MEDITATION TIP —Sixth Sunday of Easter,
May 14, 2023

“Be ready at all times to give an account to anyone who demands an explanation of the hope you hold.” (1 Pet. 3:15)

　The basis of our hope is the certainty that tomorrow will come. No matter how much we mourn, the day that has passed will never return. But since the birth of the earth, there has not been a day when the sun has not risen. Tomorrow will keep coming to us forever. What it means that tomorrow will visit us is that even if we fail today, we have a chance to start again tomorrow, that today’s tears will wipe themselves away tomorrow, and that today’s wounds will heal themselves tomorrow. Since its creation 13.8 billion years ago, the universe has been evolving and developing in cycles, repeating births and deaths. Human beings are also part of the universe. Many great individuals and saints believed that if that is the case, things, including human society, will surely improve. That is why we must speak about things in the future tense and not in the past tense. If we speak in the past tense, there will always be complaints and dissatisfaction, and it will be difficult for new and good things to come into being. Only by talking about things in the future tense can hope be born.

　Newton’s law of universal gravitation states that not only are all objects on earth attracted to the earth, but also all objects in the universe are attracted to each other. Certainly, bad things also attract each other, but prayer that overcomes this will inspire prayer, and love will attract love. In the same way, hope has even greater power when a person decides to live for someone else, rather than just to do his/her best individually. It also allows people to overcome their own limitations as well. People with serious illnesses can also recover more easily, as their immune system is strengthened by their determination to live for someone else. Hope is the greatest immunological force. Thus, real hope can only be generated by the enthusiasm to face people and to live for them. So “hope does not deceive us.” (Romans 5:5)

　Prayer is the most powerful energy a human being can exert, a force as real as the earth’s gravitational pull, said Alexis Carrel, who was once awarded the Nobel Prize in Medical Physiology. As a physician himself, he cited numerous instances where patients who were no longer curable recovered through the power of solemn prayer. The earth’s gravitational pull is something that cannot be felt with the body, yet almost no one denies that it exists. How then can anyone deny the power of prayer, which is an invisible energy and the gravitational pull of God? Without gravitational force, humans and all other objects would be weightless. In the same way, without prayer, which is God’s gravitational force, people would certainly fall into a state of weightlessness in their hearts.

　We must not forget the words of Mahatma Gandhi: “If it were not for prayer, I would have gone mad long ago”.

 　　　　　(Contributed by Father Akabae)