It was 4 o’clock one hot August afternoon. The sun was beating down with all its strength. I ran out of the house because I had received an urgent call to attend a sick person. I headed towards my car, without thinking. I jumped in and put my hands on the steering wheel and... Ow... oh... ouch! I didn’t know were to grab it! It burned me terribly. It seemed like pure fire.  

I jumped quickly out of the car and fortunately there was a watering can full of water near by.  It seemed more like hot tea than water. I dipped my hands in the water and I moistened the steering wheel to cool it off. During all this, my neighbor saw me and said, “Father, why do you keep your car out in the sun when you have a garage?” I stopped to think and I said, “You’re right. I’ve gotten into the habit of leaving it out and I forgot about the garage that I built to keep it in.”


The next day, I decided to follow the advice of my neighbor.  I cleaned out the garage, I put on my old cassock and when I opened the garage... My Lord! It wasn’t a garage; it was a junk pile! I rolled up my sleeves and said, “It’s now or never!” And it’s true, there are times that you have to take the decision to do certain things right away or you will never do them. I spent a whole morning cleaning my garage. I found all sorts of things. The first question that I asked myself was: WHERE AM I GOING TO START? And I started. I took everything out, I organized it and the space that was left over was so big that not only one car fits in the garage, but two. All of this made me think about you, my friends.

THIS IS MY INSTRUCTION:

We have to put order in our lives.  Everything in its place. Take out what’s in the way. Throw away what is of no use and make a space for God in our hearts. He should be the center. If we put Him in the center, we will realize that there is also a place for the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Just as two cars fit in my garage.

It is an easy password: The garage was built to keep cars in it and our heart is made to belong to God.