Life in the Spirit!

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 2nd week in Easter time

April 14, 2026: Acts 4:32-37; John 3:7b-15

Unless you are born in the Spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of God... but how do you notice that one is born in the Spirit? It is only through the life that is lived. There can be no space between belief and life... we are expected to live what we believe! What we believe has to be translated into our lives - that is the essence of a life that is Christ-like, the only formula for life in the Spirit.

What do you call those who claim to be people-of-the-Spirit but have their selfish interests, hidden agenda and connived plots? How about those who consider themselves 'very religious and pious' who panic at the earliest pressures, lose heart at the easiest of burdens and give up at the first of trying situations? How do you understand some one who is deemed by the society as an atheist or an agnostic, but is ready to even give his or her life for the wellbeing of the other and for the common good? Isn't there a paradox involved here? That paradox is the secret... the Spirit is like the wind that you know not where it comes from and where it goes... but you feel it, your experience it, you sense it!

Life in the Spirit has to be verified on a daily basis. As Jesus said, a tree is known by its fruits; so the signs of our life in the Spirit has to be seen in our day to day choice for love, our capacity for sharing, our willingness to give up for the sake of the Lord, our readiness to think of the other before ourselves and our sense of oneness in the Risen Lord!

Let us examine our daily choices: do they reflect a life in the Spirit? Or are we living a life born from below? Let us be born from above, let us be born of the Spirit! Let us remember, we are called unceasingly to grow in our life in the Spirit.

Let the earth be shaken up

WORD 2day: Monday, 2nd week in Easter time

April 13, 2026: Acts 4:23-31; John 3:1-8

With Christ having risen from the dead and the disciples having realised its effects, history opens to the next phase! The people of God who were made into Easter people, now get ready to put on another identity as the people of the Spirit... "a Spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline" (2 Tim 1:7). 

It is like asking the believers to grow up and take charge, not to live in the shadow of fear and timidity but to speak up with courage the Good news of the Lord. It is like we are challenged today with all the crises that surrounds us: how are you going to live up to your faith amidst all these? The situations of widespread inhumanities and violence - are they going to dominate you and make you a totally defeated person or are you waiting to proclaim joy, optimism and renewal? 

If we have to proclaim new life, that needs a transformation - a real, total, concrete personal transformation leading to a transformation as a believing community. The courage and the conviction of faith of a true believer will shake the earth, describes the readings today. People have to look at us and wonder, how do they manage it: optimism in the face of suffering, hope in the face of anxiety, love in the face of all the turmoil that could come their way!

Let the earth be shaken up today, because of our convictions. Let the humanity which seems to be on a down-slide with regard to its spirit, and more regard to its values and morals, be shaken up because of our Spirit-filled lives. Let us not be overcome by evil; but let us overcome evil with Good (cf. Rom 12:21).