WHAT A MIGHTY GOD WE HAVE!

21st June 2015: 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Job 38: 1, 8-11; 2 Cor 5: 14-17; Mk 4: 35-41

Quiet! Be Still... and you will know what a mighty God you have!

We are so fond of lamenting, fretting, complaining, grumbling, panting and gasping, that we fail to notice the mighty presence of God right beside us as we struggle in the daily storms of life. It takes that moment when the Lord finally intervenes and says: Quiet! Be Still...I am here, right here, in the midst of it all. Don't you see? Don't you believe? Haven't you experienced my interventions in the past? Haven't you learnt that lesson yet? 

Behold! a New Thing... the mighty God is creating it for you!

At times the turbulence that you go through may be a new thing in the making! Yesterday while we were on a task in place near the East Coast, a person with me commented looking at the plaque on a building: if it were not for the Tsunami, we would not have had this building here! Though it may sound less sensitive to the disaster and its effects, the statement triggered an insight in me. At times the turbulences that we experience in life, may lead to newer and fresher outlooks on events. 

Be Urged by the Love of Christ... the mightiest experience of God!

In every thing and at every moment, be urged by the love of Christ; a love that so powerfully brings the presence of God into our life. Allow God into your life, feel the presence of God and enjoy the love that God continues to shower on you - a love so immense and unconditional. If only we taste that love of God, we would become so filled with that love that we will overflow with that love. Our words, our thoughts, our gestures, our relations, our interactions and everything in us will be flooded with that love and people around us will experience it. That love will urge me to be loving; that love will push me to reach out to the other in love; that love will not allow me to remain quiet about the goodness that I have experienced; that love will make goodness so contagious and ofcourse everything around me will be created anew! I can never forget a statement  made by one of the parents from a group I had just addressed: there is something about you Christians that makes you happy people! Yes... can we stand up and accept the challenge: The Love of Christ urges us!

WORD 2day : 20th June, 2015

Sense of Sufficiency - sign of sanctity!

Saturday,  11th week in Ordinary Time
2 Cor 12: 1-10; Mt 6: 24-34

The rich and the poor,  the affluent and the needy,  the influential and the ordinary... they seem to be no different from each other! They wish for more and more and more. And at no point in their life they seem to have a sense of Sufficiency.

St.  Paul places a lot of importance on this attitude and considers it even a sign of sanctity. In his letter to the Philipians, Paul considers himself 'blessed' with a sense of Sufficiency, in plenty and in want (Phil 4: 11,12). In our families,  in our personal lives,  in our social life, in our religious communities... where does this virtue stand?

Be it Indian spirituality,  western monastic spirituality, eastern yogic spirituality. ..all of these seem to harp upon having fewer and fewer attachments as a way to sanctity. Where do I stand in this virtue?