavished on us, by letting us be called God’s children; and that is what we are. Because the world refuses to acknowledge him, therefore it does not acknowledge us.” We are the children of God now because we walk the path of prayer, seeking and following the life of Jesus Christ, as revealed and guided by the Holy Spirit. Because the presence of the Holy Spirit in us indicates our new spirit, we are being made in the likeness of the Son of Man. We shall be like him when he is revealed in glory, as John posits.

During his public ministry, our Lord pointed to the indicators that we, all the faithful, are being transformed into his likeness by the love that drives our lives. Therefore, the indicators are seen in their way of life. They are indicators of blessedness or happiness. “How happy are the poor in spirit; theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Happy the gentle: they shall have the earth for their heritage. Happy those who mourn: they shall be comforted. Happy those who hunger and thirst for what is right: they shall be satisfied. Happy the merciful: they shall have mercy shown them. Happy the pure in heart: they shall see God. Happy the peacemakers: they shall be called sons of God. …” What runs through the beatitudes is a purified desire to please God and accomplish his divine will. The purified desire is a willingness to know the Son of God and pattern our lives on his. Thus, the blessed do, endure, and suffer all things for the sake of Jesus Christ. “Happy are you when people abuse you and persecute you and speak all kinds of calumny against you on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.”

The desire to know Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, is the same desire we noted in the angels, who wait before God, from whose presence issues flames of fire. The will of God is revealed as flames of fire to the angels who wait for the revelation, just as the Son of Man reveals it to us who wait in prayer. The vision the Lord gave to Saint John confirms this understanding. “After that I saw a huge number, impossible to count, of people from every nation, race, tribe, and language; they were standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands. They shouted aloud, ‘Victory to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” The victory is indeed to God who sits on the throne of our deepest yearning and desire. It is by letting God sit on that throne within us that we learnt the path of prayer, which the Holy Spirit teaches by giving us a new spiritual birth in Christ Jesus. Therefore, the Lamb who sits beside the throne of God represents the Son of Man, and our spirit renewed to be like him. To sit beside God is the symbol of our communion with the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; it is the end of prayer as the ultimate desire of our spirits.

Let us pray: Almighty ever-living God, by whose gift we venerate in one celebration the merits of all the Saints, bestow on us, we pray, through the prayers of so many intercessors, an abundance of the reconciliation with you for which we earnestly long. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.