Holiness

The saints are models and examples for us. The world calls them saints but they grieve over their sins. They stand closer to the divineness and that brightness makes them realize even very small failure a sin. For one to have awareness of sinfulness, it needs light of God.

The Ten Commandments is the norm we have to understand sins. This is not a Commandment to restrict us. But it is a Law of Love from a loving father to safeguard His children from being lost.

God has created holy that is the image and likeness of God. In a person besides holiness anything is an addition. So sin is an addition in a person but not holiness.

In spite of our effort to be holy, we fail to do some good thing we desire that is sin. So we are not committing sin but we fail to do Holy Things.

Lent is a time regain the lost percentage of holiness that was established by God at the time of creation. Holiness is the real status of man.

Back Home

The gospel speaks of a Samaritan woman whom, Jesus met near the well. She was in her prepared stage to return to the Father. God always reaches to the prepared heart. She was not courageous enough to make her final step to be a child of God. The evil power was holding her back. So Jesus helps her, giving spiritual strength to move forward.

She was feeling misfit to the society. That is the reason why she came to draw water alone. After meeting Jesus, the people not only accepted her but also started to listen to her. “Now we believe not because you have told but we have seen”

Jesus is teaching us to take challenges to help any person to come back to God, our real home.

Lent is a time for one to return back home. We are asked to help others to return home like Jesus to the Samaritan woman.

God's love

The parable of the prodigal son speaks of God’s compassion and concern. A father is chosen to shower God’s love. We too are chosen as instruments to express God’s love and concern. A father or mother is only an instrument to show or give His love.

The younger son forgot the communitarian aspect of his life.

Firstly at home there were many servants and cattle beside his father and brother. These all were using the entire property of the family for their daily living. He is asking for his property which is the half of it. He ignored the trouble that would come on this his action. He became so selfish.

Secondly he did not consult with anyone. Of course he might have consulted with his friends who were waiting to share his property. They cannot be counted as people with him; in fact they are against him because they are not for his goodness. Any decision of ours must be taken in consultation with our community. By community, I mean the persons who are close to us -in another words, all those who help me to do God’s will.

Even an information can be called consultation. He took a decision on his own.

God moves with him, the father is praying for him. So spirit worked.

On his return father provides spiritual clothing and ornaments and spiritual values.

Then they celebrated the Divine Mercy of God.

God wants to choose many as his instruments to be used...... Why not we be ready?

Sharing

Sharing brings us closer each other. It is an expression of love and concern. Sharing among the Liberians is something remarkable.

If you are hungry, go to them! They share with you whatever they have. They have the habit of sharing their food with anyone near them. I visited a family in the evening. They were preparing food of the day. In what they called soup, there were cassava leaves, chicken, fish, vegetables, etc., etc. They mixed it with rice. They invited me to join the four ready to relish the meals. We shared the two spoons available too.

All of us ate from the same plate. Ordinary Liberians eat only once a day. They share whatever they have, though insufficient, with all those who are with them. If you are one among them and you do not have a place to stay, do not worry. They are ready to give you shelter. They cherish these values learnt during the seven years of civil war, from 1989 to 1996. They ran for life and took shelter in the forests. All of them took care of each other. They were not sure at what time and how one would die. They walked miles and miles. They survived on leaves and insects and learnt good lessons of sharing whatever they had.

Even today, as you find them at meals, they are ready with this welcoming note, “come, let us eat.” Even the little Liberian children follow this unwritten directive which we often forfeit in our “civilized” life settings. They do not start eating before they invite those who are near.

Lent

Lent is a universal call to all the people to reform, repent and renew their lives by resolving to live more in keeping with the teachings of the Gospel. Beyond the traditional practices of prayer, fasting and alms giving, many other devotions and spiritual projects can be pursued.

One basic Lenten duty is to concentrate on God’s goodness more than on our own sinfulness and thus expand the narrow bounds of our thinking.

Fasting

-Give your family an extra dose of love each day

-Before making any judgments, recall how Jesus overlooks our faults

-Hold on to Jesus’ promise that He has a perfect plan for your life

-When you find yourself about to complain close your eyes and recall some of the little moments of joy Jesus has given you

-Work on forgiving those who may have hurt you

-Try to reduce your spending by 10%

Works of Mercy

The emphasis in the Ten Commandments is on the external and the tone is basically negative. By contrast, the Gospel of Mathew presents the Works of Mercy. These have become the new commandments for the followers of Jesus. Salvation is being determined not according to the way we have lived the Ten Commandments, but on how well we have observed the Works of Mercy.

We may think of the sins we have committed and worry about how they have separated us from God. Salvation is equated not to the traditional Ten Commandments but to how well we have served the less fortunate individuals in our midst. The surest and most direct road to salvation is to be found in performing the Works of Mercy.

Lent: Fasting

The purpose of fasting is for achieving a certain goal – an improvement in our interior life. We have to fulfil our basic duties to God before fasting will do any good. To fast and yet neglect these more fundamental responsibilities would be to fast in vain. First of all we must have faith in our hearts. Then we must perform works of mercy and practice justice in our dealings with our neighbours. And all of these are to be done in an overall spirit of Christian love.

