Odilia Carmen Chirica

THEREFORE YOU ALSO MUST BE READY; FOR THE SON OF MAN IS COMING AT AN HOUR YOU DO NOT EXPECT. -MATTHEW 24:44 " Sooner or later there arises in every human heart the desire for holiness, spirituality, God, call it what you will. One hears mystics speak of a divinity all around them that is within our grasp, that would make our lives meaningful and beautiful and rich, if we could only discover it. People have some sort of a vague idea as to what this thing is and they read books and con­sult gurus, in the attempt to find out what it is that they must do to gain this elusive thing called Holiness or Spirituality. They pick up all sorts of methods, techniques, spiritual exercises, formulas; then after years of fruitless striving they become discouraged and confused and wonder what went wrong. Mostly they blame themselves. If they had practiced their tech­niques more regularly, if they had been more fervent or more generous, they might have made it. But made what? They have no clear ide

  YOUR EYE IS THE LAMP OF YOUR BODY; WHEN YOUR EYE IS SOUND, YOUR WHOLE BODY IS FULL OF LIGHT; BUT WHEN IT IS NOT SOUND, YOUR BODY I S FULL OF DARK NESS. -LUKE II:34 "We think the world would be saved if only we could generate larger quantities of goodwill and tolerance. That's false. What will save the world is not goodwill and tolerance but clear thinking. Of what use is it to be tolerant of others if you are convinced that you are right and everyone who disagrees with you is wrong? That isn't tol­erance but condescension. That leads not to union of hearts but to division, because you are one up and the others one down. A position that can only lead to a sense of superiority on your part and resentment on your neighbor's, thereby breeding further intolerance. True tolerance only arises from a keen awareness of the abysmal ignorance of everyone as far as truth is concerned. For truth is essen­tially mystery. The mind can sense but cannot grasp it, much less formulate

NO ONE WHO PUTS HIS HAND TO THE PLOW AND LOOKS BACK IS FIT FOR THE KINGDOM OF GOD.   -LUKE 9:62 "God's kingdom is love. What does it mean to love? It means to be sensitive to life, to things, to persons, to feel for everything and everyone to the exclusion of nothing and no one. For ex­clusion can only be achieved through a harden­ing of oneself, through closing one's doors. And the moment there is a hardening, sensitivity dies. It won't be hard for you to find examples of this kind of sensitivity in your life. Have you ever stopped to remove a stone or a nail from the road lest someone come to harm? It does not matter that you will never know the person who will benefit from this gesture and you will receive no reward or recognition. You just do it from a feeling of benevolence and kindness. Or have you felt pained at the wanton destruction in another part of the world, of a forest that you will never see and never benefit from? Have you gone to some trouble to help a