25 October 2022
Tuesday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time
Today is the birthday of the painter, Pablo Picasso, so let us compare prayer to painting. The goal of a good painter is a beautiful painting. He uses tools to achieve that end: brushes, canvas and paint.
The disciple of St. Ignatius Loyola, has the goal of praising, reverencing, and serving God our Lord. That activity is his spiritual painting, so to speak. The other things on the face of the Earth are there to help him to attain that goal. They are his tools, his brush, his canvas and pigment. He arranges the things of this Earth into a beautiful form, into a spiritual painting that gives glory to God. His every act on this Earth is another stroke of the brush.
Learn, now, from the painter. When one of his brushes wears out, he replaces it and he keeps painting. He might feel a sting of nostalgia for an old brush that has been with him for a long time, but he does not let that nostalgia interfere with his artwork. His goal is clear. You, too, when you find that some created thing has worn out, that it no longer helps the spiritual composition that you are painting, you must let it go. This applies to everything on the face of the Earth. When it fails, even if you feel stung by its loss, you must keep working on your spiritual painting: praising, reverencing, and serving God, our creator and Lord.
Great painters, even when they die, live on through their artwork, as long as it lasts. True disciples of St. Ignatius Loyola, likewise, when they die, live on through God’s spirit, as long as it lasts, which is forever and ever. Amen.