The inner stuff that we are made of...

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 5th week in Ordinary time

February 12, 2020: 1 Kings 10: 1-10; Mark 7: 14-23

Wisdom is seen in what comes out of one's mouth, out of one's mind and out of one's life! Queen of Sheba found that with Solomon and praised God. Jesus invites us to pay attention to such an outlook on life - being mindful of what comes out!

From the fullness of the heart does your mouth speak, they say. From what fills your mind does your choices emerge and from your choices is your life's direction determined. And hence, the most crucial element to pay attention to in our existence, in not so much what we do and what we say, as what we think and how we think! Is it not clear then why St. Paul instructed us to 'put on the mind of Christ'.

Do not try to do all that Christ did. Do not try to do all that some saint did. That is not what you are called for. Instead, try to get into the mind of Christ; try to get into the mind of these brothers and sisters of ours in Christ, who have gone before us and shine as examples. Getting into their minds, find out why they did what they did. That will give you a clue to how to think and what we think. And from there will be born choices, a direction for life, a direction that will take you closer and closer what God intended of you! 

It is so pointless to be taken up with what one eats and what one avoids, what one does and what one restrains from, what one promotes and what one denounces - they are all meaningful one in as much as one is clear and transparent about what one really believes and what one is convinced of - that is the inner stuff one is made of. Let us be mindful of it and be attentive to it: the inner stuff that we are made of. 

Prayer and the Pray-er

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 5th week  in Ordinary time

February 11, 2020: 1 Kings 8: 22-23, 27-30; Mark 7: 1-13

Solomon prays and Jesus teaches what is not truly prayer! Solomon acknowledges the goodness of God as the crux of all prayers and Jesus teaches us that as long as we really don't experience and strive to grow worthy of God's goodness, our prayer will merely be a lip service: "this people honours me only with lip service, while their hearts are far from me. The worship they offer me is worthless, the doctrines they teach are only human regulations," quotes Jesus from Isaiah. 

This is no new or isolated teaching of Jesus - it is in fact the linking thread all through his teaching of faith and expressions of faith. It has to be something that is lived from the core of our beings not merely a performance for the sake of the those who are seeing, those who are expecting and those who are valuating us constantly. That is the essential difference between a performance-prayer that the pharisees and scribes upheld in contrast to the integral prayer that Jesus lived and taught.

In short Jesus was trying to contrast between a mere prayer and a pray-er! It is not enough that we say prayers, we need to become pray-ers... persons who pray; pray with their lives, pray with their everyday choices, pray with their value system, pray with their entire self - they do not merely say or perform prayers, but become in themselves pray-ers! That is what Jesus was...every bit of his being, all the time was united with the One who sent him, thus he was a pray-er! Let us seek ways of growing to be true pray-ers.