This month, my chosen text is an old prayer by the French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. I keep it close in the cold, damp, dark days of winter. And it feeds my soul. It's a prayer for the vulnerability in us all, for the mortal fragility of my life and all lives. And it imbues that fragility with the great eternal promise: of love, and homecoming, and life beyond fear and despair.
When the signs of age begin to mark my body
(and still more when they touch my mind);
When the ill that is to diminish me or carry me off
strikes from without or is born within me;
When the painful moment comes
in which I suddenly awaken to the fact
that I am ill or growing old;
And above all at that last moment
when I feel I am losing hold of myself
and am absolutely passive within the hands
of the great unknown forces that have formed me;
In all these dark moments, O God,
grant that I may understand that it is You
(provided my faith is strong enough)
who are painfully parting the fibers of my being
in order to penetrate to the very marrow
of my substance and bear me away within Yourself.In some arenas, I've seen this called "A Dying Prayer" or "The Aging Prayer"...but I don't see it or experience it that way. These days, I take it along as a Living Prayer, a prayer of praise for the "great unknown forces that have formed me"...in whose hands I dwell every day and whose care and protection extend far beyond my physical health or longevity. This is a source of great joy, encouragement and peace to me! Befuddling and bewildering as this life can be: it is You who are painfully parting the fibers of my being...in order to penetrate to the very marrow of my substance...and bear me away within Yourself. Wow.
