Many Christians fail to grasp that the reality of the kingdom of heaven is eternal and thus not temporally “future”. What, in prayer, we yearn for, the “coming” for which we plead, is not something as yet nonexistent, something we have to introduce into our existing life by means of prayer and effort, like other temporal and historical values. It is the eternally Real; we, who are unreal, need to allow it to conquer us. So the reality of contemplation is the eternal reality of the kingdom of heaven; through contemplation it also becomes a reality here and now, for mankind and for the world.
