Private Devotional Worlds

 Hope is the sign of a true Christian. If we are able to live our life in hope, we can also find joy though we walk through difficult times. Our life as a community, and our prayers and pious practices are to share our joys and pains, and make the encounter with God a living reality. Devotions use different things, postures, colours, tines, fragrance where by our  touch of the sacred can be more sensible and meaningful.  Something that is very important is the interaction through  which our life receives new hope and strength.  

Often there is a risk that the whole life and its value may be defined as being within a number of pious practices. We may be creating a devotional world for ourselves. We cannot practice Christian hope being in a private devotional world. Christ himself lived prayerfully, but never closing himself in a devotional world. Present day spiritual leaders seem to encourage people to bind themselves to such private devotional worlds both as an individual and as a particular community. They remain with fixed believes, ideas, perspectives  and  are somehow not ‘permitted’ to dare for an encounter with a different idea, belief or perspective.