Blog Archives - fatherdaniel

Palm Sunday-Homily

3/28/2015

If you think that today’s Liturgy of the Word has been extremely long as we have already had the first Gospel at the beginning, the procession with Palms followed by two more readings and the long Gospel of Mark proclaiming to us the Passion of Our Blessed Lord let me tell you that it could be much longer if the Gospel of the Passion of Christ were sung. A couple of times I have had the blessing to listen to this long Gospel being sung, once it was even sung by the parish choir which made it even longer. Of course there is some aspect of tiredness involved in singing as well as in listening to that, however it becomes a powerful expression that what we are beginning to celebrate is the entrance of our great king on the stage of his battle. Jesus enters his battle field. Even if the Gospel is read it is still a song of victory, Jesus enter the battlefield in order to win.

            My Dear fellow believers!

            The Word of God for this Palm Sunday has presented us with an abundance of spiritual food to contemplate in order to nourish ourselves. I would like to simply touch a couple of moments we find in the readings for this Sunday. They all tell us about Jesus’ freedom. The story which start unfolding before our eyes it is a story of a free person who isn’t forced to do the Holy Week. Jesus chooses to do that. We could hear it in the first Gospel when he was arranging his entry to the Holy City and we can see him free even when he is brought by Pilate before the crowd. If he wanted he could turn those people at the Pilate’s courtyard into dust but he chooses to continue the path of suffering for salvation of us people.

St Albert who was also an artist prayed and contemplated that moment. The outcome of his prayers is the picture called Ecce homo – This is the man. In the picture we see Jesus maltreated horrifically but there is one interesting thing. The rope which is used to tie the prisoners actually doesn’t tie Jesus up. On the contrary, it looks more like a necklace on him. St Albert wanted to express what he understood from contemplating the Passion of Christ: Jesus accepted his suffering and death freely. He didn’t need to be tied up and pulled to the Calvary. What was “driving” him to the summit of the mountain of the Crucifixion was his love for his heavenly Father whose will he wanted to fulfill and his love for us humans whom God loves so much.

            My Dear Sisters and Brothers!

            As you enter more deeply into the mysteries of Jesus’ suffering, death and Resurrection, please don’t feel sorry for Jesus. Rather pray for the grace so that faced with his unconditional love you may be brought to your knees to cry over yours sins, to feel sorry for your sins and so to obtain the grace of true repentance for your sins and the grace of gratitude for what Jesus did to save you.

Ecce Homo - This is the man

Annunciation and Good Friday

3/25/2015

Icon of Annunciation from the Basilica in Nazareth

We are getting busier and busier with Easter preparation as the Holy Weeks and Paschal Triduum are just around the corner. In that hectic time it is easy to miss a quite celebration of the Annunciation of Our Lady. However that quite celebration of the Annunciation is of the most important significance. It is the day of the Incarnation of the Son of God. The Son of God became man not in Bethlehem but in Nazareth when Gabriel brought Mary the news which was to change not only her life but the life of all people on this planet. One could say: if it is such an important event why is it so close to Easter when it is overshadowed by great Easter Celebrations? The timing of both celebrations comes from the ancient Christian tradition that both the Annunciation and Good Friday took place on 25th of March. It was believed that great holy people would have a perfect cycle of life: they would complete their life, they would die on the anniversary of their conception.

In 2007 on Holy Thursday Pope Benedict said: “According to John, Jesus died on the cross precisely in the moment in which, in time, the paschal lambs were slaughtered. His death and the sacrifice of the lambs coincided. We’re now in a place to say that what John related is historically precise. Jesus really spared his blood on the vigil of the Pasch in the hour of the slaughter of the lambs.” Today it is believed that it was 25th of March.

This belief also come from an intuition of faith of the People of God that “the mysteries of March”—the Incarnation, the Cross, and the Resurrection—are inseparably connected. St Ephrem if the fourth century wrote: “In the month of Nisan, when the seed sprouts in the warm air, the Sheaf sowed itself in the earth. Death reaped and swallowed it up in Sheol, but the medicine of life, hidden within, burst Sheol open. In Nisan, when lambs bleat in the meadow, the Paschal Lamb entered His Mother’s womb.” In 1608 when Good Friday fell on 25th of March and English poet John Donne wrote a piece on Mary’s participation in both events: Annunciation and Crucifixion:

She sees him nothing twice at once, who is all;

She sees a cedar plant itself and fall;

Her Maker put to making; and the head

Of life, at once, nor yet alive, yet dead.

