A Spirit filled Christian is live, active and constructive but not stagnant.

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
November 19, 2017

Today’s Saint Quote: Saint Rose Philippine Duchesne

Humility is the virtue that requires the greatest amount of effort.

Today’s Prayer:

Good Father, I will do everything possible with the help of Your grace to ensure that when You call me home, I will hear from Your lips the beautiful words: “Well done, My good and faithful servant…Come share your Master’s joy.” Amen.

Today’s Readings:

Proverbs 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31
Ps 128:1-5
1 Thessalonians 5:1-6
Matthew 25:14-30
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/111917.cfm
USCCB Podcast of the Readings:
ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/17_11_19.mp3

For all of you are children of the light
and children of the day.
We are not of the night or of darkness.
Therefore, let us not sleep as the rest do,
but let us stay alert and sober.

 

Today’s readings take a turn in the liturgy of the Season and tilting towards the advent and coming of the Lord. The Church is a pilgrim Church and all of us are members of this Travelling Church. Jesus is inviting all of us to enter in to this church and be a part of the church by ministering our brothers and Sisters and praying in Holiness. God has blessed every individual with many gifts and most important gift is the gift of the Knowledge of the Kingdom of God. We are invited to take part in this Kingdom actively and build this Kingdom by bringing others who are living in darkness. Today’s Gospel challenges us to be the real part takers or investors of our gifts to the Kingdom of God.

In the Parable Jesus is not talking about the people who have not experienced the kingdom of God or people who live in Sin but about every Christian who has been freely given the Holy Spirit at the time of Baptism. The gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit have God’s life and they are not stagnant so every person who possess the Holy Spirit must manifest these gifts and fruits for the benefit of the Community and attract other people who live  in darkness and multiply the Kingdom with these gifts and fruits of the  spirit.

In the first reading we see the Characteristics of an ideal Wife. The Christian Wife is a helper and giver in the Family who works for the Family and helps her Husband. She is respected in the Community and attracts other Women through her live life. The Word says Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting but only the Character lasts for ever. Today how do we see our Wives or generally Women in our Society. Do we see the charming and beauty in a Women or the virtues which are not visible or convinced in Words? We must look at the deeds rather only the words or the Personality. Beauty will disappear as the age pass by and Charming personality may turn to real nature of a person in reality but a Virtuous Women is the same in all seasons, ages and conditions of life. A Christian is always called see the Christian Character of love, Joy, Peace, Patience, self-Control, humble, gentle, meek so on. A good Christian Chartered Wife makes the families proud of her beliefs and passes on her character to her Children and multiplies her talents without any preaching or by shedding the blood but by being a good Christian example. I was watching Miss World 2017 and the girl who won the Miss World was speaking on her mother’s passed on Christian values. Today even the World is realising and recognising the real values of a Women.

I met a Christian Professional who lived a decent life with all the required luxuries of this World, as we were sharing our Christian Views and a vocation of a Christian, he said I am a Christian and I believe in God and keep all commandments, but I cannot reach out to others by Word or deed because I think it is enough to reach Heaven. I explained him the same Parable of the Talents. He was like that person who received the one talent and dug it in the ground. We have many Christians today who live this kind of life. They are content in their life and want to stay there till their death.  The gift of Salvation and the gift of the Holy Spirit is to share and multiply. This exactly what the great Christians like Mother Theresa, and saints did in their life . When  a Christian shares the life of God with others it has to multiply and turn in to a ministry because the Word of  God and  gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit have  life and it cannot be stagnant . If a person receives the Holy Spirit in Baptism and does not live a life of a Prophet, Priest and King which he is called in Baptism then he deceives Jesus like Judas Iscariot and buries his faith under the Worldly mud of money,Gold,wealth and fame which are one day are going to be rusted or decayed and part of the Ground. If someone says he is a Christian, then he must preach the faith, he has to minister the faith and he has maintain, live and protect the faith. This is the anointing which we receive at Baptism or in our transformation Experience. If we have not experienced this anointing, I must say that we are stagnant in our faith and we require to renew our Baptism and receive the fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit.  A Christian cannot be a Spectator in a drama but an actor all the time. We have many Christian spectators or the Christian people of the attitude of a one talent in the present World. I pray for all these people for an fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit. Come Holy Spirit and enkindle every Luke warm Christian with the fire of your love.

