On this Sunday’s Lyric Feature on RTÉ lyric fm, listeners were invited to follow artist and writer Sara Baume on her visit to Glencairn in Out of the Marvellous.

The programme, produced by Regan Hutchins, reflects on prayer and on the way prayer can shape perception and art. That movement between contemplation and creativity is something we recognise.

For us, the marvellous is not a theme or a title. It is the place where we live—and it is Christ, He to whom we have vowed our lives. It is about what it means to be united to Christ, to have a vocation, to have given oneself to God.

The marvellous is discovered precisely within the ordinary.

To come into the marvellous here is to encounter God in each moment of the day, in fidelity to the psalms, in perseverance in work and prayer, in joyful penitence. The essence of our life is not primarily what prayer accomplishes, but what it makes us in the light of Christ.

Whether or not the fruits are visible is not ours to determine. To enter into the marvellous is not to escape reality, but to step more deeply into it.