The trials and sorrows of earth cannot keep us from the gladness of the Kingdom of God. Today, even now, and every day as long as we live, we may enter the very atmosphere of heaven, as revealed to us in the fourth and fifth chapters of the Book of Revelation.
No matter what, no matter when, in every age, with every tick of earthly time, before and after that, our God is worshiped in heaven. Monastics all over the earth have discovered that we may JOIN IN, and they want in! Some . . . many . . . of them are just like you and me. The only cloister they will ever know is the abbey of the heart, and maybe a few minutes alone before the children wake up or, like John and Charles Wesley’s mother, Susanna, a few minutes retrieved in her chair with her apron over her head.
When we find our delight in the delightfulness of God, we have entered Cor Unum. When life is hard and circumstances, even sometimes the shortcomings of those we love, compound to bring sorrow and pain into our lives, the cries of “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD God Almighty . . .!” resound unceasingly at the throne of God. When we utter them, we have joined the chorus.
We may teach our hearts, our postulant hearts, to join the shout of heaven when we open our eyes each day and as we close them at night. Before we say, “Good morning” on earth, we may proclaim the holiness of God in heaven, letting the angelic salute roll through our consciousness and, if we cannot sing at that hour, whispering our tribute while we bring in the newspaper and make the coffee.
We may join in! Here in Cor Unum Abbey, we may command the worship of the day, the worship of our souls. Before you step out of bed in the morning and on your way to make coffee, you may speak with angels and praise the One they exalt. Before and instead of the headlong rush into the day’s business, its worries, and even its delights, we may all command the preeminence of God our Father and of His Christ over plans and purposes and even our thoughts, for our thoughts will quite readily take us away from the Presence of the Lord, away from heavenly attitudes and glories, and away from peace
“Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD God Almighty, Who was, and Who is, and Who is to come!” (Revelation 4:8) Those words are flying over the dome of heaven, even as we read them on earth! When we speak them, we never speak in alone! We join an anthem that never ceases.
While the nuns of cloistered monastic life are gathering in winter darkness to sing the Morning Songs of Matins and Lauds, our voices will be heard with theirs in heaven. In each time zone over the face of the earth, believers in Christ will pick up the song as the sun rises without ceasing, and without ceasing, on earth as in heaven, God is praised.
Morning Light
Cor Unum Abbey
Cor Unum Abbey 