Lenten Day of Reflection
London, February, 2008
Fr. Dominic Borg, OCD

Heavenly Father we give You thanks for the gift of this day and for the Eucharist You have given us, and for the gift of Your Word. We ask You also for the gift of Your Spirit to continue to guide us, to bring to remembrance everything You have told us. We ask You to continue to teach us to be flexible to Your direction in our lives, and to prepare our hearts as a fertile soil ready to receive the seed You want to implant and bring it Yourself to its fruition. We ask you all this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Two days ago the Discalced Carmelites received an e-mail from Rome saying that the Holy Father has agreed to the immediate Diocesan Inquiry to the life and virtues of the servant of God, Sister Lucia of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart, without waiting for the normal five year period after her death. Usually, when a person dies, there is a period of five years until the Pope will accept any inquiries or any witnesses to come forward with their testimony about that person. But, this time, with regard to Sister Lucia, he agreed that this period of five years would be reduced. We are now celebrating the third anniversary of the death of Sister Lucia. Sister Lucia died on the 13th of February, and the Pope, on that date gave the dispensation from waiting for another two years. So they have opened now the formal process for the canonization of Sister Lucia. This is good news.

I will begin with a question, and don't be shy to raise you hands or not to raise them. How many of you have heard the story about the two disciples of Emmaus? How many of you? The other question is more difficult. How many of you really know the meaning of the word Emmaus? No hands up? OK, the word Emmaus was a village where there were warm springs. That is what the word Emmaus means "warm springs", and so the disciples of Emmaus were avoiding the hustle and bustle of life, running away from the burden, going to take a spa, so to speak, to relieve themselves from the tension of life, this life that is disappointing them constantly. So, when we look at those sandals there (Father is pointing to the sandals at the foot of the Altar, part of the dιcor for Lent) for a little while, we are going to put them on and tread on the dusty road toward the village of Emmaus to discover where does this road leads. Where is this road going to lead us?

How does the story of the disciples of Emmaus begin? I invite you not to say "oh, we know this story, we have heard it in many sermons, and we know what it does." This is one of the obstacles that we encounter in allowing the Word of God to sink into our lives and to perform its mission. Every time we read it, even knowing how much you know it, like the disciples of Emmaus, we too think that we know Scriptures, until we meet Jesus Christ, and He will tell us how ignorant we are of the Scriptures, and allow His Holy Spirit to open the Scriptures for us, "and he opened for them the Scriptures, and he began to explain to them" and with these Scriptures , the Word of God was being unfolded, in the same way Jesus Christ did in the Synagogue, they gave Him the scroll of Isaiah, He unfolded it, then He rolled it back so that you and I would have the joy of unfolding the scroll which is the Word of God, and the more we unfold it, the more we can see our history there, our image. It is our picture.

Sometimes when we read Scriptures, we think that it is a story which happened in the past, only to be inspired by people like Albert Einstein. Here is what Albert Einstein wrote when his closest friend Michael Bensaw died. He wrote a note to the sister and the son of Michael Bensaw and in the note he said "Now he has departed this strange world a little ahead of me." Death means nothing. This event means nothing. People like us who believe in physics know that the distinction between past, present and future is only persistent illusion. We think that they have gone before us.

One of the first definitions that we learned in philosophy was the definition of eternity. The definition of eternity which is classical says "past, present and future, present in one instant moment", so we are not going to discover, after all, that our ancestors, our parents, passed away twenty, thirty years ahead of us. We are only to discover that in the same instant moment, we are there. And this applies also when we come to interpret the Word of God.

