LOVE-LENT 2017 - THE WORD IN LENT #18

Law - a gift of Love

Wednesday, Third week in Lent - 22nd March, 2017
Deut 4:1,5-9; Mt 5: 17-19

Rules and Regulations are many times detested by people. At times we look for loopholes and bypass rules; we look out for ways and means to evade laws. But the Word today instructs us, the so-called laws or precepts or commandments from the Lord are not imposed on us in anyway! We are free to choose to subscribe to these on our own, while the world wishes to break free of any rule whatsoever and instigates people to think that freedom is to do anything one wishes! The truth is being free is to the capacity to choose the right thing to say or to do at the right moment. How do we know what is right? The Lord in true and profound love has thought out for us a way in anticipation and the precepts we have from the Lord is the way set out for us. 

In the name of freedom today, people tend to justify aberrations, promote promiscuity and sanctify selfishness. Jesus challenges us to pay heed to the commands from the Lord and choose to live by it, despite the hardships they cause. If the motive is to stay close to the Lord, the Lord will empower us to stay clear of any falls!  Love of the Lord is close to us and the laws are just an expression of it.

LOVE-LENT 2017 - THE WORD IN LENT #17

Love: Recalling goodness at the heart of the fire

Tuesday, Third week in Lent - 21st March, 2017
Dan 3:25, 34-43; Mt 18:212-35

Being good and recognising the goodness in others is a faculty related to true love. The three levels of this faculty is spoken of in the Word today. 

First level is being good ourselves: as God is good. God is good all the time, and we are called to imitate that eternal goodness. 

The second level is to readily recognise the goodness in others: just as we appeal to the mercy of the Lord knowing well how rarely we deserved it.  Our love for God and God's love for us should inspire us to look at each other with that goodness as a framework.

The third level is to recognise the goodness of the other even at most trying moments of life: just as we see Azarias today praising God from the heart of the fire. It is not enough, the Lord challenges, that we recognise the goodness in others when we are experiencing moments of joy and tranquility. We should be able recognise that goodness even when we are at the heart of the fire, even when we are going through the rough patches in life. Recognising the goodness of the others should become our second nature and it will happen only when we grow deeper and deeper in our personal goodness.