Glory be to God, we say, more times than we can count. Of course we do. And we add, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I mean Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

The beginning? Of time, that is. Time? What’s that? It’s what marches on. We count days. Before and after. In time, what started when God decided. He said let there be time and it happened.

Before that . . . It defies description. We know only what He has told us, what we can assume. Thing to remember is, God invented time. He never not existed, but always. There was never a beginning for him.

It adds to our awe, does it not? We go to church as believers focused not on ourselves as needy people but on Him who not only lives forever but never did not live. Everything flows from Him, this Lord and God of ours, to whom we owe everything.

So when we pray, we might act with that in mind. Make Him the focus of our attention. The world is at His disposal. He created earth and at the same time heaven, which is where we come in. He it is whom each of us can engage in conversation, i.e. prayer.

This puts prayer in a new light? For me it did. Along came the Son in creator garb, to complete the process. Blessed (by us) be God forever. We are blessed to return the favor.

Ideally. Falling short the best of us, them we call saints, many (most?) not recognized by the all too human ecclesia (church), our imperfect but mostly well-meaning vehicle — egad, current holy father is a Democrat!

So? Holy Fathers come and go, do they not? It’s the office we revere . . . The man with the name, Paul the midnight rider, for instance. “Listen my children and you shall hear . . .” the poet wrote . . . we listen, we pray . . .