Don Bosco Novena- Day 4
25th January
Saturday, January 24, 2015
The Call, Consecration and Commission!
25th January, 2015: 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Jon 3: 1-5, 10; 1 Cor 7: 29-31; Mk 1:4-20
The Lord calls each of us, consecrates us to Godself and commissions us to live as God's messengers: that is the crux of true Christian living.
At times we live our Christian life as if we have nothing binding us with regard to our faith. Our faith in its very nature is binding..it is primarily a Call, not a choice!
Yes, we are called...Faith is a gift, a given, a call! Every person, whether he or she takes it seriously or not, every person baptised is in fact called; called to be children of God, to be co heirs to the Reign of God: but that does not come without a cost. That call comes with a commission: to go and speak, share, announce and proclaim the Good news of the Lord. The Lord equips us for that commission with the consecration that God accomplishes in us!
The Call requires a response; the consecration involves a drastic renunciation and the commission demands a dedicated obedience. Jonah, St. Paul and the first four apostles are given to us an example of all these three elements of being a messenger of God. Jonah is willing to respond to the call but not willing to renounce his will. God gives him a crash course on true obedience and wins him over. St. Paul says yes to the call and shines as a resounding role model with his drastic renunciation which he recommends to our consideration today. The first four apostles too are immediate in their following of the Call, because their renunciation was total.
All these for one reason: to take the Word of God to those whom God wanted them to!
Today the Church reminds us that we have, everyone of us, received a specific call: to take the Word to whom the Lord sends us: it could be to your own family members, or neighbours or colleagues or other friends or strangers. What enables us is our spirit of renunciation of anything that binds -career or social image, loved ones or friends- so that we are free for the Reign of God. The Commission is to take the Word far and wide...the primary means of doing it being our personal life of witness!
Let us take the call seriously, submit ourselves to God that God could consecrate us to Godself and carry out the commission given to us, taking care to become the message ourselves!
THE WORD AND THE SAINT
24th January, 2015: St. Francis De Sales
Heb 9: 2-3, 11-14; Mk 3: 20-21
Shall we go out of our mind?
They considered Jesus out of his mind, because of the zeal that he had for the Kingdom of God. There are many others in history who were called thus - crazy, mad, obsessed, etc. Today we celebrate the feast of St. Francis of Sales, a person so filled with the love and tenderness of God. He has inspired many a person in history; the two major congregations founded on his spirituality-the Salesians of Don Bosco and the Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales. The call today is to go out of our mind, to go crazy with the zeal for the Reign of God... Shall we?
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