蜜芽传媒

A reflection and prayer to start the day with Canon Simon Doogan

Good morning.

Gongoozling, I lately discovered, is the continuous tense of a verb meaning to gaze longingly at still water. But does 鈥榣ongingly鈥� imply a conscious, specific desire, or something more subconscious and general? Could it extend to the spiritual?

I ask, because of the famous testimony of a celebrated sixteenth century Christian, who had been passing through an extremely dark period in his life. In the midst of a deep spiritual dryness and worrying obsessively about his sins, thoughts of suicide had crossed his mind. Until one day he was walking the bank of a river, deep in prayer.

Sitting down, he turned his face toward the water, and in that moment, as he records in his autobiography, 鈥渢he eyes of his understanding began to be opened鈥�. He saw no vision, as such, but he found himself suddenly clear about many spiritual things, so clear, that everything seemed new to him.

The river was the Cardoner, in the small Spanish town of Manresa, and the man鈥檚 name was Ignatius Loyola. His sense of union with God unlocked at that river became the turning point of his life. I hear in it, echoes of St John鈥檚 testimony in Revelation: Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.

Alright: as running water rather than still, perhaps technically it falls short of a proper gongoozle. The longing was there, though 鈥� the same longing which for many if not most, seems a prelude for divine revelation.

Father help us to stop. Settle our gaze on something living and pure and vital which might flow from the throne of God and of the Lamb. Meet our longing with yours, Lord, and release us from all that holds us torturously in its grip. Amen