The image of gold being tested by fire can help us bring the messiness of life to prayer. As the intense energy from the fire sifts out the pure gold for the goldsmith, so does the intense energy of the world bring out our truest selves before God. Our graced history is mingled with our sinful history, and so we must ask God to continually bring out those graces from within us.
Gold is uniquely rare, lustrous, and malleable. What are those shiny, soft, rare graces in my life that I can hold up to God today? Let us pray for the strength to let God intensify those graces which God has already placed in our hearts.
—Michael Lamanna, S.J. is a Jesuit scholastic of the USA Northeast Jesuit province. He is currently studying philosophy at Loyola University Chicago.