Why do we pray? Jesus chastens the pharisees for praying in public, but don’t we do exactely that when we gather in the church? What is it then that makes the prayer true? That might depend on what we want. What motivates us. Where de we get our energy from?

Do you remember the physics class in your school? One of the first topics that the children learn is thermodynamics. In particular, thermodynamic equilibrium. It has something to do with energy. What do we know about it? We know that energy moves things, animates things. This moving principle manifests itself only in the relation between different elements. In the system. In applied physics, it means that in order to keep something moving and alive, we need to know the right proportion of elements in the system that allows to preserve the energy.

One of the classic examples to illustrate that is the oxygen consumption principle. The fire cannot burn without oxygen. If you light a small candle and then put a clear glass upside-down over that candle, you can watch the flame slowly extinguish as it uses up all of the oxygen that you have trapped around it with the glass.

Fire starts because there is a chemical reaction that produces the light and the heat. However, what keeps the reaction going is the right proportion of oxygen.

Our life is similar. We depend on the equilibrium and the proportion. If we translate the word “equilibrium” in context of our life, we can call it wellbeing.

If equilibrium is wellbeing, then the lack of equilibrium is somewhat damaging to the wellbeing.

You eat too much – you feel tired and sleepy. You are not active anymore. On the long run, if you keep exaggerating with cakes, you get cholesterol problems. If you constantly undereat, it is just as damaging. The nervous system wears down and organs fail. In either case, the physical wellbeing is threatened.

But we are not merely physical creatures. The equilibrium on which our life depends is more complex. There is more to it than just biology and physics. We are a mix of body, psyche and soul.

Our body is not the only thing that needs to be nourish. We take care of our psyche, which means our mental health. We are trying to choose carefully the information we consume – the books we read, the movies we watch, the people we spend time with. We are trying to limit our use of social media.

All that we do because we understand that what we see today will become a part of us. It will enter our memory and, eventually, our heart.

What we call our heart, our will, is the invisible interior compass that directs our desires. The compass where the needle is never a rest, but is constantly searching, moving and trying to align itself with the desired object. Sometimes we follow the compass without giving it a second though. Without asking - where will it take me? Where am I actually going? What is the needle really pointing at?

Marketing people know it very well. You have probably noticed how the advertising algorithms work on the internet. Here in the office we have two computers. We are ordering a lot on Amazon for the church. Candles, incense, communion wine.

Because the browser memorizes the search history, we keep receiving notices from the online ecclesiastical shops all the time. Oh, you were looking for a paschal candle, would you also like to look at vestments? Do you want to follow a new online course on the Bible?

A personalized customer service. Google thinks it knows what kind of person you are, because according to Google, you are what you want. Nothing new in this assumption.

Here in Rome, in the second century BC, the poet Juvenal formulated the principle of “bread and games”.

Desire, according to Juvenal, is what characterizes the people. He laments that they are ready to serve anyone who is offering cheap food and entertainment. You do not need to be a skilled politician to gain the popular power. All you need to do is confirm people in their desires. You need to confirm that what they want is a right thing and then proceed providing it. Show them what they want and they will be support you.

No wonder Christ was not extremely popular. How can be popular he, who tells you that your desires are not all right. That your inner compass is broken and will bring you nowhere, unless you amend it. That you are not your desires. That there is a third component to your equilibrium and it is the crucial one. You have the spirit in you. The spirit that does not have its origin in this world.

The spirit makes you go beyond the laws of thermodynamics and the laws of marketing. It makes you free. However, to be free, you have to accept the idea that there is an alternative to freedom and the alternative is real. The alternative is slavery.

You have to accept that the freedom might be actually less comfortable than slavery, because it does not promise you an easy life. It does not promise you bread and entertainment. It does not promise to respond to your every wish. The only thing it promises is God and his peace.

In today’s epistle, Paul underlines this bewildering characteristic typical for the servers of God. They are able to reconcile the irreconcilable. They go against the logic of this world.

They are able to keep kindness and patience in terrible and disturbing circumstances. Beatings, imprisonment, riots, labor, hunger. There is no oxygen – but the fire keeps burning! They remain opened to others despite the earthly calamities. They suffer just as any other human does. They are destined to become dust, just as any other leaving creature. Yet – they are alive and rejoice.

They seem to be under a different set of rules than the rest of humanity. They can keep the fire burning where there is not enough air to breath. This light is with them in the darkest of places.

An English historian Robert Conquest has a book about the Stalin’s regime, where he describes the Soviet labor camps. He quotes the words of the camp doctor to the prisoner: “You were brought here not to live, but to suffer and die. If you stay alive, you either worked less than you should, or you ate more than you should”.

These words show that, in fact, these were not working camps but death camps.

An atheist prisoner from the camp writes in his memoirs how the Christians struck him. Having fulfilled the impossible working norm, they paired up with the weak and had strength to take on themselves part of their work. By doing so, they gave the others the opportunity to survive.

Because the story is of recent times, it is easier for us to visualize. But such stories are under every piazza and every church in Rome.

They are not mere relics from the past, remote and legendary figures. In God there is no past and no future. Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. The same Spirit that gave strength to people in Stalinist camps gave courage to the apostles martyred in Rome. The same Spirit finds us in the darkest places and keeps the fire of life burning in us when there is no oxygen left. The same Spirit shows us the way and amends our compass when it is broken because of chaos, because of too many distractions, because of too many problems, because of tiredness, loneliness, uncertainty.

This Spirit is not only available in exclusive and extreme circumstances. He is the one who upholds our equilibrium. God is not something we simply know exists. Someone we only meet in the church on Sunday. He is a part of who we are. A part of our threefold nature.

To be in touch with God is a matter of human wellbeing even more than the food and psychological comfort is. All the Christian practices – prayer, almsgiving, fasting - have only one goal, to reconcile you to God. To make your heart one with His.

When the Pharisees pray in public, they miss the purpose. Prayer becomes a performance with the only goal to show that the action was taken. Like when I was a teenager my mother asked me to clean the room and I shoveled everything under the bed. Which was useless, because my goal was not to make anything clean, but to perform an action that showed that the action was taken. Even though I formally did what was required, my will did not correspond to my mother’s project of a clean and cozy house.

As we enter the Lenten period, what is that will make our practices real? What is it that will make us arrive to Easter with the rooms that are actually clean? What is the direction on the compass that we need to follow in order to find peace and freedom?

There are no instructions written down. God is not a mechansm with a button to press to attain a result. Not scientific experiment where if you mix A and B, the outcome will surely be C. He is a person.

The only way to relate to Him is the way of trust. To trust that if you surrender your heart to Him, He will make it prosper, as nothing else will.