Love Thee More Dearly

Day by day

Day by day, dear Lord,
of thee three things I pray:
to see thee more clearly,
love thee more dearly,
follow thee more nearly,
day by day.

The title is taken from one of my favourite prayers, Day by Day, written by Richard of Chichester. It is an absolute lovely prayer. The line I want to highlight is to love thee more dearly. It acknowledges God as a down-to-earth God, a God in flesh, a God who loves passionately the flesh and blood of his own creation and a God who invites us to love with His kind of feelings.

Once an artist was commissioned to do a painting of a church. He chose as his subject the Family of God. After working on the painting tirelessly for many months, he completed the painting. He retired to bed that night feeling very pleased. As he slept, he had a dream. In the dream he woke to the sound of noise coming from his studio. He got up at once to investigate the disturbance. He was shocked to find a stranger painting over his picture. He screamed “Stop you are ruining my painting!”

“You have ruined it already,” replied the stranger.

“What do you mean I have ruined it already?”

“You have used many beautiful colours in your picture but you have used only one colour to paint the children of the world. Who told you that only children with white faces are in heaven?”

“No one told me but I always thought of it that way.”

“I will paint some of the faces yellow, some brown, some red, some white and some black because people of all colours, nations and languages have answered my call.”

“Answered your call? Who are you?”

“Long, long ago I said ‘ Let the children come to me and do not prevent them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these’ and I am still saying it.”

The stranger disappeared. Next morning when the artist awoke, he remembered the dream. He went to the studio picked up the brush and began painting the faces of every race, colour and nationality. The painting was placed in the church. The people saw it and all agreed that truly this is God’s family.

When we pray to love thee more dearly, we are praying to see and to love with the eyes and heart of Christ. It is a love that sees us as equals, sisters and brothers and that there is no place in the vision for inequality, prejudice, discrimination or racism, in any shape or form.