PEACE-LENT 2023 - Peace is assurance

The WORD in LENT - Second week, Friday

March 10, 2023: Genesis 37:3-4,12-13,17-28; Matthew 21:33-43,45-46

"Come let us kill him" - that is the common phrase in the two readings today. There are always persons and situations which are against us, no matter where or when. And life itself is full of such varied episodes - there are ups and there are downs, there are moments of exuberance and there are moments of dullness, there are moments of strength and there are moments of trials, there are moments of grace and there are moments of crisis... how we face these varied moments, depends on the perspective we choose.

If we choose to believe that we are loved - as did Joseph and as did Jesus - whether we are in situations of want or in situations of plenty, we would have that peace that every one longs for. Peace comes from assurance! The greatest of all assurances that we have is that God loves us. The Word seems to tell us today: Be calm; you are Loved!

When we know and we are convinced that the Lord loves us, then we have peace in our hearts. And the vice versa is true too - when we learn to be calm and to surrender, we would see that the Lord loves us with an immense love and that we are called to recompense that love, pay back in fruits.

Instead, when we are not mindful of that fact - we get anxious and make irreparable mistakes. What matters is to be calm and see not only the fact that we are loved but also the fruit we need to bear: that is, to love in return and to love each other. Our life, its meaning and its peace, comes from the assurance that we are loved. And our love becomes an assurance of further peace!

PEACE-LENT 2023 - Peace is Lord-centered

The WORD in LENT - Second week, Thursday

March 9, 2023: Jeremiah 17: 5-10; Luke 16: 19-31

Happy the one who has placed one's trust in the Lord. The Word today draws home to us an important consideration regarding peace of mind and heart, in our daily life. Let us reflect on it in three steps.

One. Peace first of all cannot be achieved, much less can it be achieved by a self centered way of life. "Me, myself and mine" can never allow me to think of the others and of their good. What matters to me would be the absolute for me: my career, my personal wishes and desires, my personal dreams etc.! The one who lives his life just at my doorstep would matter nothing to me for it is never within my perspective. Whatever peace is there, is really precarious!

Two. Not even an other centered life would lead me to true peace, because it would make me dependent on the other, the other's choices and idiosyncracies! My values would be warped and influenced greatly by the goodness or the wiles of the other. I would relativise everything because of the other and I would have no absolute reference point to guide myself. Would that make my life truly peaceful, guess it won't.

Three. The right way to true peace is, to live a Lord-centered life. This kind of a life, Jeremiah compares it to a tree planted on the banks of a river! Maybe we can think of another imagery too - a forest of trees, each of their planted and stuck in their places, but underneath, beneath the soil, all their roots point towards, strive towards, stretch towards one direction, the same direction, the direction where there is a source of water! That is nature! That is true peace - when we stretch towards the Lord, when our life is centered on the Lord.  Here the Lord shall be the absolute reference point and nothing would be relativised. There would be absolute peace. 

It is a Lord-centered life that can take me to true peace. Let us check if we are engaged in a Lord centered life, and peace would find its place without much difficulty!