The fingers of the Master move again and this time they write the word: Wonder. When God granted the prophet Jeremias a glimpse of the marvels of His divinity, all that he could do was exclaim: "Ah, ah, ah!" He was speechless with the wonder of those infinite perfections contained in the Godhead. There is the eternity of God, reaching from end to end mightily and disposing all things sweetly. There is the ineffable holiness of the Godhead, His beauty, His truth, His power, His love. "God is love," writes St. John, seeming to select the one attribute that most nearly summarizes all those infinite perfections.
It is good to strive to be all alone with God. No opportunity could be better suited as I kneel here in my place of prayer. To try to bring home to myself that God and my soul are face to face; that this allpowerful, allknowing, alltranscending Being permits me, even urges me, to come and speak to Him in prayer _ in such wise does the prayer of wonder develop. Impossible to focus the attention closely on God (still more impossible when His grace sheds its light into the soul), and the soul remain callous and indifferent to the marvels it glimpses!
St. Thomas, saint and prince of theologians, was granted, towards the end of his life, a fleeting glimpse of the beauty of the Godhead. He had, on God's own assurance, "written well" about God. His works are in every seminary, studied by every priest and aspirant to the priesthood. He has been repeatedly praised in words of high eulogy from the Popes in every age. Yet, after that glimpse of the unclouded beauty of God, Thomas considered his immortal Summa as "a thing of straw" _ so immeasurably wide of the mark is even the greatest exposition of God's perfections when placed beside the reality.
I am in the presence of this God, now, at this moment. His eye looks with love upon me. He knows me so completely, every fleeting thought of mine, every word, every tiniest movement, as if there were in this entire universe only the two of us, only God and my soul. "Ah, ah, ah! Lord God! Behold I cannot speak, for I am a child." "And taking him from the multitude apart ... He touched his tongue ... and said to him: Ephpheta, which is: Be thou opened ... and immediately the string of his tongue was loosed and he spoke right."
Immediately, Lord, even as I kneel here, deign to send forth Your light, that, lost in wonder and amazement at the Reality that You are, I too may speak, how haltingly soever, Your praises and the thanks I owe to You and always shall owe.