Bonding with God
I recall a story about a boy who tried assembling a model plane on his own. The package contained the plastic parts and the essential tube of glue for putting the model together. Due to his inexperience in evenly applying the glue, he ended up crudely linking the parts of the plane.
In the end, he was disappointed with the results: a grotesquely shaped plane that looked like it had crashed before it could even take off. It also bore many dry smudges of glue on its wings and flaps. He also ended up gluing some of his fingers together that took a while to free after soaking them in warm water.
This story reminds me of how eager I was to help my father glue broken vases and other furniture at home. (Don’t ask me how they broke.) Now, there were various types of glue for every kind of repair, but my favorite was Epoxy. Quick and strong drying glue (i.e. Mighty Bond, etc.) was not yet being sold commercially. I was told it had other special life-saving purposes like closing the deep wounds of U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War.
What fascinated me most was how Epoxy was prepared. There were two separate tubes: the adhesive and the hardener. The pack came with its own spatula and mixing dish. One simply had to follow the instructions on how much to combine of each substance. Then you mixed the paste as evenly as possible with the spatula.
Dad usually left me to the mixing, while he carefully prepared the broken pieces by cleaning them with sandpaper. As he went about this, I couldn’t help enjoy the unique industrial odor that the chemical reaction released. When I judged that the Epoxy’s color was even, I gave it to dad who skillfully and neatly put the broken parts together.
Looking back to those days, I wonder if Dad would have enjoyed today’s ‘quick drying’ glues selling like hotcakes over mall counters. He would have been delighted with the immediate and powerful results of today’s adhesives, but I guess there would still be some things that are best bonded by the good old Epoxy mix.
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Although man can never be compared to a broken vase or unfortunately to some generic stimuli-response biological machine, our personal experience as well as those of others reveals our constant desire to mend the disorder within and without ourselves. This disorder is attributed to the sin committed by our first parents, Adam and Eve.
Original sin, wounded our nature and made it vulnerable to the devil’s temptations to disobey God’s laws, to the lure of the world’s material things, to the lust of his own flesh and the very pride of life making man seek to make a ‘god’ out of himself. When man chooses to sin the result is his physical and spiritual disintegration.
God took the loving initiative to piece man together again, and He did this in the highest form of prayer and sacrifice combined: His Passion and Death upon the Cross. We can somehow crudely call this the ‘divine epoxy’ that would mend effectively man’s nature and bond him again to God to the point of becoming His adoptive son through the Son.
The Epoxy of prayer and sacrifice –including their other richer modes lived in the Sacraments and the works of mercy– have to be harmoniously composed if they are to truly bond us to God and with our fellowmen. A. Goodier says in Spiritual Excellence, that “prayer and suffering are seldom far removed, but that both give strength, depth, and fruitfulness to one another.” Moreover, St. Josemaría in The Way says: “Action is worth nothing without prayer: prayer grows in value with sacrifice.” (no. 81)
Thus, before complaining that our requests are not granted, let us examine if our petitions before our Lord are not only in the mode of asking, but also have the humble readiness that the prayer must first work our transformation in accepting whatever God disposes. This hidden personal detachment, or sacrifice, that is sown in every petition to God is that which lends efficacy to our prayer.
The good thief learned from his cross this valuable lesson. He too must have been greatly burdened by the punishment he had received for his crime. But unlike the other thief, he was humble enough to admit his guilt and accept retribution for it with his life. At that excruciating point of his life, he turns to Jesus with a prayer already mixed with sacrifice.
He could have asked for many things, and perhaps, logically even to save his life. But no, he only asked that our Lord ‘remember him,’ and this petition rewarded him with the only gift that could satisfy every man and woman’s longing here on earth: eternal life and happiness with God. At that moment, he was bonded to God’s infinite love and peace. “Today, thou shalt be with me in paradise.”