 

 

 

 

The Vocation, inspiration,Pledge & Discipline in our life.

Thursday of the 31st Week in Ordinary Time
Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome
November 9, 2017

Today’s Readings:

Ezekiel 47:1-2, 8-9, 12
Ps 46:2-3, 5-6, 8-9
1 Corinthians 3:9c-11, 16-17
John 2:13-22
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/110917.cfm
USCCB Podcast of the Readings:
ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/17_11_09.mp3

Do you not know that you are the temple of God,
and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
If anyone destroys God’s temple,
God will destroy that person;
for the temple of God, which you are, is holy.

Today’s readings remind us our Vocation and very purpose of our existence in this World. We can see our life in following areas

1. Vocation: To build the Kingdom of love on this Earth
2. Inspiration: Jesus as the Corner stone of the Kingdom of the God
3. Pledge: To be holy
4. Threat: God disciplines the unholy.

 

1. Vocation: To Build the Kingdom of God on this Earth. Every human is created to carry on the Work of God on this Earth as good steward. He has been empowered with spirit of God to rule and govern the Earth with his Wisdom and intelligence. The very purpose of creating human is to create the Kingdom of God on this Earth. God wanted a Summer house in his business and probably he must have created Earth and Human and put his spirit so that he can have a little Heaven on this Earth so that he can have fellowship with the Human. Human were created little lower than Angels on this Earth and given power over the Earth to manage the earth through God’s Wisdom and knowledge.  But man was attracted towards the creation and disowned God and lost his fellowship and Spirit and became a slave of the Creation.
2. Inspiration: Jesus becomes the Corner Stone to rebuild the Kingdom of God. God comes to this Earth in the form of a Human called Jesus and reconciles the entire Human race with God and starts new fellowship and pours out the lost Spirit on the day of Pentecost to the Entire human race, tongues and nationalities. Through the power of the Holy Spirit and through the apostles rebuilds the People of God and again starts the Work of rebuilding his summer Heaven on this earth. He expects every human to receive his Spirit and have fellowship with him and again be the Stewards of this Earth to carry on the Divine plan of God.
3. Pledge : To be Holy. To build the kingdom of God, we must possess the Spirit of God and have fellowship with him and each other. The first responsibility of every human who have the Spirit of God to be Holy. The holiness automatically gives access to God and his Work of building the Kingdom of God on this Earth. Once we receive the Spirit of God , the love of God draws us towards him and zeal for his kingdom becomes first priority in our lives. The rest of the worldly affairs remain in our life but they become like just objects of material with no life. Baptism is the Pledge to possess the Spirit of God. Every Baptised person possess the Spirit of God and called to live a life of holiness.
4. Threat: God disciplines the unholy. All people who have taken a Pledge of Baptism to possess the Spirit of God are called to live in Holiness. If someone takes the pledge and lives a Worldly life, defiles his life or betrays God or lies to God. Jesus in the Gospel Whips all those people who were acting like Holy and doing all kind Worldly business in the pretext of Holiness. If any person calls himself as Christian and does not live in holiness is liable for the discipline from God. The first step of the Discipline is God chases away them away from his place of Worship or from his presence, just like Adam and Eve were thrown out of Garden of Eden because God is Holy and only holy people can remain in the presence of God. The second step of Discipline is the Spirit of God leaves them because the Spirit of God can live with only holy People. Third step of Discipline is they cannot have fellowship with God. Fourth step of Discipline is they cannot communicate with each other because it is the spirit of God which binds the People of God with each other. Fifth discipline is they cannot rule the Earth or fruits of the earth become sour because the Creation was made in God’s Wisdom and Spirit and if there is no Spirit of God in their life, the Creation does not obey them.  In short without the Spirit of God, the Human becomes like any other animal on this Earth. All their cravings and emotions slowly transform in to the animal instinct. We see in the stone age and among the Gentiles, a small fit of anger resulted to murder. The human Sacrifices and all other animal tendencies were seen in these people.  This is the reason we see people who believe in Violence act like animals.

