THE WORD IN LENT -14

LET YOUR CHOICES BE YOURS

Second week in Lent: Tuesday, 3rd Mar, 2015

Is 1: 10, 16-20; Mt 23: 1-12

Let no one be responsible for your judgments, your behaviours, your decisions and your choices! That is what Jesus meant when he said, let no one be your father or master here on earth. For a Hebrew, father would mean that person who decides everything for you! You have nothing else to say, because the father's decision is final. The master is some one who holds a total authority over you; what he decides to be right has to be right for you; what he decides to be desirable has to be desirable for you! The point that Jesus is making here is that, a person will be responsible for one's own choices. It is no more the case that a person does something or decides on something and passes the blame on to some one else: his or her father, or generations before, or persons in authority. Let each one take responsibility for one's own choices, challenges the Word today. Your choices determine your destiny, apart from the all pervading love that is God. It is this love that has invested us with such a great personal will and freedom, using which we are challenged to choose God and all that pertains to God. 

THE WORD IN LENT -13

The Criterion from Christ

Second week in Lent: Monday, 2nd Mar, 2015.

Dan 9: 4b-10; Lk 6: 36-38

Yesterday as I stepped out of the Sacristy, after the Sunday Eucharist, a person approached me and said: "Fr., thanks for the homily today! It was really beautiful, but I am afraid too difficult to practice!" And I smiled at her reassuringly and said, "If I were to think of living my life anyway, with compromises, it would be much easier! But living a true and convinced Christian life is anyday, difficult." She smiled, and bowed for a blessing!

"To live by the law you gave us", prays prophet Daniel today in the first reading! And Jesus gives us a criterion, to follow the law. Let what you expect from others for yourself be the criterion for your dealings with others! But the difficult part follows: Jesus says, let what you expect be the criterion but not what you actually get! You may or may not get what you expect, but you have an obligation to give the others what you expect from them! What do you get in return? Does that actually matter?

An apt day to pray with St. Francis of Assisi, 'Lord, grant that I may seek to understand, than to be understood; to love than to be loved; to forgive than to be forgiven'.