The World on Its Knees

Preparatory Prayer:

"I will give glory to Thee, O Lord, O King, and I will praise Thee, O God my Savior . . . my soul shall praise the Lord even to death." Ecclesiasticus, 51.

Setting:

Moses, accompanied by Josue, is coming down the slope of the mountain on which he has been permitted to hold intimate converse with God. During his absence the Israelites, tired of waiting for his return, gathered together golden earrings worn by their wives and daughters and beat them into the shape of a calf. This they set up on an altar, adoring it and proclaiming: "These are thy gods, O Israel, that have brought thee out of the land of Egypt ... .. And rising in the morning they offered holocausts and peacevictims, and the people sat down to eat and drink and they rose up to play." The indignation of Moses is easy to understand. He has just seen the Lord face to face; he has heard God's voice, has received from God's hand the Ten Commandments on the two tables of stone. He knows what truth is and reality, and sees this senseless people have fallen into idolatry. He is incensed by the sham of the whole proceedings and, dashing the two tables of stone to the ground, he strides into the midst of his people and smashes their idol in pieces.

Fruit:

To realize better the world's great need of men and women of prayer.

The world must go on its knees. It has always done so. In the heart of every man there is implanted an impulse which commands him to kneel and adore a deity. The effort to eradicate this reaching out after a god is doomed to failure in advance. Even the most primitive tribes have fallen down to adore.

But there are many false gods, and they find many men ready to build temples for them and set them up on the altar and offer them adoration. At the beginning of my prayer this morning Our Lord, for reasons that will presently become apparent, would lead me into some of these temples and ask me to look at the worshippers.

The world is on its knees in the temple of pleasure. Over the altar hovers the spirit of Herod, the dissolute prince, for whom life was without any meaning or purpose except insofar as it was made to contribute to Herod's enjoyment. Many such temples are still standing and they are thronged with worshippers. Nobody with even a superficial knowledge of the lives of us moderns can question the truth that amusement and "a good time" have assumed altogether undue proportions. Indeed, there are to be found not a few (and their voice must carry immense weight because of the responsible position they hold) who describe our world as a huge lunatic asylum in which men have become so captivated by love of pleasure as to seem to have lost their reason.

One of the most pathetic results of worshipping this god is that, while he exacts so much, he gives so little. His servants soon become his slaves, and the more eagerly they seek satisfaction in this abnormal anxiety for pleasure, the less they actually get. At the end of a day given over to this form of worship, what is left to those who have worshipped? Since early morning they have been out for enjoyment. There has been, let me suppose, a long drive in a car; a day spent at the seaside; glorious weather all day; at night they drive back and go to a dance or a show; they turn in to sleep in the small hours of the morning. And, frankly and unashamedly, they will admit that at the end of this day they are "fed up." All the thrills have failed to satisfy. They sigh with boredom.

Tomorrow comes and the next day, and a week and a month pass, and they keep on prostrating themselves before this idol. "Come, therefore, and let us enjoy the good things that are present and let us speedily use the creatures as in youth . . . let us crown ourselves with roses before they be withered . . . let not the flower of the time pass us by. . . . " They become enslaved by the superficial; life develops into a ceaseless effort to find something exciting, and, though they are continually foiled, the search goes on.

"The most grave disease of our age," writes Pope Pius XI, ". . is that levity and thoughtlessness which carry men hither and thither. . . . Hence comes that passionate absorption in external things ... that. so entangle the minds of men that they are prevented from thinking of God Himself. . . ." Life has become such a rush that there is no time for God, no time for the world to go on its knees before Him because all its worship is claimed by this inexorable god.

Jesus, this is the god who seeks to win my allegiance. Nothing is easier for me than to walk in through the wide doors of his temple and fall down in adoration. "These are thy gods, O Israel!'' Jesus, I have a mind given me in order that I may think Your thoughts. Permit not that I be dazed and deceived, as so many are dazed and deceived, by what has never filled the human heart and never will, because it never can.