The prayer of Paul

I must confess that I like the old Jerusalem Bible translation when it comes to the prayer of Paul as found in today’s reading from his letter to the Ephesians (3:14-21). It was probably a prayer the Paul prayed often as he knelt before God. It goes: “Out of his infinite glory, may he give you the power through his Spirit for your hidden self to grow strong, so that Christ may live in your hearts through faith, and then, planted in love and built on love, you will with all the saints have strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth; until knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond all knowledge, you are filled with the utter fullness of God.” I think it is a wonderful prayer. It begins by looking to the heavens and imagining God reaching into those hidden places within our hearts and allowing those places to come to life in Christ through the gift of faith. And in those hidden places are found the soil of our souls that, when planted with the seeds of faith spring forth with the fruits of love. Here we find ourselves in the great company of friends and saints, all those who have gone before us. Then, in this great company we are privileged to grasp in ever-growing wonder the enormity of Christ’s love. It is like a swirling movement that takes me from those hidden places within the depths of my own soul and reaches out to the vast expanses of the universe and allows me a moment to I sit in wonder and awe as I ponder how close I am to God and how close God is to me.