Know God that God may know you!

WORD 2day: Friday, 21st week in Ordinary time

September 1, 2023: 1 Thessalonians 4: 1-8; Matthew 25: 1-13

Pagans are those who do not know God, defines Paul and according to his definition when they do not know God, they do not know what God expects of them.When they do not know what God wants of them, they will be ill prepared in their life to meet God and respond to God's invitation. When they fall short of it and get left behind the closed doors, the Lord would declare that he knows them not too!

Struggling to measure up to the call that we have from the Lord, is perfectly human but making a farce of it by willful and unrepentant compromises is devilish. And the Lord will find himself so far away from these sort of people - that is the warning today. The Lord gives enough reminders and reprimands, that we may repent in time and turn to authentic response to God's call. 

If I say, I find it difficult to respond to the call the Lord has given me, I am being sincere! But if I say I do not know what God wants of me, I am being a liar. All of us know what the Lord wants of us at any point of time in our life - inspite of all the enormous challenges we may have. We may find it difficult to do what the Lord wants, or we may find ourselves in a pressure not to do what the Lord wants, but we know well what the Lord expects of us. It may be in details, but the ultimate call is to BE HOLY and I have no other option! We know that God wants! We know God! We need to admit that we know, that God may not say, "I do not know you!" Let us know God, that GOd may know us!

Small or Big - Progress is the Key!

WORD 2day: Saturday, 21st week in Ordinary Time

September 2, 2023 - 1 Thessalonians 4: 9-11; Matthew 25: 14-30

Spiritual Masters broadly agree on one maxim that they often repeat: in spiritual life not to progress is to regress. It is indeed true for any Christian call - complacency and lethargy are spiritual enemies that we have to fight constantly. They lead to dangers ranging from a simple spiritual stagnation to a serious self righteousness. That does not mean that we are forced to make giant leaps everyday in our spiritual journey. That would be an unreasonable burden!

Apart from the fact that Spiritual itineraries are made of tiny little steps in progression, there can be falls even frequent, slips and slides, dumps and accidents galore - but these do not matter so much to God as our willingness to rise and follow, our decision to remain firm with the original response, our determination to persevere incessantly. 

It does not matter whether we are fast or not; it does not matter we make tremendous changes or not, what matters is that we progress. Within the capacity that we are given with, within the circumstances that I find myself in, I should be able to account to myself a progress that I make from time to time. Then I am well on the right journey.

Finally, the message today is keep walking, mind your steps, whether they are small or big that is not what matters because ultimately, progress is the key!