May 29, 2007

It was the last day of the pilgrimage. Nobody wanted to return back to the world – and how could anyone desire that anyway?
After we’ve spent ten days with people we have never met – and at the same time felt like we have known them for ages, as if from long before the pilgrimage – how could we now separate?
After being able to share with everyone our deepest thirst for God, how could we return home where so few can understand us?
After praising God and singing day and night, how could we return back home where we are absorbed by our daily duties?
After we have ALL been ONE under the name of God yet among those who before the pilgrimage were strangers, how could we return home and be alone now among our own?

Those were ten refreshing days I will never forget. The bonds between the members of the TLIG family are tightened. The youth group was amazing! The songs were inspiring! The praising was powerful! The faces were happy, joyful and luminous! Every mass, every prayer, every song commended a deep spiritual experience! The presence of God was noticeable! A foretaste of the Kingdom To Come!

Now we are back. The pilgrimage has ended but the effect it produced in our hearts and our spirit remains. We received a fire in our hearts, and we are to show this fire of love to the world! It is up to us to keep this fire burning, by being open to the Holy Spirit, through prayers and action!

O Lord Yahweh, I ask of you only this:
In the Holy Name of Jesus Christ
and through the intercession
of the Most Holy Virgin and all the Saints
send your Holy Spirit in the whole world
and set this world on FIRE,
a fire of LOVE and UNDERSTANDING,
and purge this world from the wickedness
so that all the nations may be renewed
and Your Holy Name be glorified again
Amen.

Thanasis Ioannidis, TLIG Youth