Michel Quoist
MEET CHRIST AND LIVE!

translated by J. F. BERNARD
GILL AND MACMILLAN

7. A Father's gifts

It was still early. I was on my way home from a meeting and, for the first time, I wasn't in a hurry. I made a detour to walk along the sea shore, and I stopped to look at the water. It was a calm, beautiful night.
Leaning against the railing, I could hear the cars behind me in the street, their horns blaring impatiently. The drivers seemed all in a hurry to get somewhere. I experienced a moment of irritation. How blind they were to the beauty that lay just beside the road, I told myself. But, before I could pass judgment on their blindness, I brought myself up short. For it occurred to me that I was really no better than they. How smug I felt because I had taken a few minutes to admire the sea! Yet, how often did I pause long enough to do so?
The full moon shone through a gathering of dark clouds and made a shimmering path across the water to the shore. In its light, the waves gathered, rolled, and finally broke on the sand.
I watched, and a feeling of peace took possession of my mind. I relaxed, and I was filled with silent admiration.
'Thank you, Lord,' I prayed, 'for all the beauty that you have given us.'
Then, I realized that it was not enough for me to admire God' s work and to thank him for it. I must also help nature by lending it my heart and my lips so that, through me, it might praise the Creator. Looking at the ocean which, every night and every day, radiates beauty without knowing it, without being able to offer that beauty to God, l was filled with fear that there were not enough contemplatives in the world to thank God for the universe that he has given us.

The joy of a father consists entirely in the excitement of a child over a gift. The delight in the child's face is a reflection of the gratitude which permeates his mind and body. It is the child's prayer of thanksgiving.
Into the hands of mankind God has placed a marvelous gift: the universe. Man, since his hands are still clumsy, has not yet been able to open all of God' s presents. But he grows with each passing day; and, each day, he discovers new gifts, learns to use them, to master them and to transform them.
When, finally, the Father saw his children playing with the atom, painstakingly trying to make use of it, to harness the incredible power which had been hidden there since the beginning of time, he was filled with joy. But how many of his children thanked him for this gift? They were too busy making weapons out of it, to kill their brothers.
The greatest insult we can offer to God is to use what he gives us to perpetrate injustice (to monopolize God's gift, without regard for our brothers) or to engage in fratricidal wars (all wars, general or 'limited').
Personally, I control - or at least I should control - this piece of matter which I call my body. It is intelligent. It is filled with the love of Jesus, with a sense of the divine. It is transfigured. And thus, it will participate in the love of the Trinity.
The body which l occupy needs other matter: the air, the sun and the things around me which l use. l free these things of their opacity by lending them my soul, as it were. They need me. The universe has need of me in order to free itself of its purely material nature.
The sea, the moon and the chilling wind, all need to be offered to God. Left to themselves, they are incapable of raising themselves to the level of the spirit. They are beautiful, but they do not know it. They beautify the world, refresh it, inspire in it a sense of peace; but they cannot will to do so. They do not have the power, of themselves, to rise to their Creator, to praise him by offering him loving thanks for their beauty. To do so requires the human mind, human consciousness, human freedom, and a human heart.
I am allowed to look at, to desire, and to make use only of what I am capable of giving. I cannot look, and then take something only for myself; for then I would be interrupting its majestic ascent towards God for whom it was made.
It is not an act of Christian virtue to refuse to take something. It is an act of Christian virtue to refuse to keep something. To be a Christian does not mean to seize and to plunder. It means to give.
I will have to train my senses, which are the 'hands' of my soul, not to make prisoners of things: and it is a course of training which will never really end.
I must learn to appreciate and to thank God not only for the sea, the stars, the trees and the flowers, but also for the world which man, with God, has transformed: for the houses and streets; for the ultra-modern factory, shining with ten thousand lights,. which stretches along the highway; for rockets and man-made satellites - for the whole of that technology by means of which man, whether he knows it or not, joins with his Creator in the act of creation. (1)
Matter is good, since it is the work of God and the fruit of his creative love.
The Word was made flesh; and flesh-matter and life became part of eternity through the Word and with the Word.
The whole of the universe, following in the footsteps of Christ the Savior, is to participate in the resurrection: 'The whole creation is eagerly waiting for God to reveal his sons. It was not for any fault on the part of creation that it was made unable to attain its purpose, it was made so by God; but creation still retains the hope of being freed, like us, from its slavery to decadence, to enjoy the same freedom and glory as the children of God. From the beginning till now the entire creation, as we know, has been groaning in one great act of giving birth' (Rom. 8; 19-22).
Will there be, in the modern world, a sufficient number of men who are free from all injustice, who are sufficiently capable of astonishment, to stop, look at and admire nature, and science, and technology? Will there be men like Francis of Assisi who, by the way in which they live their lives, will add a new verse to the Hymn of Creation?

We praise you, Father, for the sea, the sky and the stars. 
We praise you for the power of the atom.
We praise you for the oil flowing like rivers,
for the rockets like lightning among the stars,
for the satellites hovering over the planets.
We praise you, Father for science and technology.
We praise you for the matter which you have created, 
which, though it seems dead to our eyes,
is yet living matter,
matter transformed,
the meeting-place of divine action and human activity.

We praise you, Father, for the artists and technicians,
for the scholars and the countless workers
who take that matter, and use it, and transform it.
We praise you for the Eternal Plan of your love,
which governs that great movement forward of the universe.

We praise you for your Son. 
Through him all things came to be, and not one thing has its being but through him. 
Through him, you continue to create all things,
to make them holy,
to give them life,
to bless them,
and to give them to us.
It is by him, and with him, and in him,
God the Father almighty,
and in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
that we honor you and glorify you,
for ever and ever.

Lord, let me be the one who, from rime to time,
in the still of the night,
looks with the eyes of a son
upon what you have created,
so that I may praise the Creator.
Let me be as an excited child before the Father,
so that he may smile down upon the child that I am.