Among Biblical Scholars there is a saying which says "The event at Emmaus never happened. - it is still in the happening". This means that it is not something of the past, something that is gone ... we still find ourselves darkened, dull, in front of the Word of God. We are still not conscious that Jesus Christ is walking with us on these dusty roads. We still have to discover that Jesus Christ is a wayfarer, He is the one who meets us at our work, He meets us in our problems. He is meeting us as we are walking in the disappointment and the illusions of life. "We had hoped" - you know, I had hoped that because I pray, I read the Scriptures, I go to Mass, I leave my things aside to come to Church, that I was going to experience joy. But do you know what? My neighbour who does not go to Church, my neighbour who does not go to Mass on Sundays, seems to be living a much happier life than I am living. We still are illusioned to the extent that the introduction to the story of the disciples of Emmaus to this event starts with these words: "Now it was Mary Magdalen, Joanna, Mary the mother of James and the other woman with them who told this to the disciples." So, it is their experience, of how they went towards the tomb, only to discover that the tomb was empty. "But these words seemed to them an idle tale." He says that perhaps, like you and me, we come to church, we hear the Gospel, we hear the homily, we hear the Old Testament. How many are those people who give great importance to the Old Testament, and yet, the recent Pope, has been preaching and preaching, telling us Christians how much we should fall in love with the Old Testament because the New Testament is rooted in the Old Testament, and the Old Testament is flowers in the New Testament, that Jesus Christ is present in the Old Testament in the promises. Once we hold onto these promises, then our future will be a bright future because God's promises are bright promises. And so the Word of God is not an idle tale, it is a Word which transforms, it is a Word that uplifts, it is a Word that blesses us, it is a Word that regenerates us - it is not an empty word. But here, their experience of the empty tomb - sometimes I wonder if they were like us, looking in an empty tomb, and not seeing life in it, looking in the empty tomb and the angel telling them "why are you looking for the living among the dead"?

We still look for the Word of God, which is living and active, among the dead events of our life, rather than, when we look into the tomb, we are able to see the cloth that was around the head - St. John tells us, "it was folded by itself".

There is a message in that word "folded". Some of you have heard me saying this already. The Talmud says that when the Master is eating and someone comes for him because they want to talk to him, and the Master is kind enough to leave his table and go to minister to that person, if he is finished eating he just leaves the napkin dropped on the table, and that is a sign for the waiter to clear the table, but if he folds the napkin, that is a sign for the waiter that he is coming back, so he should not take away the food because he is coming back, he is not finished. When they looked in the tomb, they saw the napkin folded, and they remembered the Scripture that He had told them that after three days He would come again. There are events in our life which seem to steal from us the living Christ. But the same events that steal from us the living Christ are the conveyors of the message of the Resurrection, that we are not alone. That the Word of God comes with great power to assist in this journey of disappointment, that this seems that the Word is strange - are you the only stranger? They asked Jesus Christ, who doesn't know what is going on? Do you think that it is a coincidence that we are here, and the Word of God is coming to meet you and me in our journey of disappointment? In our gloominess, we are down, depressed, disappointed with the history which we are experiencing, and we would like to run away to a place where we can get some sun, like the disciples of Emmaus, warm springs, thinking to relieve our tension from us, not knowing that the Word of God will set us free from these tensions.

The Gospel of John is clear, chapter 10, verse 10 is easy to remember "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." Chapter 8, verses 30-31 say "If you continue in my work, you will be truly my disciples, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" free from fear, fear from tension, free from anxiety.

The disciples of Emmaus are tense, grumbling, gloomy. Looking at their faces, Jesus Christ said to them "What are you discussing, what are you grumbling about?" And they looked at Him like an extra terrestrial, not being in touch with reality. "Are You the only stranger who does not know what is going on?" Sometimes we feel the same way. We feel like saying to God the same words "Are you the only stranger who does not know what is going on in my life - my pain, my suffering, my problems? I pray, and it seems in vain. You seem to be the stranger. Every one of my friends knows about my sickness, about my problems, and You say that You are my friend, but it doesn't seem that You know what is going on in my life. You seem to be a stranger to me."

Again, she entered into a dialogue. When we pray, St. Augustine says, we speak to God, even in our grumbling. There is a book which is called "Grumbling, a Way of Praise", in that case, we praise God a lot, because you hardly need even to enter a restaurant and you begin to grumble 'the meat is too dry, the meat is too rare, too big portion, too small portion, the food is not warm enough, the bread is not fresh - constantly grumbling. Well St. Paul tells us in his letter to the Philippians, chapter 2, he says "Do everything without grumbling or questioning." If only we could listen to the Word of God, coming to you and to me, speaking to us.