She sees at once the virgin mother stay

Reclus’d at home, publique at Golgotha.

Sad and rejoiced she’s seen at once, and seen

At almost fifty, and at scarce fifteen.

At once a son is promised her, and gone,

Gabriel gives Christ to her—He her to John.

Not fully a mother, she’s in orbit,

And once the receiver and the legacy.

All this, and all between, this day has shown,

Th’ abridgement of Christ’s story, which makes one

(As in plaine maps the furthest West is East)

Of the angels Ave and Consummatum est.

How well the Church, God’s court of faculties,

Deals, in some times, and seldom, joining these;

This Church, by letting those days join, has shown

Death and conception in mankind is one.

The mysteries of March meet in Mary, the Virgin Mother of God. At the Annunciation she says Yes to the Incarnation of God the Son in her womb. On Calvary she consents to the Sacrifice he offers for the sins of the world. Mary gives her undivided assent to the whole mission of Jesus, from Lady Day to Easter Day and to the ages of ages.

At the beginning, at the very heart of the Incarnation event, stands Mary, the perfect Virgin, who “let it be done unto her,” who was prepared to enter into a physical and spiritual motherly relationship with the person and also the whole work of her Son.

Maybe the Day of the Annunciation passes so quietly every year because only in silence one can contemplate that greatest mystery of God “who for us and for our salvation was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man.”

I think that when we are questioned by non-Catholics why we pray the Rosary we should simply say: “Because we cannot have enough contemplating the mystery of Incarnation” Every time we start saying Hail Mary we go back to that quiet day in Nazareth when the silence was broken by Gabriel’s words: “Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with you.” Then the world entered a new era, the era of Salvation.

5th Sunday of Lent

3/21/2015

What would you do if somebody came to you asking: “I should like to see Jesus.” Where would you take the person to? Saint Philip and Andrew, the two Apostles from today’s Gospel, knew where Jesus was. By the way, someone once said that if you, as a Christian, don’t know where Jesus is, you should be at least know someone who does.

My Dear Sisters and Brothers! Apart from my Catholic beliefs I have some beliefs that technically don’t come from the Bible or the Catechism, one of them is: “Don’t choose a way because it is simply an easy one.” That’s why I would like to invite you to take a more difficult way to show Jesus to others, not simply sending them to an expert. To achieve that let me go to the week which happened after Jesus Resurrection. If you think that it is too early to talk about the Resurrection as we are still in Lent, go back to the Gospel of St John, chapter 12, verses 20-30, which was proclaimed a few minutes ago. Do you know when the event from today’s Gospel took place? Let me read to you a few verses from the passage which proceeds our passage: “The crowds who had come up for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took branches of palms and went to meet him shouting: “Hosanna!” Jesus found a donkey and mounted it.” Can you think about the day it all happened? Yes, it was Palm Sunday. If you think that on Palm Sunday Jesus was only riding a donkey you are very much mistaken. He did some serious preaching and teaching as well. He also had some heated discussions with the leaders of the Jews. He also had Greeks coming to see him. A busy day, wasn’t it? The Gospel for this Mass it is Palm Sunday Gospel, could you believe that? The donkey has run away. The palm branches have been already trampled down. But it is still Palm Sunday because Palm Sunday isn’t about palms or the donkey, it is about Jesus.

Look, if the Church gives us the Palm Sunday reading before the Palm Sunday is actually upon us next week, I am confident that a Resurrection story mentioned today is not going to ruin your Easter this year. Anyway, we all know the ending of the Holy Week and the Paschal Triduum, don’t we?

The story I want to recall is the story of St Thomas, who is also called… Doubting Thomas which I don’t like. I prefer calling him like our Easter Christians do: Believing Thomas. Why didn’t Thomas believe first? Because he didn’t see Jesus. Why didn’t see Jesus? And that’s the secret of finding out where Jesus is! Thomas didn’t see Jesus because he wasn’t with the other disciples. He decided to go somewhere else. Now, how come that he came to believe in Jesus? Because he had seen him. When did he see him? On the Sunday after Easter Sunday when he was with the other Apostles. Thomas’ transformation from doubting to believing, from uncertainty to certainty of faith, happened when he was again part of the community of believers.

