I was participating in an ecclesial service in a neighboring parish. When we were done, a friend who lives in our neighborhood joined me, asking that we accompany one another on the way back. He revealed a deep-seated sadness. He said: \u201cmore than thirty years ago, I was accepted into a university abroad to study medicine. Then my trip was faced with obstacles. Had it taken place, I would have been another person today\u201d! I took it upon myself to remind him of some of the positive things about his staying: his job; his marriage; his children\u2026 as well as his parents who have overcome their old age with unimpaired youthfulness. He took back the words from where I left off. He said, \"You are right.\" Then he told me: \u201cOnce, the institution in which I work assigned me to work abroad for a whole summer. My parents accompanied me to the airport. When the plane took off, my father seemed to me, from the window, near which I was seated, that he was faceless. His face became all wet before he collapsed to the ground\u201d. The communion of life is both life and joy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was participating in an ecclesial service in a neighboring parish. When we were done, a friend who lives in our neighborhood joined me, asking that we accompany one another on the way back. He revealed a deep-seated sadness. He said: \u201cmore than thirty years ago, I was accepted into a university abroad to study ...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88889,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[343],"tags":[1668,2840,1293,2839,1241],"class_list":["post-7590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections","tag-family-bonds","tag-life-reflections","tag-orthodox-christian-life","tag-sadness-and-joy","tag-spiritual-growth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fatherelia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fatherelia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fatherelia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fatherelia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88889"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fatherelia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7590"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fatherelia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7878,"href":"https:\/\/www.fatherelia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7590\/revisions\/7878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fatherelia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fatherelia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fatherelia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}