"My heart like a land thirsty for you"

(Psalm 143.6)

In the life of every person
there comes a moment
- long or short -
of stillness.
A crisis moment.
A moment in which one finds himself alone with himself.

It may be a sickness.
It may be the news of the death of someone you have cherished deeply.
It may be simply the realization that your life has no meaning.
It may be a betrayal of a deep trust.
It may be the awareness that your marriage is basically over.

One key moment
when all illusions fall
when around you, you see nothing but devastation.
One significant moment
when perhaps, for the first time
the veil between you and Jesus Christ is removed
and all of a sudden you hear a quiet hushed voice speaking to you.
One moment of interior silence.

When St Francis of Assisi met a leper
and discovered in an instant
his the lack of love towards this fellow man,
he put his life at stake…
He did not run away as instinctively he felt like doing
but come close to him and hugged him and even kissed him!

Count Francis of Borgia was stunned
when he saw in front of him the lifeless body of the Queen of Spain,
and remembered that one day she was stunningly beautiful!
Now she was dead.
He decided to serve a Beauty that never ends!

Sister Teresa of Jesus was thirty nine years old
when she felt wounded violently
in front a statue of Jesus Christ tied to a pillar.
It was the beginning of another life, her true life.

Father John of the Cross had been nine months in a dark prison -
abandoned by all, all his dreams shattered…
There… the most endearing poetry and songs of Love were born.

These crisis moments are precious.
You can either grab this moment
and be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Or you can let it pass
and you will just linger in silent or open despair.

This is the moment when
the precious gift of God
is given to you gratuitously.
"If you only knew what God is offering…"
Jesus told the Samaritan woman.

One moment.
A primary moment.
When you can feel on a deep level
the Holy Spirit
who makes you sense the tenderness God has for you
who fills you with compassion towards yourself and towards all your life
who teaches you to be patient with yourself.
A moment that can make us saints.

The moment when He opens your heart open
to the size of the heart of Jesus Christ.

And you realize that everything
even the brokenness
even the crisis
even the confusion which we brought upon yourself
makes BIG sense.

And so you start living in Him and with Him a new life.
Without illusions.
And taste the sweetness of His company.

It is the moment when you recognize -
- perhaps for the first time -
that in Christ we are perpetually victorious!

"But you, Israel, my servant,
Jacob whom I have chosen,
Whom I have taken to myself from the remotest parts of the earth,
and summoned from countries far away,
to whom I have said, 'You are my servant,
I have chosen you, I have not rejected you,
Do not be afraid, for I am with you,
Do not be alarmed, for I am your God.
I give you strength, truly I help you,
Truly I hold you firm with my saving right hand!
I shall help you,
- declares The Lord -
your redeemer is the Holy One of Israel!
I shall turn the desert into a lake…
."

(Isaiah 41)


This ON THE DOT brings to an end the series of 62 meditations that have been appearing regularly this last year and a half in this newspaper. They were adaptations of two books published a number of years ago in Malta under the title "Ferejtni - You wounded me, Lord". They mirrored an earlier stage of my frame of mind and spirituality.