When we pray, we speak to God, when we read the Scriptures, God is speaking to us. And what is God telling us as we travel on this dirty road? Because we are wearing sandals, the sandals are there for each one of us to put them on. And you know that when you put on the sandals, it is easier to get your feet dirty. It is easier to get a scruple too. You know the word scrupulum, the gravel that used to enter between the heel and the sandal of the Roman soldier as they are walking, that gravel hurts when you step on it. That is called the scrupulum, and this is why scruples hurt us. They are very painful. A person wants to liberate it. He wants to feel God's love. He wants to feel that he is loved by God. This is the reason why we should read more Scripture, because Scripture is from God the Father to tell us how much He loves us, that He gives His only Son for you and for me. But, if we do not hear Him telling us, if we do not enter into a dialogue, St Teresa says that prayer is a dialogue with the One Who we know loves us … there is this exchange, and the disciples of Emmaus, one of them was Cleopas, the other is un-named, so that you can put your name there, I can put my name there, and so Dominic and Cleopas are walking together, they are grumbling, they are disappointed in life. And they entered into this dialogue "Are you the only stranger?", and He is listening, quietly. Sometimes, as they say, you don't need a handyman, you need a man at hand. The same it is with problems, you don't need someone to give you the solution to your problems, you only need someone who has the patience to listen to your problems, and for you it will be a relief, because you get them out of your heart, and your heart that was burdened, heavy with these things, because you let them out, you find yourself relieved. A burden shared is a burden half-carried, so to speak. And that is what they are doing, they are pouring out their disappointment to Jesus Christ, Who, for them, He is present, yet He is dead, He is gone. For them He is the One Who disappointed them. He is the One in Whom they put so much trust. They invested three years of their lives in Him, and yet, He did not come to their rescue We too, like the disciples of Emmaus, do not recognize Jesus Christ as a wayfarer walking with us along this road, the road that is full of death. They are no longer concerned about the dust that is hitting their feet, neither about the dust is entering their sandals, no, they even forgot that their journey is towards Emmaus.

As we said, the word Emmaus means warm springs. The disciples of Emmaus were going toward a place where they thought that they could relieve their tension. This is not a warm swimming pool, ok? This is not warm water, that when you step in there, you take a warm bath and it will relieve your tension. This is a bath in the Word of God. That is why, as I told you before, St Gregory the Great says "the Scriptures grow with the one who reads them". It is like water that continues to grow, as we learn also from Samuel, where he listened to the Word of God, and he grew up, he did not allow any of those words to fall to the ground.

So, the disciples of Emmaus are moving, and Jesus Christ is listening to them. After they finish, He is helping them to see meaning and life in the suffering and death of their Hero. He is helping them to see meaning and suffering. He is helping them to see meaning and pain. That is why the disciples, like St Paul, can say, "we rejoice in our suffering". That is why Jesus Christ can say to you and to me, "in the world you have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have conquered the world", and if we continue to cling on to Him, we too will conquer the world, we too will be able to conquer our passion, because brothers and sisters, the greatest victory is not to conquer your enemies, the greatest victory is to conquer yourself.

Many times we are proud that we have confused other people in our lives, only to discover that our passions have enslaved us, only to discover that our sins, our jealousy, our anger, our judgement, our prejudice, still have a hold on us, and they suffocate us, like anger and disappointment. Can you imagine, people, walking in life, are on a journey, without hope? "We had hoped that he was going to redeem Israel, but now it is already four days." It is a hopeless situation. And Jesus Christ begins to talk to them. "Concerning things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet, mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers handed him over to be condemned to death, and crucified. But we had hoped that he was going to be the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place." Why are they in this situation? This situation, which is yours and mine.

