PRAYER AND HEAVENLY TREASURE

FRIDAY, ELEVENTH WEEK IN ORDERINARY TIME

2 Kings 11:1-4,9-18,20; Ps 132:11-14,17-18; Mt 6:19-23

The Treasure found Within

God is the end of man in the sense that we are made to live in the communion of the Trinity of Persons in God. The communion is possible because of the will of the Triune God to make us in his image and likeness. We are able to live in communion with God, sharing the life of God, because we share in the image of God. The communion in faith will bring us to be like God. The difficulty we face on our journey through life is to achieve likeness with God through maintaining a spiritual communion. It is the project of God that needs our cooperation to achieve. We begin with the image of God, for that does not require our cooperation, but is given to us as a gift by God. This is not the case with likeness to God; each of us must personally cooperate with the Triune God to become God-like. The project would be impossible without our conscious interaction with God, whom we have described as the Supreme Consciousness. The possibility is provided through prayer, by which we connect internally to God as our font of being and light. In prayer, we open our channels for God to flow into us, to recondition our foundation for heavenly structures and operations.

David’s eagerness and steadfastness in prayer won him the promise of eternal inheritance or throne. The promise was made to Abraham and his descendants but attained a milestone in David due to his interior and prayerful life. His connection to the divine Presence through meditations on the word of God helped him to realise divine structures in his life, family, and kingdom. David’s prayerful commitment to God won him an oath from God as the psalm declares. “The Lord swore an oath to David; he will not go back on this word: ‘A son, the fruit of your body, will I set upon your throne.’” Just as the covenant God made to Abraham, this covenant with David depends on the cooperation of his descendants. If none is found in his descendants to faithfully connect with God’s presence in prayer, the promise and the reality of God would gradually recede to the background, awaiting a son of David who would open his channels in prayerful commitment to the word of God. The kingdom of David lost the Northern kingdom for this reason. All the men that were killed or wasted by Athaliah were descendants of Abraham, but they came to nothing because God was not found in them. Our Lord pointed to a similar situation in his response to the news of the Galileans killed by Pilate. “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered thus? I tell you, No; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” We will come to nothing if we fail to open our channels through interior prayer for God to flow into us.

The reformation of the northern kingdom during the reign of King Jehoash commenced well because it started from the Temple of the Lord. The practice of interior prayer renews our whole life from our inner temple when we commit ourselves to it. In prayer, we receive the spiritual light from God to know our true selves and the values of things in life. The instruction of our Lord to his disciples, to store their treasures in heaven, would be impossible without the practise of prayer. “Do not store up treasures for yourselves on earth, where moths and woodworms destroy them and thieves can break in and steal. But store up treasure for yourselves in heaven, where neither moth nor woodworms destroy them and thieves cannot break in and steal.” Prayer gives us access to heaven, for it is a connection with the Triune God. We receive divine light in prayer to know the true worth of things, what is a real treasure, and what is worthless. We are able to store the real treasure in heaven because communion with God is heaven. We lack the light of life and walk in darkness when we do not pray. Hence, our Lord added: “The lamp of the body is the eye. It follows that if your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light.” Our eyes are sound when we see with the interior light of prayer.

Let us pray: O God, strength of those who hope in you, graciously hear our plea, and, since without you mortal frailty can do nothing, grant us always the help of your grace, that we may please you by our resolve and our deeds. 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.