The true treasure of God-perspective

WORD 2day: Friday, 11th week in Ordinary time

June 21, 2024 - 2 Kings 11: 1-4,9-18,20; Matthew 6: 19-23

Today there is a prevalent talk about persons all stressed and pressurised, about job situation, about family issues, about relationships, about choices and social expectations, and what not? Persons and societies are highly preoccupied about their wealth and properties, earning and spending, adding to their comforts and fulfilling their dreams, having all the things that they wish to have, hoarding bank balances and shares... afer all the efforts for these, we hear very often today, more often than anytime in history, people who die early and leave behind everything!

Just to look at it, from the first reading - Athalia worked her way up only to be put to the sword in an unceremonious manner! It is so sad to notice that the world today is so ready to offer our relationships, our simple joys and peaceful mind as a sacrifice at that the altar of wealth and position, only to realise that we have lost everything in the craze of hoarding things and power. By the time persons really take note of this, it is already too, too late!

It becomes so important today to mind about one's heart, not only healthwise, but also prudence wise. The more we begin to place our hearts at the right place and place within our hearts the right priorities, the more we shall become Godly. What would set us apart as true children of God is our sense of God, priority for God and never losing the treasure of God-perspective in life. 

In Spimplicty towards Greatness

WORD 2day: Thursday, 11th week in Ordinary Time

June 20, 2024 - Sirach 48: 1-14; Matthew 6: 7-15

Elijah is singled out in the book of Sirach, among the 27 great persons of God praised for their life and accomplishments. Elijah wins that place in his simplicity, in the simplicity with which he trusted in the Lord, the simplicity with which he carried out every single command or wish of the Lord, that simplicity with which he endured his hardships, knowing certainly that the Lord is in control of everything. That simplicity was his true greatness.

This is the very same simplicity that Jesus lived and taught us... the Our Father is an epitome of simplicity prescribed to us not only as a prayer, but as a way of life, as a Spirituality that comes very close to the mind of Christ. The simplicity that is referred to here, lies in the qualities of singlemindedness, absence of pretense and sincere surrender to absolute sovreignity of the Almighty. That is what the Lord's prayer teaches us: a whole philosophy or politics of life. Its greatness lies in its simplicity. 

How simple are our prayers? How simple is our faithful trust in the Lord? How simple is our relationship with God on a daily basis...that simplicty would be our guaranteed way to true greatness!