Beyond Words

Prophet Elijah met with Living God face to face in a silent intimate encounter. He walked forty days and nights to reach the sacred meeting point... When he finally met with God, he did not need to say anything. His meeting happened beyond words...on a level where only pure Love and ecstasy lives...

Wow Factor

"Did anything so great ever happen before? Was it ever heard of?" (Dt 4:33nn) The Lord challenged us with this question this morning in the First Reading. He challenged our ability to see things in our lives with children's eyes and hearts. The ability, the innocence, the sensitivity of the person touched by the greatness of God's things happening in front of our eyes on daily basis, which we, adults, sadly, got used to and take for granted or allowed ourselves to never see them again...

The Dwelling

The First Reading of today's Liturgy. The first part of it describing in detail construction process of the Dwelling of the Lord. Moses busy with myriads of things, putting them together exactly according to the Plan given to him by God. And then, once God has taken the possession of the Dwelling, Moses was unable to enter it again...

In The Presence

The Holy Hour this evening gave us all participating unique opportunity to enter KAIROS. The time full of Christ Crucified and Risen... I explained the meaning of the this term in my other post (read here). But this is something else to understand this term and something else completely to enter its realm...

Orphans

Two keywords of this Sunday Liturgy of the Word - "The Spirit of Truth" and "I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you"."The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows him. But you know him, because he remains with you, and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, because I live and you will live." (from today's Gospel of Jn 14:15-21)

Chant

I have suddenly found myself this morning longing for a peaceful place to celebrate Holy Week and The Paschal Triduum, filled with echoes of gregorian chants, just like in the abbey of Solesmes. There is nothing more sublime in sacred music than a gregorian chant. It's notes are like finest feathers falling from angels' wings floating in the space consecrated by the presence of God and set in motion by human breath, filled with awe of God-With-Us... The perfectly crystal clear manner of praising Living God in the midst of the living community of His children...

What Counts

What counts is the Mystery of the Lord's Mercy, Love and Presence. While the whole Catholic Church in Tanzania was gathered in Mwanza for the installation of the new Archbishop of Mwanza, Rt. Rev. Bishop Yuda Thaddeus Ruwaichi, I was going about my pastoral duties in Kiabakari. First - two regular Masses in the shrine, then off to Isaba outstation, the northernmost village in my mission. I love to go there. The community is minute, the chapel is built of mud bricks with a thatched roof, dust inside, no church pews. Confessions done under a tree outside in the dust, sitting on a wooden chair. But I love. The Presence of the Lord is felt so powerfully, so intimately, I can't experience the same somehow in modern, better equipped chapels and churches. It feels as if I celebrate the Mystery of the Presence in Bethlehem crib....

The Holy Hour

Thursday before the First Friday of each month is a day for a very special liturgical service - A Holy Hour. As the name of this devotion says itself, this is a hour long adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament, of Jesus Himself in the mystery of the Eucharist... The more I grow in years and become more and more absorbed with spiritual, pastoral, administration, development and other activities, the more I long for this special hour spent on knees in front of Jesus in Eucharist among the liturgical assembly of my fellow Christians in Kiabakari...

The Presence

Every day in the retreat we celebrate Divine Mercy Hour – Eucharistic adoration at 3pm, at the hour of Christ’s death on the Cross. We follow the request of Jesus He gave us through St. Sister Faustina Kowalska of the Most Holy Eucharist to meditate on His passion at the hour He called Himself – a Divine Mercy Hour to the whole world. He promised us to grant us anything we ask in faith and trust in His Mercy if only our petitions comply with His Father’s Holy Will.