This mode of spiritual thinking and decent living must be present first. Otherwise, everything else we do of a religious nature will be of little account. Are we needlessly oppressing others by our words, habits or any? If we want God to smile upon us, we must first release our captives. Then we will be ready to move on to other more advanced levels of spirituality. Perhaps at this point we find ourselves unable to fast in a way which is truly pleasing to God. If that is the case, Lent is an excellent time to reform. It is a season of many graces.

Family as singular

An important element to strengthen our bond in marriage is to develop faith in the Lord, keep Him in the midst of everything in life. If only we can trust and have faith in Him in good times and bad, we could develop the firmness in our relationship.

In our present world one’s ego is tested every moment and to resist that temptation is the greatest of all. This is the fourth element in our lives, the terrible virus which is much more dangerous than any other disease. How we can keep this infection from spreading into our family union is important to both the partners. This relative strength will later develop better into their children as it will transform all what the scriptures describe into practical reality. The union of the Holy Spirit will be respected only if we deny the temptations of the world. How we can cope up and continue to live sensibly is for each of us to take up our burden of crosses and continue with respect.

The evident egos could be many but to start with we can put all our desires to rest. Avoid anything which could be draining the resources by giving priorities to the need. It is like fasting for everything by having such a control in our life. Too much of anything is dangerous but to be contended with our limits is important than to compare.

With the salaries that are now prevailing in our country the following generations will not have much to complain in terms of money if they are in control. It is also too much money which brings in wrong cultural and moral values to break many unions. Hence we need to guard ourselves with the power of the Lord to strengthen our minds to withstand this test of the times.

-Donald D’Cruz

Lent

The parable of Good Samaritan warns us about the possibility of degradation in our spiritual life or journey. It says that the man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. Jerusalem represents something spiritual, something higher, where as Jericho is something plain, material and ordinary aspects.

The robbers represent the evil power that snatches away the spiritual life perspectives of a person. This is how what we consider most valuable in our life is damaged by evil power.

The priest here, I would say, represents his wrong perceptions about spirituality.

Levites give importance to ritual and cultic obligations but neglect the neighbour. The second one, Levite represents the one’s own unwritten laws which one thinks to be true. The laws he had formed and were following also did not help him.

The Samaritan represents Jesus. Where one’s faults spiritual outlook and self made laws may fail God comes to his aid with a fatherly love. God comes to rescue us and fills us with his life. He helps us to attain our spiritual goal.

This lent must be a time to have a correct attitude to spiritual life, laws and above all a Good Samaritan to others. It must begin from home; to my dearest one.

Glimpses of Mission Experience in Liberia – Part 2

Sincere tears communicate the same sentiments and fill the eyes of others especially the one for whom the tears were. It expresses love as well as gratitude. I had experienced farewell at different times. Nevertheless, sob of those Liberian children who looked at bleak and insecure days to come, filled my eyes too. Besides at the public thanking and farewell, a group came forward for a personal meeting. They repeated, “Father Lawrence, it’s just because of you, we all are alive today. We don’t want to miss you.” I told them that the civil war was over and they had already started to build up their life. Our church and Parish Hall were renovated. In a way, the life was taking on a positive swing.

God and You

In the preaching of Jesus, He made many references to what David did on various occasions. It is said He is“Son of David”. We can find many parallels in them.

1) David began his reign when he was thirty years of age, the same age at which Jesus began his public life.
2) Our Lord spent fort days in the desert preparing for his ministry and David ruled his country for a period of forty years.
3) David and Jesus came from the same genealogical line and both were kings.
4) The central city in the life of David was Jerusalem, as it also was for Jesus.
5) Like David, Jesus never took revenge against enemies. The companions of David advised him to take revenge against Saul before he takes, he did not. The disciples of Jesus advised him to call fire from heaven against enemies, he did not.
6) The tomb of David is located in Jerusalem also of Jesus.

David was a rejected child but God send Samuel to tell David, that he is a chosen one.
God did not allow David to build the temple because his hands were stained with blood. David had some short comings and limitations. Yet Jesus takes him, to be his hero. David’s spiritual qualities were much more than his limitations. And also he always neutralised his failures with penance, lamentations and love for God and others.

God looks at us like a loving father who is ready to receive the child when he returns. It gives lots of hope for us.

David had enough time to repent, do penance, purify him and then be glorified.

Will I too get enough time….

Revenge

One of the many titles by which Jesus was known is “Son of David.” Both Mathew and Luke trace the genealogy of our Lord through Joseph back to David, and beyond. Jesus was a Son of David in many more ways than one. For example, like David, he never acted out of revenge. In 1 Sam 24:3-21, we see David in an ideal position to destroy King Saul who has been following him with the explicit intention to have him killed. David’s companions unanimously urge him to get Saul first, before Saul succeeds in accomplishing his evil mission. David briefly considers the possibility and then flatly rejects the advice of his companions. He spares the life of Saul. One of the reasons why David does not strike out in revenge is his tremendous respect for the office of the king.

Revenge may have some appeal to us, too, especially if we have been mercilessly hounded and hurt by another. Others may encourage us to seek revenge and tell us that it is the wise and proper thing to do. We, however, must make that decision and be prepared to live with it. The fact that David could reject adverse advice, control his revengeful feelings, and manifest such outstanding respect for the office of the king, shows how very well qualified he was to later become the king.