Prayer

Prayer as a way of “accustoming” oneself to being with God brings into being men and women who are not motivated by selfishness, by the desire to possess or by the thirst for power, but by gratuitousness, by the desire to love, by the thirst to serve, in other words who are motivated by God; and only in this way is it possible to bring light to the darkness of the world.
Benedict XVI, June 20, 2012

Culture shock
When we pray, we feel this 4 stages of culture shock: Honeymoon, Negotiation, Adjustment, Mastery and the interdependence. We try to adjust our worldly cultural value, with the heavenly one. At first, we feel great. We love the peace and joy that it brings. After some time, we realize that the worldly culture differ with the heavenly one. We feel anxious, will this new culture bring us true and lasting peace? After a while we adjust. We know that our goal is to be in heaven. We want to leave behind our worldly desire and embrace God's way of living. Afterwards, we would master the host culture. I believe this occur only after we spend years and years of prayer and discipline. It doesn't come easily. But when it comes, we know that it's due to the grace of God.

Here is prayer. We learn to pray in order to communicate with God. We would like to give thanks. We would want to love. We want to serve the Lord who created us in the first place. Truly, through these 4 steps will we bring light into the darkness of the world. Let us pray that He will guide us each step of the way.