My Dear friends! We have some breathtaking places here in Victoria where we could take people to inspire in them search for God, the Creator of those things, but those things are more like the donkey and the palm branches from the Palm Sunday, it is not the essence, the essence it is Our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ.

That deep request of the Greeks from the Gospel: “We should like to see Jesus” isn’t limited to what the eyes can perceive. Seeing here is equivalent of believing. What those visitors from Greece asked for can be expressed fully when we translate their request as: “We should like to believe in Jesus.”

As we, believers, are approaching the Easter Celebration, let us renew ourselves in what Jesus once said: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” Let’s not look for Jesus on the Moon but among our fellow Christians, who, even if at times they resemble the Doubting Thomas more than the Believing Thomas, are still the surest community where one can find Jesus, because Jesus hasn’t changed his mind. He still stands by his words: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

4th Sunday of Lent

3/15/2015

            A report has been released lately about an emergency landing of a plane. As you can imagine it was a disturbing situation to those on board, however what was even more disturbing was that during the evacuation some passengers were carrying their luggage in spite of being instructed to leave them behind. They put their own safety and the safety of other people at risk. How dizzy they were!

            My Sisters and Brothers!

            Here in Australia we proud ourselves for being laidback but dizziness in our life of faith is nothing to be proud of.

            The Gospel today proclaims this basic truth that “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son.” What are we supposed to do with this gift given us by God, with the gift of his only Son – Our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ?

            Let me remind you of a commercial, you have probably seen of TV recently. A young woman is enjoying her cereal meal at a restaurant. It is so good that that she nearly licks off the bowl. Another woman sitting next to her calls the waitress over and says: “Can I have what she is having please?”

            God the Father has given us his Only Begotten Son so that being close to Jesus by listening to his Gospel, by receiving Sacraments, by acts of charity and penance, by living as members of the Christ Body – the Church, we can want, we can desire, we can long for what Jesus is enjoying: being a child of God. There are lots of beautiful and fascinating things in the world that we can become dizzy when it comes to things of heaven, like those on plane were dizzy when they put the value of their lives at the same level with the value of their belongings. As life is more important than hand luggage as our relationship with Our Heavenly Father is more important than anything we can find on this planet.

            A few days ago Pope Francis spoke of some Christians from the time of persecutions. They were captured but before their persecutors told them to reject Jesus Christ they were taken to a luxury place with magnificent food and even better entertainment. After some time of such “a fantastic life” they were told to deny Jesus. Surpassingly or not surprisingly their persecutors discovered that it was a better way to weaken the faith of those Christians, better than putting them in a dungeon. They got attached to the comfortable life so much that they found it difficult to choose Christ over their luxury, even if it was their imprisonment.

            The same Pope Francis during his recent visit to Sri Lanka canonized Joseph Vaz. When he was dying he said to those gathered around him: “Hardly will you be able to do at the time of death what you have not done during your life”.

            This Sunday is called Sunday of Joy, and what a greater joy could we wind then having eternal life in Our Lord Jesus Christ.

3rd Sunday of Lent - Homily

3/7/2015

At Friday family dinner the father said to his young son: “Tomorrow we will go shopping, then we can go to support our footie team and latter we can to the movies. On Sunday we will clean the garage.” The boy said: “Dad, Sunday in the Lord’s day. We should keep it holy as it is said in the Ten Commandments.” “My Son – said the father – don’t tell me that you believe in the rules established a few thousand years ago. It is 21st century now.” The boy thought for a moment and asked his dad: “Does it mean that I don’t need to follow the fourth Commandment, honor your father and mother either?” The rest of the Friday dinner was very quiet.

My Sisters and Brothers!

As we listen to the Word of God for this Third Sunday of Lent first we are given a passage from the Book of Exodus about the Ten Commandments then the Gospel of John takes us to the place which doesn’t exist anymore: The Temple in Jerusalem. That magnificent Temple was built for a purpose. Do you know the purpose? What was to be hosted there? The Ark of the Covenant which contained the two stone tablets with the Ten Commandments given to Moses by God the Almighty. Those crowds St John talks about at the Passover in the Holy City would never have a glimpse of the Ark of the Covenant as only the Highest Priest was allowed to enter that Most Sacred chamber and only once a year. However all those pilgrims knew very well what was in that chamber, they knew each single word written on those two tablets. So what did they come for? The first thing to remind themselves that those Commandments weren’t of a human origin, that they were given by God. Those commandments weren’t invented by a clever thinker but they came from the Loving God who wants preserve the best in his sons and daughters. Another reason for those people to come to the Temple was to ask God for his help to take those commandments home, to live them, to allow the Ten Commandments to shape the people of God.

