Quo Vadis, Domine?

Where are you going, Lord,
To which enchanted shore,
To which unspoken world
Beyond the secret door?

Where are you going, Lord,
To which lost paradise,
To which sweet lands of old
Beyond our mortal eyes?

Where are you going, Lord,
To which ocean of light,
To which mountains of gold
Beyond our lonely night?

Where are you going, Lord,
To which brand new today
Forgotten by time's sword
Beyond the Milky Way?

Where are you going, Lord,
To which new rising suns,
Away from all the cold, 
Away from tears and guns?

Wherever you may go,
O, Lord God from above,
Can you make room for us,
The children of your love?

Written by Eliza

Buying a Wooden Prayer Box

For those who are interested in buying a wooden prayer box for themselves or as a gift, here is a website I came across, where you can order them online and pay via Paypal. The boxes are usually delivered within one week.

My Prayer Box by Heavenly Wood Works Inc.

The Orphans of This World

In God's eyes we are all the same,
He knows each one of us by name.
He calls the orphans of this world
Under His wings, far from the cold.

When you feel lonely in the night,
He'll come to you and hold you tight.
When tears burn like acid rain,
He'll come to you and soothe your pain.

You are so precious in God's eyes,
He paid for you such a high price.
He send His son into the world
To face the darkness and the cold.

To share the mortals' destiny,
To give you hope, to set you free.
The little babe Jesus was born,
For you, the orphans of this world.

A BLESSED CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL!

LET'S WELCOME JESUS

And the light came into the darkness... and the Word came into the world to break the silence of death...

He came and lived among us, full of grace and truth. His words healed hearts and minds, his call arose people from the death, his touch brought light to the blind.

His message was simple and full of power. His words strong and compassionate. His presence life-changing. His love for us had no limits.

He didn't come to judge or to punish, but to save and to heal. To help us find a meaning in a meaningless world. To comfort us and give us a hope in a hopeless world. He came to the orphans of this world, to make them sons and daughters of God and heirs of eternity.

He came as a humble baby, sharing all our pain and suffering in a body like ours, bearing all the burdens of our frail human frame. When the whole earth and sky was his, he chose to live and die for us out of a love that defies our understanding.

Let's welcome the baby born in Bethlehem. Let's welcome Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man, born into our world at the crossway of history to change it forever.

AMEN

Don't save it all for Christmas Day

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There isn't enough love in the world. As Victor Hugo said, we never pray and never love too much. One single smile could make miracles and yet sometimes we grudge even that. Let the lights and the magic of Christmas change your heart this year. Smile more, even to the people you don't know. Bring a smile on sad faces by a kind word. Touch the hand of a lonely man. Pray for those who have no hope. Visit someone who's dying. Give a piece of bread to a hungry person. Make a surprise to a sick child. Give a present to someone who's forgotten. Make a woman feel loved. Make a man feel special. If you do any one of these things, you make the world a better place and you honour Jesus, who's coming into the world once again as a little baby, to live and die for us, to comfort and counsel us, to give us a creed and a meaning, to be our our Lord, our friend and our brother.

YouTube - Celine Dion - Don't save it all for christmas Day

Improving Your Prayer Life

Here you can find a few ideas on improving your prayer life. If you feel that something is not working as it should, 
don't get discouraged and don't give up. 
God can see your struggles and his heart is always with you.
Wherever you go, whatever you do, keep that in mind and
turn to him like you would turn to a friend.

Prayer Central

At the Approaching of Christmas

My Lord, I can remember Christmas as it used to be in my early years, with all its lights and all its magic. Things have changed in time and I'll never regain that magic again. The years of my childhood are gone forever and with them so many sensations and feelings that can be neither recovered nor put into words.

Please, Lord, let me feel your love this Christmas once more, let me feel how lucky I am to be your child. Remind me of the way you changed my heart and of all the miracles you've made in my life. Teach me not to take anything for granted, but to give you thanks for everything. Let me escape the daily routine and see the hidden beauty of each day.

Let the child in me take over once again, let me see the world through the innocent eyes of a child. Open my eyes to the wonders around me. There are so many miracles we pass by every day and don't even notice. Help me rediscover the world this Christmas, with all the amazing things you put in it for us to rejoice.

AMEN

Pray As You Go

This is a link that will take you to a site where you can download and listen to prayers in mp3 format. Whether you're at home or on the road, driving the car or travelling by train or by bus, you can feel closer to God by listening to these prayers.

Pray-as-you-go . . . daily prayer for your MP3 player

Longing for Intimacy

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Right now when I’m writing this, the wind is roaring like a wild animal and the rain is tapping on my window, but neither of them can hurt me. It feels like it’s part of our genetic heritage to long for warmth and cosiness, for the sweet touch of intimacy. As I look back at my life, I can see this longing in everything I’ve done, in every step I’ve taken. The Webster dictionary defines „intimacy” as „a state of close relationship, familiarity”. Intimacy is usually between two persons, but it can go much further and deeper than that. Intimacy with yourself, with the world around you, with God. Feeling close to things and to beings. However, in order to feel close to something or someone, you need to feel that you are safe, that there is no threatening. Since we are so fragile and vulnerable, feeling safe is very important to us.

