Charlie’s childhood dream
was about to come true
As he bravely awaited
his blast-off into space,
But at T minus 31 seconds,
things started to turn tense
When the countdown
suddenly stopped;
Fortunately, after many anxious
hours, all systems were go,
And the rocket boosters
powerfully ignited,
The stately spacecraft
lethargically lifted off,
As if it had been awakened
from a somber slumber.
The spacecraft thunderously
roared and rumbled upwards,
With red fiery flames
dancing behind,
And black billows of
smoke quickly clouded the
Launching pad like a dark,
gaseous galactic nebula;
Charlie shook in his seat
as if he were riding on a
Rough road in a rickety,
rollicking stagecoach,
And in two minutes of breathtaking
acceleration, he was
Traveling over three
thousand miles per hour.
He was now thirty miles up
and halfway to space,
When the rocket boosters
abruptly disengaged,
The two of them toppled
and fell downward towards
The bright blue ocean like
giant worn-out pencils;
Still accelerating, the
orbiter speared upwards
At the scintillating speed
of one mile per second,
Charlie’s orbiter now flew
like lightning, and in a
Mere thirty seconds
he was soaring in space.
Charlie was then surrounded
by stars in the black sea
Of space, and he felt
wondrously weightless,
Now gently gliding around
Earth, he was fascinated
As he watched the sensational
brilliance of the sun;
Below, he saw the beautiful
blissful blue globe and
Was awed by its peacefulness
and by its grandeur.
Interestingly enough,
Charlie’s spiritual life
Has followed a very
similar flight path,
Years ago, his petitions
and other prayers seemed
To vanish into the vast void
of a bleak black hole;
This was because his pitiful
prayers were mumbled
Meaninglessly in the last
few minutes of the day,
His rockets had little spiritual
fuel for a journey to Heaven,
So his life’s countdown
suddenly stopped.
Without enough spiritual fuel,
Charlie knew that he
Risked crashing and burning
in the fearful fires of hell,
An open-throated grave
that savagely swallows
Sinners and belches forth
filthy fumes of smoky sulphur;
He knew he needed to
double down on his prayer
Life to give greater thrust
to his mission,
So he went to mass more,
and delighted in the
Divine Office a little at a time
throughout each day.
Because of Charlie’s awakening,
he made the decision
To make persistent prayer
the top priority of his life,
At first he didn’t notice a
change, but with patience,
His spiritual life lifted off
and safely reached orbit;
Soon his spirit was freed
from the burdensome bonds
Of serious sin, and he felt
wondrously weightless,
He gracefully glided towards
the flaming monstrance
Of the Son, and His
rays of Divine Mercy.
From the happy heights
of the heavens, his
Panoramic perspective
really changed,
Life appeared so much
simpler through the
Detachment of prayer in front
of the Blessed Sacrament;
The petty possessions,
the worries of the world,
The fettering fears,
the doomsday deadlines:
They were all so surprisingly
insignificant compared
To a fabulous future
filled with perfect peace.