 

 

 

 

Vision, Mission, Objective & Goal of a Christian

Wednesday of the 31st Week in Ordinary Time
November 8, 2017

Today’s Readings:

Romans 13:8-10
Ps 112:1b-2, 4-5, 9
Luke 14:25-33
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/110817.cfm
USCCB Podcast of the Readings:
ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/17_11_08.mp3

Today’s Readings can be Summarised in to following four Categories.

1. VISION : JESUS
2. MISSION : LOVE
3. OBJECTIVE: RENOUNCE THE WORLD & SELF
4. GOAL: TO BE A DESCIPLE A DESCIPLE OF JESUS

 

 

 

 

1. Vision : Jesus : Jesus is the main Vision of the Readings of today. Now the life starts with the Gospel of Christ and ends with him. This is like a Circle, we start our life from one end and circle throughout life and end with him. The Process begins with the Gospel of repentance to experience his Salvation. We must come to him alone in prayer and the Sacrament of Eucharist to receive grace and mercy to live our life in love. We can not love our neighbour without the love of Jesus and we can not experience the Love of Jesus without the Gospel of reconciliation. This is the reason Jesus says , before you offer a sacrifice or prayer , reconcile with your brother and make peace and this Peace becomes the Prayer or Sacrifice itself before we offer it to Jesus.
2. Mission : Love is the mission of the readings . We must love our neighbour in Jesus love. What is Jesus love? Jesus emptied himself completely till his last drop of blood. We must imitate his love and do the same . Love is the fulfilment of the Law and all Commandments. How we can do this in our life? When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Master . Jesus gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit and Holy Spirit bestows his fruits in the form of Love , Joy , Peace . This is purely a gift of love from Jesus to us so that we can love our brothers and sisters in his grace. We cannot love through our own efforts , this is the reason every individual requires Jesus and the gift of the Holy Spirit in his life. A true forgiveness can flow only from the Bosom of Jesus on the Cross. Many other religions have tried to serve the World and forgive the brethren but failed miserably. It is not possible because man does not have the capacity to love and forgive. These qualities are divine and can come only from above. The people who cannot love and forgive, they must first come to Jesus in complete surrender and repentance and pray for the gift of Holy Spirit, once the Holy Spirit comes in to our life , it is very easy to love and forgive through the power of God .

 

3. Objective: It is very important to renounce the World and Self because our self and the World is not heavenly, but they are not fully Evil. They are creation of God but corrupted by the Evil due to sinfulness of the Human. We can change them heavenly when we become Holy and enjoy God’s fellowship. The entire Creation is groaning with the pain of Salvation due to the Sin of his Care taker human on this Earth. When Man Comes to God, the Creation with our bodies, mind and spirit will be relieved from Sin. This is the real meaning of Baptism. By renouncing the World and ourselves is to live in holiness by not living for this World or ourselves. Many People renounce the World and live in Celibacy due to this reason but it is not an requirement if a person has really experienced the love of God. We must keep our one eye on Jesus and the other Eye on the World and ourselves and this very Creation become holy due to our Holiness.

 

4. Goal : The final motto of our life to become the Disciple of Jesus on this Earth. To become a Disciple of Jesus, we must carry our sufferings and difficulties and offer in to that Master Cross of Jesus. We cannot become the Disciple of Jesus without Christian suffering. Some preachers preach a wrong Gospel of prosperity in by relying in Jesus completely we can overcome all our suffering from this Earth but if we see. St. Paul and all apostles and Saints suffered a great deal of suffering and died for Jesus. Jesus says in today’s Gospel: Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Christian suffering is not a suffering, but it is a Sacrifice of love to our Master Jesus. We must live our sufferings in the grace of Christ and offer it to Jesus as a living Sacrifice of love, then these sufferings become sweeter than honey in our life. Sometimes the ecstasies of sufferings for Christ are much greater than the Ecstasies in Prayer and Worship in the Monasteries and contemplative life. Some people run from one place of Worship to another to end their sufferings and some Worship places act like the places to end the human sufferings of people by the power of Jesus but if we look at the Gospel of today the Christian sufferings are part of a Christian and it has to be taken as a ministry of love of Jesus and cannot end as long as we live in this Earth.   We cannot experience the power of resurrection in our Suffering without the pain of Suffering. If we reflect the Beatitudes of Jesus, we can have a rough idea of the life of a true disciple.  All our sufferings will end only when we reach in Heaven and rest in him. People who suffer the great must surrender their life in the Gospel of repentance to Jesus and ask for the Holy Spirit. By the grace of the Holy Spirit we can overcome the pain of our suffering. The suffering will remain, but they do not pain us or trouble any more in our life. This is called the grace of the Holy Spirit. It is like a Pain Killer in our body pain, now the cause of pain or difficulty exist but the pain killer relieves our pain and we are relieved from the pain of suffering for the love , mercy and grace of Jesus. Jesus love supersedes the sufferings and sufferings are made inactive or null and void.

