2 April 2010

We found a journal a few days after Alex died. As we were planning the  funeral, our friend and neighbor Michael Waldstein read the entry below and immediately asked to read it aloud at the wake and comment on it. 

Alex is surely smiling, and laughing at least a little, at the notion that such an expert theologian was delighted with what he read in Alex's journal. But that's not the point; the point is that Alex's mind and heart had been well-formed by Catholic truth, and it shines through in his reflections (his heartfelt expression of the truths he had learned).

Future blog entries will explain a bit  more about the journal, and more of Alex's journal entries will be published.

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Prayer journal of Alex Klucik                                                             2 April 2010

Questions posed: What are you living for? How would you describe your approach toward material things? Do they help or hinder your spiritual life?

I am living for eternal happiness, to see God face to face. Isn’t that what all humans should be striving for? There is something wrong if they’re not. Even if they don’t know, isn’t it imprinted in man’s soul – longing for happiness?

If they’re not, then it must mean they are so lost in sin due to material things or anything in general that they don’t even know what happiness is, so they don’t want it. They just get caught up in the secular world. They give up their free will, selling their souls to the secular world. Thus, when they live their lives, they’re being slaves and strive for the secular stuff. Secular world = their happiness.

They don’t even realize it. This is why they say they are happy but they’re just completely brainwashed. But this is why God puts people into our lives: so they, or we, can free ourselves from slavery.

But if secular slaves are so stuck in their world and reject help from God, is it safe to say they’re hopeless and helpless? No! Hope never fails. The reason being is prayer.

Prayer is so important. It is why the most hopeless people convert. Every time a slave does convert, it’s a miracle. But prayer made that miracle. That’s why we should always pray for those non-believers.

Now me? I need to detach myself from material things more so than I am. It’s slowing down my plan for God, making me more and more not a free man, but a slave. The more slave I become, the more freedom I lose, thus making it harder to find truth.

Lord, I pray that I gain more knowledge about you and your works. It keeps me away from sin. Guide me to freedom. Let me not become prideful, but humble as I grow closer to you. Amen.