Art to Heart Invocation

Tiepolo: Pope St. Clement Adoring the Trinity

©2002 by Jeff Dugan

So you go to the church to pray before the altar, and while you’re there, the painting above the altar comes to life and spills out into the room.  Clouds billow into your face, angels swoop down toward you, and if you reach out your hand, you can actually touch the wood of the cross!  Isn’t that just the way it always is?

It’s not?  You mean this isn’t like your normal church experience?

Oh, well maybe this vision was the kind of thing witnessed by Saint Clement because of his exceptional rank in the church.  After all, he was both a saint and a pope!

But look below the altar.  He has laid aside his tiara and his crosier, the symbols of his position and authority.  He approaches the altar simply as a humble individual, in an attitude of humble worship.  It’s not his position that makes God real to him, it’s his faith that God is real, and his devotion to seeking God wherever He can be found.

People come to church sometimes for all kinds of different reasons that may not have anything to do with sincerely seeking God.  But if you are here today like Pope Saint Clement, earnestly seeking an encounter with the majestic, awesome, omnipotent but tender God of the universe, be encouraged to know that God always rewards this sincere and faithful kind of seeking Him.

Let us pray.

Lord, I’m no pope, and I don’t really feel all that saintly…but here I am anyway.  I lay at your feet the trappings of my life that I use to make myself seem important.  I renounce any selfish motive that might attempt to bend you to my will.  I open myself humbly and unreservedly to whatever you wish to say to me or to do with me.  As I worship here today, and as I live my life in days to come, I ask only for your presence in my life.

Amen.