The Infinite Source of all Power and Energy 

If only we could learn how to receive, harness, and store the infinite power of the sun to solve our energy problems. In the same way, if only we could learn how to receive, harness, and store within ourselves, the infinite power of God’s love,  then all our moral problems could be solved too. All the great saints insisted that if we could do this for ourselves, as they did,  then all our personal spiritual problems could be solved as theirs were. 

In order to do this, I have produced a minicourse on prayer based on the teaching of the great saints and mystics so that we can follow their example. The teaching emerges in the context of a meeting between an American academic and a hermit, Peter,  who lives on a small island off the north-western coast of Barra, in the Outer Hebrides. I will outline how this teaching developed in my articles in the weeks ahead. But let me give you a flavour of this course by listening into their first conversation. 

“I used to think,” said the academic, James Robertson, “that there is no God, that there never was one, and that there is just nothing, nothing out there at all, and there never was.” The Hermit replies,

“If there was ever a time when there was simply nothing, no thing whatsoever, then we could not possibly be here now, nor could everybody else, nor could the world around us. In short, something cannot come from nothing. Let me explain.”

The Hermit describes how Something, cannot come from Nothing

I was only nine years old when I learned my first lesson in philosophy, thanks to the conjurer at my friend’s birthday party. I was chosen to examine the inside of his top hat to prove that there was nothing in it. Then he draped everything in sight with silk handkerchiefs, flags, and bouquets of flowers which he pulled out of his hat. When I told my father what I had seen, he said the conjurer could not possibly have taken something out of nothing. If there was nothing in the hat then nothing could have come out of it. There was either something hidden inside it that I had not seen or something hidden up the man’s sleeve.

My father was not a spoilsport; he was just trying to teach me something that I have never forgotten: Something cannot come from nothing. The Big Bang, or whatever else brought the universe into being, cannot have been preceded by nothing. It must have been preceded by something. However, no matter how sophisticated it might be, some-thing could not produce the highest form of energy for good on earth, which is love. 

Whatever was responsible for creation, therefore, must be Someone. Only a person can produce love. No thing – or nothing, cannot generate the greatest power on earth for good, namely love. That is why the Gospel states quite clearly that God, in whom and by whom all things were created, is love. That is what he was, that is what he is, and that is what he does. So I suppose it would be more accurate to say that God is not so much love, but loving, continually bursting with creative life and energy.

Love – the most Potent form of Power and Energy

Love is but the word that is used to describe the most potent form of power and energy on earth, which can alone change people permanently for the better. Nothing else can. 

There was a brief moment of silence before the Hermit continued. 

I have a cousin called John, who was a bit of a  rake. 

Peter was not smiling. He pursed his lips together, slightly nodding his head as if the memory of the incident he was about to relate still brought painful memories into his mind. 

We had all given up on him when things changed dramatically. It was almost as if he had a conversion experience, been struck by an angel of light – or something heavy! Then, after a few weeks, he arrived home with a tiny Korean nurse called Nina, whom he met at a party. She was nothing to look at, quite plain in fact, but he was hopelessly in love with her and they had already decided to get married. He was a changed man.

At the time, I was convinced that he was already an alcoholic. One thing I am sure of to this day is that he could never change his life on his own. Not only did he stop drinking and gambling, but he also stopped smoking. He had to pay off his debts and then start saving for a mortgage. Rows, arguments, and quarrels could not change him, neither could warnings or threats. Reason, appealing to his better nature, pleading for consideration for his mother were all a waste of time. In the end only one thing burst through – love, the love of this four-foot-eight, seven-and-a-half-stone Korean nurse, Nina. It is twenty-four years since all this happened; next year will be their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.

Peter paused, aimlessly staring into space for a moment. He had been speaking colourfully and with a fluency that made him easy to listen to. He was a natural raconteur, although oblivious of his ability to captivate his listener. 

