It is raining today. With the Oriental fury of a heathen monsoon. I watch the curtain of water, the instant Niagara, the running streets, the leaden skies, the violent descent of heaven upon the naked earth with waters of creation and waters of destruction on the liquid horizon where sky, land and sea seem to be one with the primeval celebration of cosmic unity. The dance of the rain, of the children in the rain, rite of spring that seals the eternal covenant of humans with nature and renews it year by year to bless the earth and multiply its crops. Liturgy of showers in the open temple where all humankind is one.

I rejoice in the rain; it makes the earth fertile, the fields green and the air transparent. It brings out the perfume hidden in the dryness of the earth and fills with its humid delight the open spaces at the dawn of spring. It tames the heat, veils the sun, cools the air. It guarantees the fruits of the earth for the needs of the year, and renews the farmer’s faith that God will keep his word year by year and send the rains to give food to man and cattle as proof of his care and sign of his providence. The rain is God’s blessing on the earth he created, renewed contact of the Divinity with the material world, seasonal reminder of his presence, his power, his concern. The rains come from above and enter deep into the earth below. God’s touch on simple mud, which is the initial gesture of creation.

‘You visit the earth and give it abundance,
as often as you enrich it with the waters of heaven
brimming in their channels,
providing rain for men;
for this is your provision for it,
watering its furrows,
levelling its ridges,
softening it with showers
and blessing its growth.’

I also love the rain, the heavy, noisy, material rain, because it is figure and token of another rain which also comes down from heaven to earth, from God to man, from Divine Providence on the dry, barren fields of the heart of humans unprepared for the harvest of the spirit. Rain of grace, showers of blessing, water of life. I feel the helplessness of my untilled fields, clods of dry earth between ridges of indifference. What good can come out of them? What crop can grow here? How can my field become soft and green, and flower into harvest?

I need the rain of grace, I need the steady influx of God’s power and mercy to soften my heart, fill it with the fragrance of spring and make it fruitful. I depend on the grace of heaven as the farmer depends on its rains. And I trust in the coming of grace with  the age-old trust the farmer has in the advent of the seasons and the faithfulness of nature.

I need torrential rains to wash away the prejudices, the bad habits, the conditionings, the addictions that beset me. I need the freshness of the falling rain to feel again the reality of my wet skin through all the artificiality of protective covers under which my real self hides. I want to play in the rain like a child, to recover the pristine innocence of my heart under grace.

That is why I like heavy, steady rain, and make every drop into a prayer, every downpour into a reminder, every storm into an anticipation of what my soul expects to happen to it as it happens to trees and flowers and fields. The green renewal of the season of rains.

Then my soul will sing for itself the psalm of the fields after the blessing of the yearly rains:

‘You crown the year with your good gifts,
and the palm-trees drip with sweet juice;
the pastures in the wild are rich with blessing,
and the hills wreathed in happiness;
the meadows are clothed with sheep
and the valleys mantled in corn,
so that they shout,
they break into song.’