By the way, for Passover feast a hundred thousand people would turn up to Jerusalem while the city population was around 60 thousand. To put it in perspective, imagine our city of Melbourne with 4.4 million people welcoming 6 million visitors for a couple of weeks. We would be stuck. Don’t you think? How many rules or restrictions would need to be placed on people to handle the crowds? We would need a leader with a vision and perseverance to unite all those people. The Ten Commandments remind us not simply what we need to do to preserve and develop the best of us, our relationship with God, but the Ten Commandments remind us that God is the our leader who has a vision and perseverance to accomplish his purpose in us. As we read in our second reading from the First Letter of St Paul to the Corinthians: “For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.”

To finish this homily I would like to tell you of a situation from France. I think that most of you have heard of “Charlie Hebdo” and how many leaders of the nations united themselves to defend what they called freedom of speech. Personally I find it hard to call what the magazine does freedom of speech when they abuse what is precious and sacred to another human being. I don’t want to go into this discussion right now but what I want to tell you is that last year a movie was to be released in France the title is L'Apôtre – the Apostle. It is the story of a Muslim man who converted to the Christian faith. The movie was stopped from screening by French authorities because it was to upset the Muslim people while at the same time the French leaders were walking with labels “Je suis Charlie” supporting the magazine which keeps publishing the most offensive pictures. From those people you hear that what God teaches us doesn’t make sense.
“God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.”

Hidden gems

3/6/2015

Sri Lanka has been one of the first overseas missions which Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate accepted. Today more than 300 Oblates continues the mission which St Eugene de Mazenod entrusted to those fist four Oblates he sent there in 1847. Faithful to the vision of their Founder the Oblates keeps challenging themselves not to get too comfortable in the places they are familiar with, that’s why today there is only one Oblate church in Colombo, all the other parishes ,as they are well established, have been handed back to the Archdiocese. The remaining parish is an unusual place. You can’t see it from the street as it is kind of hidden among other buildings. However once you get there you fill like in a piece of haven. The spirit of community which worships the Lord and reaches out to each other is expressed by the design of the compound but the most striking characteristic if the place is that the people who come to the church they are not simply Mass attendants who come and then selfishly disappear after the Eucharist. The people here are taking time to show interest in other members of the community. It is a hidden gen indeed.

Similar spirit I was able to observe in another Oblate parish. The place is located in the mountain, in the Sri Lankan tea paradise. However the tea paradise doesn’t mean that everybody is wealthy. This community is a poor community when it comes to the material possessions but it is rich in faith. When I saw their church first I felt sorry for them but when we walked inside I started envying them their spiritual richness. Even when the Mass was over the parishioners run various activities like Sunday school, reflection groups etc. The place was so lively and vibrant. Even with limited resources a lot can be achieved when there is faith. That another hidden gem I found in Sri Lanka.

In haven of tea and spiritual life

3/3/2015

After a pleasant day spent in the mild climate of Kandy, once again we started climbing the mountains to reach our next destination: Bandarawela, Sacred Heart Novitiate. However before we reach the Oblate Community there we were immersed in the misty and mystical region of the high country. It is also called the region of waterfalls. As we were driving we could admire the silvery lines of waterfalls braking the intensity of the rich greenery of the jungle. It is hard to say what was more exciting: the breathtaking scenery or the winding road we were taking. I guess that during the five-hour-drive there wasn’t a hundred feet straight section of the road. I must admit that at first it was scary but after a while the picturesque landscape distracted us from the continuous turns. With every hour it became noticeable that the climate was cooling down. For the first time since I came to Sri Lanka I observed people wearing jumpers.

What was awaiting us still was the tea haven. At some stage the jungle on the slopes of the mountains gave way to green fields of little shrubs. On both sided of the road tea plantations became a common landscape. It was a fascinating place for me as I have never seen tea before, I mean apart from tea in my cup of course. Taking a tea break in one of the tea factories we met a parishioner from an Oblate mission in the mountains who works in the tea factory. She explained, and showed us, the process of the tea making before the ignorant like us brew tea at home. I learnt that to make the best tea the top twigs are plucked with no more than three baby leaves.