The Power of Love in Action

“I was fascinated by the tremendous power of love in action.” he said, “It helped me to realize that if I could somehow place myself in the way of God’s love, put myself under the influence of his creative power, then like John, I too might be radically and permanently changed for the better. When I began to read the New Testament in earnest,” Peter continued,  “I saw that this is what it is saying time and time again. I was staggered to realize that I never noticed it before. I missed the wood for the trees. I missed the whole point of the Gospel. Everything suddenly began to make sense; the pieces of the jigsaw started to fall into place once I discovered the central piece. The story of Jesus is a unique and world-shaking example of what happens to a person who dares to expose himself totally to God’s love. It is the story of how he was gradually possessed by love, and the effect this had on his life and on the lives of others.

Once the love of this force and magnitude invaded the life of Jesus, it enabled him not only to listen to people, and care for them, but also to enter into them, heal and cure them, restore them to wholeness and even raise them from the dead. For there is nothing that can resist the power of uncreated love, not even death. The more I tried to steep myself in the Scriptures, in the writings of the Fathers of the Church, in the most ancient and hallowed traditions of Christian spirituality, then the more clearly I came to see that the message was always the same. 

The burning question was not firstly, How do we love God, but how do we welcome God’s love into our lives? How do we best position ourselves to be the recipients of that love? Once we get this right, everything else falls into place, as it did for John. The trouble is we have presented Jesus as a sort of moral philosopher, like Socrates who has primarily come to present us with the virtues with which we should adorn ourselves, in order to become fully human.

But Jesus was firstly a Mystic, not a moral philosopher. He did not primarily come to detail the way we ought to love our neighbour; he came to give us the power to do it. No moral teaching, however well-reasoned, however lofty, however sublime, will ever permanently change a person for the better. But love can. God’s love certainly will if it is only given a chance. The trouble is many of us have been brought up as Stoics, or at least to believe that we should be stoics, called to do for ourselves by our own endeavour alone what only God can do for us.

A Classical Education

Thanks to the Renaissance and the classical education that it introduced into our schools, the moral philosophy of the Graeco-Roman stoicism was taught side by side with Christian moral teaching, and many have found this confusing. When teenagers are just beginning to find their own identity, they prefer to believe they can change themselves rather than ask someone else to do it for them. They are natural Stoics and grow up as Stoics, even though they may not know what the word means. What I mean, is they think they can change themselves and direct the course of their spiritual growth by dint of their own muscle-power and dogged endurance. But they cannot, at least for long.

The trouble is we have been brought up as Stoics, thanks to the Renaissance,  with a completely one-sided view of heroism. In storybooks, adventure novels, in every variety of fiction, and even in true-life stories, the hero and heroine are always presented in the same way. They are the lonely intrepid pioneers, explorers or adventurers who dream dreams and have visions. By taking themselves by the scruff of the neck, they squeeze out every reserve of energy they possess to make their dreams come true and transform their visions into reality.

This may work in paperbacks and it may sometimes work in real life. But it will never work in the spiritual life. But no matter what you say or how many times you say it, we have all been tarred with the same brush. We all think that we can do it ourselves and change ourselves into the persons whom we wish to become, at least in our dreams. We all think we can do it ourselves – people still do.

Turning Back to Prayer

When James asked Peter what he should do next, Peter answered without hesitation. 

The answer to that is simple. It is by turning back to prayer.  Because it is only in prayer that we come into contact with the love of God and begin to experience it entering into our lives. Nobody can experience being loved and remain the same. However, in all forms of love, the love of another can only be fully received in the act of returning their love in kind. In returning God’s love, our love for him grows and deepens, and enables his love to suffuse and surcharge our weak human love with his until they become as one.  This new supernatural fusion of loving raises us up, enabling us to be taken up into Christ’s Glorified body and then into his own personal loving of God – Into his mystical contemplation of his Father.

For those with more time on their hands, this course has been produced as an audio-visual and interactive presentation by the inestimable Discerning Hearts  https://www.discerninghearts.com/catholic-podcasts/ who are the main hosts of this course. It is also being currently broadcast by the new Catholic Radio Station, Radio Maria England https://radiomariaengland.uk/ A simple audio version can be found on David Torkington’s website https://www.davidtorkington.com/