A View To Heaven

Carl Zeiss 50mm Planar F/0.7 – $23,100,000

If we understand that prayer is a lens through which God sees us and a lens by which we may be aware that we are (always) seen by God, we may better understand what Saint Paul was saying in his Epistle to the Galatians:

Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

That lens can be a window through which we, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, may see the world more as God sees things.

The expression lex orandi lex credendi comes to mind.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: "The Church's faith precedes the faith of the believer who is invited to adhere to it. When the Church celebrates the sacraments, she confesses the faith received from the apostles – whence the ancient saying: lex orandi, lex credendi, or legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi (the law of praying establishes the law of believing) according to Prosper of Aquitaine. The law of prayer is the law of faith: the Church believes as she prays. Liturgy is a constitutive element of the holy and living Tradition."

A lens fogged by sin does not permit one to see clearly. We cannot act in accord with the will of God if we only see what we want to see, or see that which corresponds to our practiced narrow view. We may substitute every kind of practice for a healthy one and seek to justify it based on a skewed conviction. Every attempt, then, becomes an excuse that, if not checked by humility, by repentance, reinforces bad choices. We then become mired in a series of outcomes that are the vestibule wherein we succumb to despair and destruction.

A poorly trained lens will have us looking at things and situations in a way that reinforces baser instincts or some fantasy that may provide an immediate congratulation but, in the long run, puts us in an unhealthy corner or, worse still, behind a wall that, without a crisis to dislodge us from our self imposed programming, we cannot see or live beyond.

"Liturgy is a constitutive element of the holy and living Tradition."

Imagine a liturgy - a Mass - that, celebrated irreverently, obscures our view to Jesus. Need we recall the many instances when priests and laity intentionally appropriate the Mass for some reason other than serving it? We can be thankful, in the Ordinariate, that Divine Worship is a clear lens, habitually respected as such by priests and laity, through which we may come to meet Jesus on His terms, in His Way - not ours - to encounter Him as He is - not as we would have Him conformed to our narrow, partisan selfish interests - and rejoice with Him that He is our Saviour!

A lens configured to the Truth of Christ will allow the viewer to perceive reality as it truly is. Conversely, a lens configured to a projection of one's ego, or more precisely oriented to one's egotistical inclinations, is only a mirror showing us a god made in our own disfigured image.

To be grafted to the Truth of God, one must habitually make oneself at home in the humility of the confessional. The "mercy box" is like a mikvah (or mikveh), "a bath used for the purpose of ritual immersion to achieve ritual purity." (Judaism, Wikipedia). It is the Siloam pool into which we descend to be renewed, to have our vision restored, so that we may see God and be made alive again!