Anthony Lilles - Fire from Above

DR. ANTHONY LYNN LILLES

Fire

FROM ABOVE

Christian Contemplation
and Mystical Wisdom

SOPHIA INSTITUTE PRESS
Manchester, New Hampshire

Copyright 2016 by Dr. Anthony Lynn Lilles

Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Perceptions Design Studio.

On the cover: Kalkar, Nicolaikirche, triptych with the
Mass of Pope Gregory, right panel: St. Francis receives
the stigmata, photograph groenling @ flickr.com.

Biblical references in this book are taken from the Catholic Edition of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1965, 1966 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpts from the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church , second edition, for use in the United States of America, copyright CD 1994 and 1997, United States Catholic Conference Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

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Box 5284, Manchester, NH 03108
1-800-888-9344

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Sophia Institute Press is a registered trademark of Sophia Institute.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lilles, Anthony, author.

Title: Fire from above : Christian contemplation and mystical wisdom / Dr. Anthony Lynn Lilles.

Description: Manchester, New Hampshire : Sophia Institute Press, [2016]

Identifiers: LCCN 2016006733 ISBN 9781622823352 (pbk. : alk. paper) ePub ISBN: 978-1-622823-369

Subjects: LCSH: Prayer Catholic Church.

Classification: LCC BV210.3 .L55 2016 DDC 248.3/2 dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016006733

In memory of
Lucille Dupuis,
Poustinik, Our Lady of Tenderness,
Estes Park, Colorado:
may she rest in peace.

CONTENTS

by Most Reverend Jos H. Gomez

Introduction:

About the Author:

FOREWORD

In every age the followers of Jesus come to Him and ask, Lord, teach us to pray.

What we ask for, we receive. Jesus gives us the profound gift of prayer. We knock and the door is opened to us, and we are able to enter into the presence of the living God. We seek and we find the face of our Father, Who gives us our name and calls us to friendship.

Prayer is the promise and a privilege that Jesus makes possible for the children of God. Through Him we can dare to call God Our Father and speak with Him in loving dialogue.

Anthony Lilles knows that prayer is the way of life for the Christian, and he has written a unique book. There are many good books that talk about how to pray and why. Lilles aims here for something different. He wants to put out into the depths of the mystery of prayer. He brings us into conversation with the Churchs living tradition, drawing from the great spiritual masters and the prayer of saints and martyrs. But Lilles understands that prayer is more than method or technique. Prayer is the life-breath of the souls relationship with God.

This book causes us to reflect on big questions: What does it mean that we can speak heart-to-heart with the One Who created the heavens and the earth, the stars and the planets? What does the gift of prayer tell us about God, about ourselves, and about the meaning of our lives and history?

St. Irenaeus centuries ago said that the human person fully alive is the glory of God. Prayer is the language of glory, the mother tongue of the human person created in the image of God. In Gods plan for humanity, we were made to pray, and through prayer we come to the fullness of who we are meant to be.

Yet prayer, this simple gift of conversation with God, has become a problem in our times. As our society becomes more secularized, more hostile to organized religion, prayer loses its place and purpose.

Our secular culture breeds a restlessness of the spirit. People are busy all the time, living at a constant pace, surrounded by the hum of communications technologies messages being sent and delivered, contacts being made. There are fewer silent spaces for reflection in our lives, and we are losing awareness that we are created for conversation with our Creator.

We have many options today for spiritualities and lifestyles. But the relationship of prayer is different from that. True prayer always has an object, a Person Whose face we are seeking. Without God, its as if we are praying with a mirror we are turned inward, focused on ourselves. Our hearts remain restless, anxious, divided, and not free.

If we are to recover our true humanity in this secular age the true meaning of our lives as children of God made in His image then we must return to prayer. A vital dimension of the Churchs mission of evangelization is to become a house of prayer and a teacher of prayer. The Church needs to help create the space in our society where the relationship with God can grow.

We need to cultivate hearts that are prayerful and attentive to Gods tender mercies and His ways of working in our lives and in the world. Even among believers, prayer can become functional, a chore that we feel guilty if we dont fulfill. So many of us even those of us in ministries and apostolates dont make time in our day to pray. We tell ourselves we are too busy, that our work is our prayer. This is a delusion and a temptation that is understandable in our work-driven material society. But we should resist it.

It is true we can live our lives without prayer and do many good things. But without prayer it will never be possible for us to live as God intends us to live, to accomplish what He wants with the joy and liberty of the children of God. Prayer is not only an instrument for expressing our needs and what we hope to get from God. Prayer is our response to Gods love, the adventure that begins when we open our heart to the Creator, Who is inviting us to intimacy and communion.

There is a beautiful line in the Catechism : Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of Gods thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him (CCC 2559). We are born with this desire for God written in our hearts. We are not talking about the vague gods that we imagine or create for ourselves in our personal spiritualities. We are talking about the true and living God, Who has shown His face to us in Jesus Christ.

Jesus not only makes prayer possible. He is also our model. In assuming our humanity, He shows us the necessity of prayer and what it looks like to pray as a child of God. By His teaching and example, we learn that we can speak heart-to-heart with our Father, Who loves us.

In this book, Lilles reminds us that at times prayer can lead us into a dark night, a desert where the desires of our heart are met with a divine silence that seems like no reply. Yet even the apparent absence of God is His response a loving call for greater trust, detachment, and openness to His will.

Lilles shows us the deep connections between theology and prayer. That is something else that makes this book unique. It is said that we should do theology on our knees, with prayer. But it is also true that we need good theology to pray. Theology gives us knowledge of God. Prayer brings us to love and serve the God we know.

Ultimately, prayer is about conversion. It is about our growing from the image of God into the likeness of Christ, conforming our lives more and more to the image of our Fathers only Son. Through prayer we gaze upon the Lords glory and, as St. Paul said, we are being transformed into His image, from one degree of glory to another (see 2 Cor. 3:18).