There are three images that come to mind when I think of intimacy. An evening by the fire with someone you love. Lord Jesus sharing bread and wine with his disciples. Me lying in bed with the flu. The last one sounds quite funny, but to me it is at least as important as the other two. You might think there’s no fun in catching the flu. And I’ve done it quite a lot since I was born. However, the story told inside is very different. Lying in bed with the flu means much more than blowing my nose and coughing my throat out. It is a story about love and intimacy. The love of my parents who were looking after me. The feeling that I’m safe and that nothing can harm me. The certainty that everything is under control. The unorthodox joy that I can stay at home rather than go to school. The opportunity to use my creative skills without the fear of being told of. The opportunity to write, or draw or play in the cosiness of my bed, surrounded by the people I loved, protected from all the hostility outside.

Things have changed in time but the feeling remains. It is too strong and too deep to go away. Only that now it is somehow extended. Extended to the whole world. Every time I’m scared, every time I have to take a big step and my heart is beating fast, every time I feel lost and alone, I pray to God and the feeling’s back again. In that moment I know he has answered me. I am safe. There’s nothing to be scared of. Everything is under control. I am protected by a love stronger than death. The whole world becomes my home because the Creator of the world is my father.

The Job God Gave Me

One night I woke up and cried. Tears came uninvited and they wouldn’t stop. Ever since, I have been crying inside. For all the combinations of words no one has ever written. For all the books no one has ever read. For all the people no one has ever loved. There are so many things to cry for in a lifetime. For every little part of me that has been wasted along the years. For every lost soul. For every shattered dream. For every little thing that has been left outside in the cold. For every car that has passed by my window without stopping for me. For every night that has gone by without revealing its mystery. For all the secrets unknown and unshared.

I could cry for almost anything. Both sadness and joy can bring tears into my eyes. Hatred and love. The beginning and the end of life. Alpha and Omega. And all that’s in between. The easiest thing in the world is to find something to cry for. Once you have come to a certain stage, it’s all a matter of looking around – or looking inside. Tears can be a light in the dark, a candle for our path. Tears make us human. For it is through tears that our humanity is shown. We haven’t chosen to be human and most surely we cannot change it. But we can cry for it. We can cry for our frail humanity. For our lost paradise. For the sheep that have gone astray. We can cry in the dark, when no one can see us, except God. If he loves us, he will cry with us. What a huge comfort that would be!

I remember crying my eyes out so many times. For simple things. For things that would normally pass unnoticed. But there was something inside that hurt and burned. An inner urge. A voice telling me: “Cry, my child. I have chosen you to cry for all the world. It is a privilege. This world is soiled. It needs as many tears as it can get to wash the dirt away. Pure, honest tears coming from a pure, honest heart.” I listened to that urge and cried. Night after night. Day after day. It became my job. Crying for things. Crying for beings. Crying for everything and for nothing. Redeeming all through my tears, because a thing someone has cried for can no longer be a worthless thing.

Two prayers

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When I was a kid, my greatest wish was to have a little brother or sister. So I wrote a long and touching letter to the stork, the bird that is supposed to bring babies in a basket. I left the letter on a field where one could see storks occasionally and I waited for the result. Of course, nothing happened. I wrote another letter to Father Christmas, or Santa Claus or whatever you like to call him. Christmas came and I got a lot of presents, but no trace of the one I’d been asking for. People say that in order to have your wish granted, you have to think of it when you see a shooting star. So I used to come out in the evenings and stare at the sky, hoping to find a shooting star. When I finally discovered one, I felt like I had finally touched the shores of heaven. Still nothing happened.

Not long after Christmas, my friend next door got a little sister. I was convinced that the stork, or Father Christmas or whoever was in charge with the delivery had switched addresses. Somebody at school told me it had something to do with my mom and dad, so I thought to myself: “If that’s the case, it’s going to be easy.” It usually didn’t take me long to convince them to buy me a soft toy or a doll I liked. But this time it was different. My mother’s eyes became sad when I mentioned the baby, she hugged me and found refuge in a painful silence. It’s pointless saying that I used to pray to God every single night with tears in my eyes, begging him to make my dream come true. He didn’t.

Later I found out there was much more to it. The story goes like this: My mother couldn’t have children. She had a problem that made her unable to carry a baby for nine months. She went through several treatments, saw several doctors, but nothing seemed to help. She kept losing pregnancy after pregnancy. However, she desperately wanted a baby and prayed for it with such an intensity that God finally answered her prayer and made a miracle.

One and the same wish. Two different prayers. One was answered, one was not. What makes the difference? One was the childish prayer of a little girl who wanted something, but had no clue what issues were involved in the matter. She just wanted something, full stop. The other was the mature prayer of a woman fully aware of the situation, who knew which were the chances but refused to give up. She entrusted her heart and her life to God and took a step forward through faith. That’s the story of me coming into this world.