Do you know how this sections starts? "Now, on that same day," the day when Mary of Magdalen is giving the testimony of the Risen Christ. The day when Peter is looking into the tomb and he found exactly everything as they had explained but they did not see Jesus, on that same day, two disciples are on the road, only to discover that Jesus Christ is living with them. This is not a matter of the Resurrection brothers and sisters, the Resurrection is not something from the past. Every time you and I experience death, resurrection is at hand. Resurrection is at hand on that same day - at that same moment. At the same moment when they are disappointed, Jesus is meeting them … He Who is risen from the dead appears risen here. That is why Chesterton, after he was converted to Catholicism. Chesterton who was a great journalist himself, was approached by one of the journalists, and he was interviewing him, and trying to make fun of him, he asked "What would be your reaction if Jesus Christ were to appear to you here and now?" He responded "What are you talking about? He is here. He is. He is living … He lives in me, what are you talking about?" And he surprised the journalist. "You are waiting for visions, I don't need to see these visions. For me, they are a reality." Jesus Christ is a wayfarer. He lives in me. And Jesus Christ continued to explain to the disciples of Emmaus, as He is explaining to you and to me. Moreover they said to Him, "Some women of our group astonished us. They were at the tomb early this morning and when they did not find His body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that He was alive." A vision of angels. We yearn to have these visions, only to discover that when we begin to tell other people about these visions, they don't believe us. If you go to tell someone that God was talking to you this morning in prayer, they take two steps back from you in case they should catch your virus. They will think that you are losing it. You want to see these visions, but you cannot communicate them to others because, like Mary of Magdalen and the other woman, they will make fun of you because for them it is idle talk, it is an idle tale. It is a fairy tale that our forefathers tried to make us swallow, and there are some of us who did swallow it. But we are smart enough not to swallow it. This is the reason why the Word of God remains in our minds. The Midrash says that Issa was a hunter in the mouth, which means that he never swallowed his spirituality. It remains in his mouth. Scripture says, "These people praise me with their lips, but their hearts are far away from me." The Word of God does not become incarnate. It did not take flesh in their heart. This is the reason we are encouraged to look at Mary. Mary, in whom the Word of God became flesh, and that Word gave her power to look outside of herself. That is what will happen, brothers and sisters, when we allow the Word of God to sink into our lives. The love that we experience, we cannot keep it to ourselves, but we will want to share it with others in our service toward them. "Mary went with haste to be of service to Elizabeth." So here, they are talking to Jesus. "Some of those who were with us went to the tomb, and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him." Have you seen Christ resurrected in your life? Or for you is He still dead? Then He said to them "Oh how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!" Do you think that this is a reproach only to Cleopas? Is it not a reproach to you and to me that we are so slow of heart? That it takes less effort for you and for me to go to Chapters and begin to browse through books, to try to satisfy our curiosity, to read this novel and the other novel? I am always surprised when I go visiting the shut-ins to see a pile of novels beside them. You don't see the Bible open there. You see a pile of novels. At the end of their journey, they are seeking satisfaction in these novels. It is amazing.

When Sir Isaac Newton was dying he said to his servant "Read for me from the Book." He was dying near a library, and his servant said to him "from which book? There are so many books." "At the beginning of life, and at the end of life, there is only one Book. It is the Book of Life." Do you think that this scolding was only for these two people? "O how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!" Oh, I don't read the Old Testament much. That is what they tell you, it is full of wars and things … no I cannot stand it. And what do they do? They throw out the baby with the dirty water. They don't read the Old Testament, they don't encounter the promises, they don't know that the Word is very much near to them. It is in their mouth and in their heart so that they will do it.

"O how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory? Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the Scriptures." taking Moses the prophets, the psalms, he began to unfold them. What happened in this unfolding? They became hypnotized. The tension that they were seeking to take with the waters of Emmaus, with those warm springs, and that is why they were journeying there … they said, let us go there and relieve our tensions … is taken off. Their hearts are emptied, and now they are being filled with joy. Later on they are going to give witness "Were not our hearts burning with joy when he was explaining to us the scriptures." Do you think that it is an empty statement when the Pope has said that the most important thing for the Christian is to come in contact with the Word of God? That Word of God will mold them, it will help them to understand better the Sacraments, to understand that the Eucharist is God's love for you and for me. But, if we attempt to discuss the Eucharist without the help of the Word of God to explain to you and to me, Jesus Christ Who is like a way-farer, explaining to us the meaning of these signs, of the events of our life, that with all its pain it still remains our history of Salvation, we will not be able to experience joy. You go to the Eucharist, and you go with the watch in your hands. You go to Church as if it is taking up our time, as if we are giving something to God when we approach Him. And we hear, as we have heard today in the Eucharist, "the victim which you yourself have given to your Church". It is God who gives the victim. We think that when we go, we are going to offer the victim. It is God who is giving His Son for your salvation and my salvation.

