Lectio Divina in the Land of the Holy Spirit

Fr Piotr Kot* was our guest speaker during our Province retreat this year. We asked him some questions regarding his stay in Australia. Here is what he shared with us.

You spent two weeks in Australia and had an opportunity to meet all the sisters from NSW and WA. Was there something that surprised you? How did you find the diversity of our communities here?

I am impressed by the Sisters, by your Nazareth simplicity in living everyday life and your commitment to the work of evangelization, which is expressed in various ways. I really like the saying of St. Francis of Assisi, who repeated to his brothers: “Preach the Gospel, sometimes also with words.” When I spoke with the Sisters, I saw that you have been very close to this way of life since the beginning of your ministry in NSW and WA. Isn't accompanying families in passing on the faith to their children preaching the Gospel? Or is closeness to the elderly, the lonely, and the sick not showing the love of Christ? Or is working in hospitals, which requires sensitivity to restore dignity to wounded and marginalised people, not showing them the face of Christ? It is a beautiful mission that you carry out with great zeal. I think that diversity in communities can be very helpful in realising the charism. Coming from different cultures and social strata, we have different sensitivities to certain social issues and treat certain matters differently.

During your stay, you delivered great Lectio Divina sessions to the sisters. Do you recall any significant moments from those encounters?

I thank God for the time of Lectio Divina. It was an amazing time of the Lord's coming in the Word. But I will not forget this retreat for one reason. I had been preparing for it long before, but in the last month before my arrival, I prayed a lot to the Lord to show me what is important for the Sisters now, because I personally had no idea who the Sisters were and how they lived their daily lives. During prayer, I had a strong urge to begin the retreat with a meditation on Abraham's faith. I even shared this with my colleagues, saying that I couldn't get this thought out of my mind. I decided to follow this inspiration, and later I saw that this topic was extremely important to many of the Sisters. Abraham's journey of faith returned at the end of the retreat during spiritual conversations.

You had an opportunity to see a few places in Australia. What are your impressions about this part of the Land Down Under? Do you have any favourite places?

I am very grateful to the Sisters for opening Australia to me. It is a beautiful experience. Four things captivated me the most. The first is the Blue Mountains. They have something of the depth of God, something of His mysterious beauty. The second is the spirituality of the Aborigines, which I was able to learn a little about by looking at an album with their illustrations for the Bible. Amazing spiritual insights! Another thing is the modernity of Sydney. Walking through the streets of the city, I thought about how wise and good God is. He keeps nothing for Himself. He shares with us everything He has, including His wisdom. Sydney made a huge impression on me. And the last, but very important experience was my encounter with Polish culture. I saw that sometimes Poles living abroad are more attached to Polish culture and Christian values than their compatriots in their homeland. In my free time, I liked to come to the  Polish War Memorial Chapel in Marayong to pray for Poles who had migrated to Australia. I looked at the image of the Mother of God made of Siberian tree bark, or at the Blessed Martyrs from Nowogródek, and I thought about how God always has the last word in history, which is RESURRECTION. It is worth becoming friends with God.

*PhD. Piotr Kot, Rev.

The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin

Institute of Biblical Studies

Department of Biblical Theology and Proforistics

Faculty of Theology

Abraham J. Heschel Center for Catholic-Jewish Relations

ORCID: 0000-0001-6583-0601

www.kul.pl, www.heschel.kul.pl