An  aha moment 

For  two long,  frustrating and demanding years, I had been instructing a  brilliant young Jewish woman in the  mysteries of the  Catholic Faith. She was  too bright for me. At every turn she would clean my clock intellectually in spite of  all my fancy syllogisms, theology and history.  I could get nowhere with her.

However, somewhere in her soul or psyche was a kind of gnawing  wish for some sort of Faith. She was an agnostic, leaning slightly towards atheism but too intelligent to accept it.  She, somewhat irked with me,  asked was there anything further I could offer her. In desperation , I volunteered what she called a stupid prayer. The prayer of the atheist.

                           Oh, God, if there  is a God, help me !

Some time later, she wrote me that she had been to a movie which she had to leave. She was experiencing the most urgent  need to find a Catholic church immediately.  On entering the Church, she genuflected and when her knee touched the floor she was flooded with a belief in God  which she has deeply retained to this day  when she is now 80 years old.

Basically, this was a moment (to me) in my life I could call  “a ah—-  out of the blue— cloudbursts of joy—-elation—-cataclysmic  surprise——-floating on air— bring me giants to slay—.   A moment  never to be repeated  but never to be forgotten. A moment when the Lord used me to help a good person move towards Him——but in His, not my, way..

Certainly,  for her it was THE  ah ha exprience.  To meet the Lord  not through human strivings or skills, but through something simple,rustic and even stupid like  The Atheist’s prayer.”  There is a lesson to be learned here.ac