Think good; Do good; Be good!

WORD 2day: Monday, 25th week in Ordinary time

September 19, 2022: Proverbs 3:27-34; Luke 8:16-18

The first reading today has a wonderful set of practical tips for a happy living. Those tips can altogether be summarised in the phrase: think well of all; speak well of all; do good to all. This can be called the runway to happiness, but rarely taken by many! We prefer to complicate our lives, make it distrustful, enigmatic and suspicious, losing all the goodness that we can create, share and experience. Neither are we happy nor do we allow others to be happy.

To a person who was sharing about a problem in the family, I had to ask, "What is your choice: to be happy or not to be?" And the person said, "of course, to be happy!" and immediately added, "but I am afraid I won't be able to do the things that you told me to. The others would take me for granted and make me look more and more like a fool!" Then I had to conclude, "so, you choose to be unhappy!"

At times, that is the sad fact! We choose to be unhappy and we are experts at making ourselves unhappy over anything at all. Jesus today seems to tell us, "you want to be happy? choose it! manifest it! Let it be seen in your lives, in your choices!" Lighting the lamp and putting it on the stand, is the metaphor to living a life that is God-worthy and making it known to others that they may be challenged. 

The simple formula to begin with this kind of a life is, to live as said in the first reading. That can be summarised in simple words: think good of all, you will not have things to worry; do good to all, at least your heart will be light; and above all, be good within you! Let that goodness be your nature, not just your external show!