TO LIVE MEANS TO BE ON THE WAY

In order to meet Christ, to find Him you have to go on the road, on a quest. To meet Christ you must decide to leave the known and friendly situation, you have to leave the beaten path and tracts of your comfortable, convenient -and very often- sinful life and hit the road, through the desert. It is worth noting that God revealed Himself to the Israelites in the wilderness after they left Egypt and decided to hit the road just across the desert. It is worth noting that the great prophets of the Old Testament, also met God in the desert (Ezekiel, Isaiah, Elijah). It is worth noting that St. John the Baptist, was also acquainted with the desert. The Magi in today's Gospel also reached Bethlehem after traveling far and difficult journey through the desert.

There's definitely some regularity, some deeper meaning. God reveals Himself in the desert, where no one and nothing -we do- mind and disturb, where there are no distractions and the "entertainments", where I am alone with the infinite. Desert, especially at night, is a place where I can count on one light in which I can see with great clarity only one aim and one destiny. A "darkness that covers the earth and thick darkness that envelops the peoples" may be lit only by a single star, the star of eternal truth, the star of faith. It can not, however, be only a momentary fascination, or transient, emotional infatuation. Such journey through the desert in quest for Christ practically never ends in our lives. We can never tell that we already arrived. I cannot say: "I have him, I found him". God never really could end His revelation, because He is the Infinite, and only at infinity will I be able to know HIM.

He continually reveals Himself to us (unless we are disposed to this and as far as we left to go to the desert) and constantly the revelation will be continued as long as we do not give up in searching. What is the biggest problem of our time? Is it not just temporary, momentary rapture, instability, lack of patience, lack of perseverance? Why break up the marriages, why so many people give up out of the way of religious vocation or the priesthood? Why are so many things we start and do not bring to an end, why are we so often discouraged? Is not it because the desert and what we discover there scares us? Is it not that why the "star disappears from the horizon?"

We bring together some gifts, but quickly discouraged, we do not see the purpose of our journey, do not come to the purpose, because we messed up the path, because we lost the guiding star, we have lost the sense of our journey, because we are choked and flooded by the troubles of everyday life, because we are scared of the inconveniences and hardships of the journey. That is why we are trying to arrange for us a convenient and comfortable life. And then the road through the desert, and thus the purpose of the road disappear, and the only thing left is temporal struggle for existence and survival.

So, our life is only a trip, it's just the way across the desert in search for the "house of bread" - Bethlehem, where Jesus is, and the table, and the bread, and light, and infinite life. To live means to be constantly on the way. It means to continually seek the star that leads us through the desert to the house of the Father, Who is revealed there, in the desert.