Fitful sleep and a really weird dream last night. Arrived at the Vigil prayer service in the grips of a free-floating anxiety . . . about what? Was it just the dream? What exactly am I worried about—is it nothing at all? It feels like everything. "Do not let your heart be troubled". He keeps saying this; first in the Thursday gospel and then again on Sunday. It doesn't sound like a suggestion. It sounds like a command. Splendid. Now I'm being disobedient and fretting about that. In my mind, I suddenly see flash the image of the "Savannah Cat" my sister just bought: a long, lean, spotted cat you get when you cross a domestic Siamese cat with a Serval, a big eared wild cat from Africa. Savannah cats are beautiful, expensive, relatively rare and, temperamentally, a little weird. It's fun watching "Zura" suddenly leap straight up three feet into the air . . . and also a reminder that you have a wild animal in the house. Julie is a little nervous about leaving her home alone. Zura is inside me. I also have the feeling that I am somehow "not at home". I am away from myself this morning and that spotted cat is roaming from room to room inside my empty house. If I were at home, I wouldn't worry, but I feel as if I am somehow "away" from home and so my heart is troubled. Yeah—I need to go home. That's what Jesus is saying. Home is "My Fathers' House"; where a place has been prepared for me, that where the Son is I may also be. Jesus isn't telling me to get rid of my exotic pet. I am part rational and part animal. That's o.k. I like that about me. It makes me creative and spontaneous. He is calling me home. Jesus isn't telling me to get rid of the animal but to be at home with him, at home with God. At home with myself.

Father Raphael