After an educational session and a cup of real tea we continued our zigzagging journey through the mountains which started feeling like chilly Melbourne as we were 2000 meters above sea level. Eventually we arrived in Bandarawela to see “the most breathtaking scenery” – 25 Oblate Novices welcoming us to their community. When I was looking at them I remembered that blessed time of my own Novitiate which I started 20 years ago. Our group was of similar size too, 25 or 26 Novices. I must say that I felt at home among those Novices from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Japan. My Novitiate was located on the top of the mountain like theirs. We too did lots of manual, farming work and we too spent hours cleaning the old monastery.

However what touched me most was the deep spiritual atmosphere of the place. That’s the beauty and power of the Novitiate. It is always the time to grow closer to Jesus. A Novice should become drawn to Christ so much that for the rest of his life, even in the busiest ministry, he will be most committed to his relationship with the Lord. We believe that the best contribution a missionary can make to the community he serves is his love and commitment to Christ. During our time with them we joined them for their community prayers, meals and recreation. It was inspirational to sense their prayerfulness and recollection. At the same time it was evident that their prayer wasn’t an escape from real life, in their common prayer in a very simple way they were bringing before God the needs of people from far and near, beautifully they prayed for each other and at the same time no one prayed for himself. It takes a lot of humility and charity not to focus on myself, at the same time I know that if I give my whole heart to my community my brothers will pay attention to what is happening with me and they will pray for me and they will also support me when I struggle. The young Oblates have already discovered this secret.

The Novices in Bandarawela live very simple life but because of that simplicity they can enjoy life for what it is – the gift from God. They don’t use the Internet, they don’t have mobile phones, they watch very little TV and what they watch they watch as a community. They have very little at their disposal but at the same time I wish our young people in Australia could be as happy as these Novices are. They don’t need various devices to have fun, they are so creative when it comes to games, music etc. That’s why their joy is so contagious because it is natural. Using the language of our Founder, St Eugene de Mazenod, I can say that those young men are a true Christian community, where people put glory of God and the needs of others before their own needs and aspirations. Christianity is expressed by sacrificing oneself for the glory of God and the good of the neighbor. There is no doubt that it was a refreshing trip to the mist of the mountains away from the heat, humidity and smog of Colombo but what refreshed me more was the freshness of the faith, enthusiasm and hard work of our Oblate Novices. I pray that when they complete their Novitiate in a few months by taking their first vows of chastity, poverty, obedience and perseverance, they can take that freshness of their closeness to Christ and share it with other people.

Oblate Scholasticate in Kandy

3/2/2015

As the Oblate formation conference came to its end, we were given a chance to participate in the life of two significant Oblate communities here in Sri Lanka. The first place was the Oblate Scholasticate in Kandy. As we left the hot and steamy Capital City of Colombo we started climbing up the mountains in order to reach the ancient royal city of Maha Nuwara, known today as Kandy. The city located in the central plateau of Sri Lanka attracts not only Oblates of Mary Immaculate who come here to study philosophy and theology and to be formed for Catholic Priesthood, not only the seminarians of all 12 dioceses of Sri Lanka who attend the national seminary here but it draws huge crowds of tourists coming to explore such a historical place (and probably to escape the heat of the lowlands). However it is mainly known for the Temple of the Tooth of Buddha which according to the tradition has been treasured here.

Although the Temple is impressive it couldn’t overshadow the beauty and spirit of the Oblate Scholasticate. Located on one of the hills of Kandy the place nurtures Oblate-priestly vocations of the young men who not simply study here but create a family united around Jesus Christ. I am not surprised at their enthusiasm as they have got such a great example to follow in the Oblates who support and guide them here. One of them Fr Rayappu in his early years of priesthood was sent as a missionary to another country however the local government would only allow him to stay there as a student. As he already held a Masters of Theology he enrolled himself in the PhD program. I was amazed at his dedication to serve the people of God. In order to work as a missionary he was doing his PhD, he wasn’t simply studying but working as a missionary and on the top of that great ministry he was working on his doctorate. What a great example of a missionary. He didn’t give up because of the difficulties but found a way to stay in his mission destination and, out of love for the Lord Jesus, he was working on the university degree. He must have inspired the scholastics who apart from their full time studies, every weekend swap the roles and become teachers of the local poor children teaching them English, math, etc. I am grateful to God for giving us this opportunity to step into the spiritual atmosphere of this holy place.

