Day six and seven of OASIS 2014.

27^th November, 2014.

Greetings from Wahlwiller, in the Netherlands where the participants of OASIS from our five provinces (Chile, Ghana Indonesia, Malawi and Netherlands) are gathered. We have started our second week. The theme for the week is “I WILL SPRINKLE CLEAN WATER OVER YOU TO MAKE YOU CLEAN.” The weather is cool here with temperature coming down to 3˚C with some showers here and there.

I would like to share with you what happened on 26^th and  the 27^th November, 2014 as we journey in the desert. Wednesday started with a prayer led by Netherlands. We watched a twelve minute film about charity. At the end of the prayer service each participant was given a name. This name was to be kept secret the whole day and be revealed in the evening prayer service.

The morning session was taken by Sr. Claudia Theinert. She gave an input on Spirituality and Religion. She described spirituality and religion as a way of redemption and liberation. The heart of spirituality is the GOD-EXPERIENCE. Spirituality and religion need each other. Some questions for reflection were:

• How do i experience the structures and policies of our church?
• What is my pain, what do i wish could be different?
• What is my longing and dream for my religion?
• What is my joy?

After coffee break she continued enlightening us with Apostolic Spirituality. In her explanation she said we are invited to experience the graces of unity, between the contemplative dimention of our life and our apostolic activity as a fruit of our being with God in love. Our apostolic mission is the heart of our spirituality.

 Apostolate is not the same as work. Work can become apostolate by the commitment and love with which it is done and by faith conviction which carries it. Our apostolate needs a good human setting: a community.

The last presentation was about The Search for Christian Spirituality. Sister presented to us a gift, a wooden ring to each member representing a Holy Hole. This is a hole that each person encounters-a deep longing for connectedness. A deeply felt empty space which can only be filled by God.

Questions for reflection were:

• Can you get in touch with this part of inner emptiness?
• Do you normally avoid that emptiness trying to fill it up with work or play...?

 After supper we gathered for evening prayer. It was time to reveal the name of the person we were given in the morning. First you were to say something about the person. Good things that you know he has done and then deep the name in the water which was in bottle and sprinkle some water over him or her as the theme of the week stipulates. It took over an hour but it was as if it took twenty minutes because it was so touching and enjoyable.

Today the day began with a prayer service led by Chile. It also stated with a short film of about six minutes. A school girl who was talk of the town that she had a child with a sugar daddy meanwhile the truths was that she took an abandoned baby from the road side and looked after her as her own child.

Sr. Claudia came again with an input on The Spiritual Way. A way of continual transformation. In different religions the way is a central metaphor for the way of the human being towards God. We encounter a God of Exodus. As the Israelites in the wilderness we also need to transform ourselves as we journey with this God of ours.

There times when we choose our own way especially when we get into a crisis. This makes us loose our focus/goal. Something to remember, we cannot reform ourselves but become reformed by our surrender to God’s love.

Questions for reflection:

• What was of may be is a crisis in your life?
• What are you doing with a crisis?
• What do you need to be able to go through a crisis in a life-giving way?

Note: Each crisis is for God an opportunity to transform a situation of disaster towards a situation of liberation.

Reporting from Wahlwiller, this is Emmanuel Mtegha.