It is by prayer, gropingly at first, in the dawn of a new vision, that we seek and find God and ourselves in a co-relative way. Then later, when a clearer light has shown us what we can see of the invisible and the visible transfigured in the light of its own immensity and the eternity in God, prayer becomes a state. It also constantly remains a situation. While we are seeking, partly blind with partly restored sight, our first steps in prayer take the form of astonishment, fear that is reverent and a sense of sadness. We are truly astonished at the discovery of ourselves which is also the beginnings of knowledge of God. We are astonished to see the world open out towards God’s infinity. We are afraid, glad and terrified when we come into the presence of God’s holiness and beauty. We are also sad, both for ourselves and the world. It is sad to be blind, it is dad to be unable to live the fullness of our vocation, to be trapped again and again in our own limitations. It is sad to see our world without God, vacillating between life and death and unable to choose life once and for all or to escape once and for all from death. Wonder and sadness are thus the two sources of our prayer. Both arise from our encounter with the world’s depths, which have begun to be revealed to us in their totality. Without this encounter, our world and the forces at work in it are incomprehensible and often monstrous; we are bewildered and afraid.

Thus encounter is central to prayer. It is the basic category of revelation, because revelation itself is an encounter with God who gives us a new vision of the world. Everything is encounter, in scripture as in life. It is both personal and universal, unique and exemplary. It always has two poles: encounter with God and in him with creation, an encounter with man in his depths rooted in God’s creative will, straining towards fulfillment when God will be all in all. This encounter is personal because each of us must experience it for himself, we cannot have it second-hand. It is our own, but it also has a universal significance because it goes beyond our superficial and limited ego. This encounter is unique because for God as for one another when we truly see, each of us is irreplaceable and unique. Each creature knows God in his own way which no one else will ever know unless we tell them. And at the same time because human nature is universal, each encounter is exemplary. It is a revelation to all of what is known personally by each.