CANTICLE OF PURE ENERGY

What follows is the Canticle of Daniel’s prayer as the three where praising God in the fiery furnace. At 3:50 A.M., this Saturday morning, I awoke suddenly and started my Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5). What came out was Daniel’s Canticle, but with a twist. I was updating it with what I know of Scripture, Science and Existential Phenomenology. Granted, the purpose of all contemplative prayer is to sit next to Christ and have a heart to heart chat. In the silence and solitude of this morning, here are my reflections.

May I suggest that you first read the Canticle from Daniel in Scripture.

Prayer:

Canticle — Daniel 3:57-88, 56

Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord.
Praise and exalt him above all forever.
Angels of the Lord, bless the Lord.
You heavens, bless the Lord.
All you waters above the heavens, bless the Lord.
All you hosts of the Lord, bless the Lord.
Sun and moon, bless the Lord.
Stars of heaven, bless the Lord.

Every shower and dew, bless the Lord.
All you winds, bless the Lord.
Fire and heat, bless the Lord.
Cold and chill, bless the Lord.
Dew and rain, bless the Lord.
Frost and chill, bless the Lord.
Ice and snow, bless the Lord.
Nights and days, bless the Lord.
Light and darkness, bless the Lord.
Lightnings and clouds, bless the Lord.

Let the earth bless the Lord.
Praise and exalt him above all forever.
Mountains and hills, bless the Lord.
Everything growing from the earth, bless the Lord.
You springs, bless the Lord.
Seas and rivers, bless the Lord.
You dolphins and all water creatures, bless the Lord.
All you birds of the air, bless the Lord.
All you beasts, wild and tame, bless the Lord.
You sons of men, bless the Lord.

O Israel, bless the Lord.
Praise and exalt him above all forever.
Priests of the Lord, bless the Lord.
Servants of the Lord, bless the Lord.
Spirits and souls of the just, bless the Lord.
Holy men of humble heart, bless the Lord.
Hananiah, Azariah, Mishael, bless the Lord.
Praise and exalt him above all forever.

Let us bless the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Let us praise and exalt him above all forever.
Blessed are you, Lord, in the firmament of heaven.
Praiseworthy and glorious and exalted above all forever.

MY REFLECTIONS

What does it mean to say, “all you birds of the air, bless the Lord.” How can birds bless the Lord, they don’t have human reason? This bothered me for a long time until I had a Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5) one day last year in which I thought about this: a bird blesses the Lord by being what it is, its nature is to be a bird. All creation praises God by being what it is, a creation by God containing his DNA (pure energy). Humans alone have a problem. We don’t act our nature sometimes (Adam and Eve). We have been given the gifts of human reasoning and the ability to choose, even what is bad for us. The Scriptures are stories and love letters inspired by God to help use choose wisely. They chronicle what happens when we stray from the path of righteousness (God’s will). Still, God allows us to choose poorly. With free choice comes the freedom to choose good or evil. Lucifer choose pride when he made the choice. Michael, Gabriel, Raphael all chose wisely. They reaffirmed their resonance with reality while Lucifer fell into dissonance with all that is.

What follows is the result of my Lectio Divina this morning on the Canticle of Pure Energy (God).

Bless the Lord, you time and space.
Praise and exalt him above all forever.
All matter and energy, bless the Lord.
You quarks and muons, bless the Lord.
All H20 on the face of the earth, bless the Lord.
All you five continents, bless the Lord.
All you gravity and anti-gravity, bless the Lord.
Streams and rivers at the bottom of the oceans, bless the Lord. Darkness from light, bless the Lord. Light from darkness, bless the Lord.
Absolute zero, bless the Lord.
All you protons and molecules, bless the Lord.
All you elements of time, bless the Lord.
All Strong and Weak Forces, bless the Lord.
Hypernovas and black holes, bless the Lord.
Tornadoes and Hurricanes, bless the Lord.
All you scientists that seek the truth, bless the Lord.
Praise and exalt him above all forever.
All humans that know that they know, bless the Lord.

O Humans, bless the Lord.
Praise and exalt him above all forever.
All Being, bless the Lord.
I and Thou, bless the Lord
Praise and exalt him above all forever.

Let us bless the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Let us praise and exalt him above all forever.
Blessed are you, Lord, in the firmament of heaven.
Praiseworthy and glorious and exalted above all forever.

THREE UNIVERSE: ONE REALITY

In my view of reality, there is such a thing as pure energy, that is, God is 100% of His nature. The Trinity is so powerful, so beyond the language of humans with just their human nature that St. Thomas Aquinas says we are never able to comprehend God with human reasoning or logic. The Mystery of Faith is that Jesus came to give us parables and stories so that we could use our own frame of reference to just glimpse the greatness of what awaits us. God created humans from all other life forms so that they could have the ability to reason and also the ability to choose that which they reasoned as meaningful and truth. Unfortunately for humans, Adam sinned (missed the point of what it means to be of a human nature) and thus we are burdened to live in a world with death. Everything has a beginning and an end. Everything corrupts and doesn’t last. Chapter 5 of Romans is about Christ being the second Adam and redeeming us from sin (but not its effects). That is why Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. We are adopted sons and daughters of the Father and brother to Christ. We are temples of the Holy Spirit to carry the living Christ to our immediate world by loving others as Christ loves us.

PHYSICAL UNIVERSE:Think about this: why are we able to know that the most powerful energy in the physical universe, the hypernova can obliterate us, but it does not have the ability to know who we are or that we even exist? Why is that?

MENTAL UNIVERSE:Why it is that, of all living things, we have reason for a reason and the ability to choose? Choose what? Why can we go to McDonald’s to order a 2 for 3 dollar meal and my dog can’t? (He can eat it, but not order it or pay for it.) Why is that?Like Adam and Eve, the archetypal first humans, we can also choose to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2-3). Why is that?

SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE: Why is it that Christ alone had to become one of us (Philippians 2:5-12) to show us the way, because reason alone was incapable of grasping the Mystery of Faith? Faith comes only from God; believe comes only from us. They are two sides of the same coin.

These three questions are at the heart of three universe of reality. Not everyone believes in three universes–the spirit (they only believe in the physical and mental universes –the world). For people who only live without Christ as the center of their lives, spirituality and contemplation do not make sense. Actually, they do not. The Spiritual universe is , at its heart, the sign of contradiction:

• God took on a human nature. It doesn’t make sense.
• The Virgin shall bear and Son and he shall be called Emmanuel. It doesn’t make sense.
• If you want to be my follower, love those who hate you and do good to persecute you. It does not make sense.
• The greatest among you is the servant of all. It does not make sense.
• I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me will never die. It doesn’t make sense.
• Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you. My flesh is real food. My blood is real drink. This is the Real Presence, the living God present. That does not make sense.
• If you want mercy from God, you must show mercy. This doesn’t make sense.
• The Kingdom of Heaven is within you. This doesn’t make sense.
• If there is no resurrection, then, according to St. Paul, all we do is foolish. That is the greatest contradiction of all.

With the Psalmist, we can proclaim that the folly of God is wiser than all the wisdom of all the people who have, and who ever will live.

Look at the photo of the cup in the window. What are the three universes of reality in this picture? How does Christ fit into the picture of reality?

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