"As they came to the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on." Why is He walking ahead? To dispel the darkness. He is the light which dispels all the darkness. The Word of God is light. A light was shining in the darkness, and the darkness did not overpower it. "But they urged him strongly saying stay with them, for it is almost evening and the day now nearly over. So he went to stay with them." How much do we allow the Word of God to stay with us? Is it not our anger, is it not a word that the other person has said to you and hurt you that stays with you rather than the Word of God? If we allow the Word of God to stay with us, the Word brings to you and to me God's love, and once we have love, we can give it away, but if we do not have love, we have anger and prejudice. This is what we are going to give away. What do we allow to stay with us? The Greek is beautiful here. Here it says "they urged him", the Greek says "they compelled Him", as if you grab Him, and you are not going to let Him go. It is a life-saver, you do not allow it to leave you in the storm. Your strength is not strong enough to deal with the waves, you have to cling on to that life-saver, even if you know how to swim, because that life-saver, when you are tired, will give you the rest that you need.

So, He went in to stay with them. If you invite God into your life, He will not deny you your wish. He won't. When He was at the table with them … how many times have we heard that every time you come to the Eucharist, we are in front of two tables, the table of the Word of God, and the table of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. When He was with them at the table … He is at the table with us every Eucharist when we celebrate. How much are you conscious about it? When He was at the table with them, He took bread, blessed and broke it and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened. Was it only two thousand years ago that Jesus Christ passed through the roads of Palestine healing people who were blind, throwing mud on their eyes, spitting on them, telling them to go and wash in the pool of Siloam, and people recovered their sight? Was it two thousand years ago when Jesus Christ said, "I came so that the blind will receive their sight" Was it only two thousand years ago when people said to Jesus Christ "Master, that I may see." Is it not constantly in our lives too? Many events in our lives, many happenings, where we cannot see the finger of God in them, that when we look around us the only thing that we see is darkness, that when we look at our face in the mirror, we can only see a gloomy face, a face of disappointment, of discouragement. Then they opened their eyes and they recognized Him. Do we recognize Jesus in our lives? Or is He still hidden? Or do we talk with Him as if He is the only stranger who does not know what is going on in our lives? You see it, when I told you about the symbol of the sandals. For how many of us, during Lent, will it come to mind that forty also is present, after the death of Jesus Christ. After He was resurrected, He appeared to them for forty days. Scripture tells us "After forty days he appeared to them." So if I have the opportunity to walk with Jesus Christ, resurrected from the dead, why on earth do I have to walk in the tomb? Why do I allow these events that are pushing me down make me think that it is the end of me? That is Baptism, going under the water, to come out of it. St Paul says "If we have died with Christ, with him also we will be resurrected."

That is why he can say "For me to live is Christ, life equals Christ." Everyone who sees light sees the Cross, the plus sign. If you look at the Cross, you can live life with a plus. You can experience a joy that nothing and no-one can steal it from you. Now you have sorrow and pain, but you will see me, and rejoice, and no-one and nothing will be able to steal your joy from you. In chapter 15 of the Gospel of John, Jesus Christ said: "These words I have said to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy will be complete." In His prayer to the Father, Jesus Christ said "I have given them your joy so that their joy will be complete." It will not be just a material satisfaction, but it will be a joy that no-one, not even the evil one, the devil, will be able to steal from them. Because there again, we think that exorcism was performed two thousand years ago when Jesus Christ met people possessed with demons and He exorcised them, as if we do not need, starting from myself, this exorcism of the Word of God to exorcise me, to set me free from my anger, to set me free from my envy, to set me free from my judgement. And the more I read the Word of God, the more I discover love, and as Goethe has said, "Love out of its very nature does not dominate, it liberates". It is sin that dominates us. It is sin that enslaves us. This is the reason why St Paul can say "Christ has set you free. Do not submit yourself to the yoke of slavery again." Sin is its own punishment brothers and sisters.

