An Elliptical Glory: Thomas Merton on Prayer (Midweek-message)

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Thomas Merton on Prayer (Midweek-message)

Fr. Tony’s Mid-week Message

January 15, 2014

A reminder about prayer for us all:

“The great thing is prayer. Prayer itself. If you want a life of prayer, the way to get it is by praying. We were indoctrinated so much into means and ends that we don’t realize that there is a different dimension in the life of prayer. In technology you have this horizontal progress, where you must start at one point and move to another and then another. But that is not the way to build a life of prayer. In prayer we discover what we already have. You start where you are and you deepen what you already have. And you realize that you are already there.”

--Trappist Monk and Mystic, Thomas Merton (1915-1968)

(from Prayer and Commitment)

Grace and Peace,

Fr. Tony+

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This web log is intended to share homilies, some liturgical materials I have prepared or adapted (prayers, litanies, etc.), and occasional journal entries.

"Elliptical" can mean "fragmentary, with words missing," or "in the shape of a flattened circle." While "glory" refers to the brilliance surrounding the Deity, it can also refer to the grace that reflects such radiance in life. In Christian iconography, a "glory" is the whole body halo around the Christ or the Blessed Virgin in paintings and statuary.

According to Kepler’s First Law of Planetary Motion, an object in orbit follows an ellipse, with the center of mass as one of the foci. The ellipse was called “imperfect” by theologians who originally objected to its use by Kepler to refine Copernicus’ heliocentric model of the solar system, as opposed to the “perfect” circles of Aristotelian geocentric cosmology. "Elliptical" can thus also imply the 'imperfect' path between two centers, or falling toward the true center, but moving forward fast enough to avoid collision, but slowly enough to prevent escape.