I have got encouraged myself by the brothers who study here. In the sacristy where priests get vested for Mass they wrote message which reveals their humility but at the same deep faith.

As I mentioned Kandy is considered as a Buddhist shrine but for us Catholics the city of Kandy is the shrine of St Joseph Vaz who was canonized by Pope Francis a few weeks ago. Fr Joseph was a great Apostle of Sri Lanka who dressed like a beggar was walking highlands and lowlands of the country spreading the Gospel of Christ. He died in Kandy. No one knows the location of his grave, though some point out to a local mosque or a Hindu temple. As we were walking the ancient roads of Kandy marked by thousands of statues of Buddha I couldn’t help thinking that Fr Joseph, who spent most of his life like a beggar, didn’t want to attract attention to himself but he invites all Christians to search for Jesus even in the place which is so saturated with reminders of Buddhism. When he was walking these same roads he must have been such an insignificant person but he was brining here the only message that has the promise of eternal life attached to it: “Jesus Christ is the Lord of heaven and earth.”

2nd Sunday of Lent - Homily

3/1/2015

The church's year is a cycle of prayer. It is a succession of celebrations in which we recall the saving events of our faith and through this process we are brought more deeply into the knowledge and presence of God himself.
          One of the three elements that are an essential part of the Lenten journey is prayer. Prayer is not just saying words. Prayer is the awareness of what we had in the responsorial psalm: “I will walk in the presence of the Lord.” The Transfiguration of the Lord on the mountain is mainly a prayer event. It displays visibly what happens when Jesus talks with his Father, when he enters into a conversation with the one who sent him and who is his Father as well. For Jesus prayers isn’t a break in daily life when we spend some time with God but it is a continuous dialogue which intensifies when we take some time from our daily life to be with God. Prayer isn’t about getting something from God or paying God for the things we would like to have but it is about being with God to come to know him better and to love him stronger.
          There is a story about a young monk who asked an older one, "How come that so many people set out to be good, and so many people come here to join the monastery, but after some time they leave again or give up the effort?" The old monk thought for a while and then answered. "Sometimes as you stand here in front of the monastery you will see a rabbit pass by pursued by the village dogs, barking and howling. After some time the rabbit comes back but there are only one or two dogs in pursuit. These are the dogs which actually saw the rabbit - the others were only following the barking. Likewise, if we are to persevere in our pursuit we must have had a glimpse of the Lord and not just be following the barking."
          Peter, John, James needed a glimpse of God to sustain them. We must never forget that the disciples had a very limited understanding of what Jesus was about. They had some idea of the Messiah but the only way in which they could imagine his role was that he should drive out the Romans and deliver the people from political oppression. However, Jesus' kingdom was not of this world and instead of being lifted up on a throne as a king, becoming a political leader, he was lifted up on a cross to die like a criminal. That’s why the disciples needed a memory, a glimpse of glory, which they got in the Transfiguration, to sustain them when their hopes about Jesus were shattered and they had to face their own failure.
          Sometimes early on in prayer the Lord can give us a glimpse of himself - a moment of closeness, a feeling of certainty about his presence, a call to commitment to the work of prayer and of greater openness in our relationship with him. Then that becomes a memory which will later sustain us in the bustle of everyday life and in the dryness of distracted prayer periods. The big temptation is that of Peter to want to build a tent, a monument - to freeze the moment of presence. The poet William Blake said, "He who binds himself to a joy, does the winged life destroy, but he who kisses the joy as it flies, lives in eternity's sunrise." We don’t pray to relax, to calm down or to feel better. Although at times you may feel like this, don’t focus on this. These things will never keep you with God. You may get disappointed very quickly.
          The genuine presence of God is like something glimpsed in a rear view of the mirror. It has gone when you notice it. And that is as God wants it to be. We do not seek his consolation but only Himself. This is what we do each time we pray. But if we have had some transfiguration experience, some glimpse of the Lord, it will do much to give us courage on our weary, yet, joy-full journey.