Sometimes people hurt us with their sin, with their unfaithfulness. You want to repay what has been done to you. You want to hurt that person. But, what you do not realize is that you cannot hurt that person any more than they have hurt themselves. You cannot! You cannot inflict more punishment on that person than they have inflicted on themselves. The reason you cannot is that sin is its own punishment. It is stupid to waste time trying to hurt that person. We are not going to hurt them more than they have hurt themselves. What you can do, is pray for them. Pray for their conversion, to adhere to the Word of God. "Their eyes were opened and they recognized him and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, 'Were not our hearts burning within us when he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the Scriptures for us'" That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem. They dipped into the warm spring. They dipped themselves, and their tension, their problems are gone. Their fear of the darkness is gone. The fear of their history where they cannot see any sense in it, is gone. They are traveling in the darkness to announce Jesus Christ resurrected from the dead, because He has appeared to them.

They believed. They began to tell people their own experience. This is what is lacking in the world today - your experience and my experience, your witness and my witness, not the witness of our fathers. They have been hearing them. It did not convert them. The witness of their fathers only speaks to their minds. We can only convert people when we speak heart to heart. The Word of God that entered into the hearts of the disciple of Emmaus is also entering into your heart and my heart to implant joy, so that when we meet each other we can express this joy of experiencing God in our life. "Were not our hearts burning with joy when he was explaining to us the Scriptures" when He was opening to us the Scriptures? Are we not living in the prophecy of the prophet Amos chapter 8 verse 11? 'A day is coming when I will bring a famine on the earth. A famine not of bread, not of drink but a famine and a thirst for the Word of God.' A famine!

People are so empty, disappointed with the emptiness that the world has been offering them, literally enticing them into joy and pleasure only to discover silence. But the Word of God is powerful. As soon as Mary said, "Let it be done to me according to your Word", she became pregnant. She became heavy (strong) yet light, light to the extent that she can travel up hill. She was able to travel uphill to be of service to others. She is liberated even from her own concern. She is thinking of the joy she has inside of her. "As soon as I heard the greetings even the child within my womb leapt for joy." This is the joy that the world is waiting for. It is not a smile on the face, it is a joy in our own fabric inside of us. The joy of the message of Mary to Elizabeth penetrated so deep that the Baby in her womb could also feel it. "Even the child in my womb leapt for joy." "Blessed is she." was said to her. Blessed is she who believed that what was spoken to her by the Lord would be fulfilled. Is not this our problem? We hear these promises but we do not believe them! What the Lord has spoken to us is going to be fulfilled. Are we at the stage of the official who approached Jesus Christ to ask for mercy for his son? Jesus asked him, "Do you believe that I can do this for you?" "Yes Lord I believe, help me in my unbelief." I believe that You can do it. I saw You doing it with others but I do not believe that You are going to do it for me with my son. Help me in my unbelief. Like the disciples we too have to ask Jesus Christ to increase our faith, increase our thirst for the Word of God, to empty our hearts of stupidities so that we will have space, so as St. Paul says "the Word of God in all its richness may find a home within you." If you do that, like the disciples of Emmaus , you too will live to rejoice.

"They went back and found the eleven and their companions gathered together". They were saying that the Lord has risen indeed and He has appeared to Simon. They told them what had happened on the road and how He had made Himself known to them in the breaking of the bread. How is it that we come burdened to the Eucharist and burdened we leave? We come burdened to hear the Word of God and burdened we leave. Is it not perhaps because we are still slow of heart, foolish not to believe what has been spoken to us, to believe in God's promise, that 'My plans for you are plans of peace and not disaster, that Israel there is hope for your future'. Why is it that we are afraid to meet our God? The prophet says to Israel, 'Israel prepare to meet your God.' Prepare to meet your God! We can meet our God anytime at work, that treasure in the church, when we are eating, when we are drowsing. God is there waiting to enter into a dialogue with you and with me. It is real brothers and sisters, believe me! It is really a great act of mercy on the part of God towards you and me when He starts the dialogue. He starts it! Looking at our faces He asks you and me, "Why are you depressed? Why are you down?" "Why am I down? Do You not know what is going on in my life?" He allows you to pour out all your problems. Pour them out He is patience. When you have exhausted yourself in your grumbling, then allow Him to continue to talk to you, to open the Scripture. Once the Word enters our hearts, your heart and mine, like the hearts of the disciples of Emmaus they too will be burning with joy. Father concluded his talk with all of us praying The Our Father.