Fr. Jose Kaimlett One match saved the lives of 12 shipwrecked Polynesian sailors stranded for 3 months on a barren Pacific reef, 325 miles south of the Fiji Islands. After their 50-foot boat struck a reef and sank, all they managed to salvage were a few dozen cans of food, an aluminum pot, a kettle, a rubber tube and one match. Their water supplies were lost and there was no fresh water on the reef. If they could boil sea water in the pot, channel it through the tube into the kettle, where it would be condensed into drinking water, they could survive. Everything depended on the one match to light the fire. Would it light? It did; and they had all the water they needed. They guarded the fire day and night, and it was still burning three months later, when finally they were rescued.
_ James Keller
Their very survival itself depended on the survival of the fire; so day and night, with utmost diligence they kept the fire alive. So too, the survival of our spiritual life depends on safeguarding our spiritual values alive. Once we let the fire die, it is not easily rekindled.