 

 

 

 

Guide to choose a right Christian ministry or a leader or a Church.

 

31st Sunday in Ordinary Time
November 5, 2017

Today’s Readings:

Malachi 1:14b-2:2b, 8-10
Ps 131:1-3
1 Thessalonians 2:7b-9, 13
Matthew 23:1-12
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/110517.cfm
USCCB Podcast of the Readings:
ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/17_11_05.mp3

You have but one Father in heaven
and one master, the Christ.

Today’s readings speak about the loving relationship between the Father and his Children. The relationship of the Father to his Children has been communicated through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the old testament and in the New testament. Jesus comes in to this World and becomes man so that every human transform himself to Christs dual personality of human and divine so that human can communicate with the Father. To adopt this dual personality of Jesus we must permit the Spirit of Christ to take over our life. How we can do this? We must put God first in each area of our life. How we can put God first in our life?  We must be born again in the Spirit of Christ. How we can have born again in the Spirit of Christ? We must believe in him as our Lord and Master of life and humble or lower our human self of mind, body and Soul to his Control.  How we can do this in action? We can do this by trusting in the Gospel of Christ from the time of creation till our time of Church.

In the above entire process there are three persons of same God working in unity and we call them Holy trinity. When we enter in to a relationship with the Holy Trinity we enter in to the Kingdom of God or presence of God. The Holy trinity lives in our life and we become the Children of God. We become the heirs of this Kingdom, Abba Father as our Father and Jesus Christ our elder brother and the Holy Spirit as our partner and friend in each and everything we do and live. If our actions do not reflect our faith or the Word of God, we become liars or blind guides in the Kingdom of God because we preach what we have not experienced and lived in our lives. Jesus calls this People Hypocrites. St. Paul confirms his preaching backed up with love of God and love of his brothers and sisters. Jesus gave us the Gospel truth and humbled himself in action so Jesus expects us to do the same.

If we humble ourselves by trusting his Words and give the control of our lives in his hands by faith, we can see the mysteries of the Kingdom of God revealed to us.  This revelation of love comes from our Father through Jesus in the form of Holy Spirit. The revelation of Jesus is seen in our Fatherly relationship. We see Jesus as he is in the form of love of God. This love of God must be passed on to the second and generations through Preaching and through our lived life. If we preach and do not live the life of Christ, then we cannot enter the Kingdom of God and saved from Sin. This is the reason Jesus says “everyone say Lord ..Lord will not enter the Kingdom of God but the one who does the Will of my Father but they will say we preached you and did miracles and Wonders in your name but   Father said I do not know you, you wicked generation. So, it is Faith and love which can take us to the Kingdom of God.

We must be careful in choosing the ministries and communities in which we Worship. It is not the miracles and Wonders count but the love of God and love of our brothers and sisters are paramount importance of our faith. If we do not see these two areas in the ministries, then Jesus may tell us not to follow those Communities or preachers or Visionaries or Churches because they are not from God but from World and human mind. These Communities cannot humble down and Wash the feet of their brothers and sisters like Jesus and Mother Theresa did in their life. In any Christian ministry if there is no love of God and Charity of Neighbour missing then that ministry is equal to a Worldly Commercial Enterprise.  So let us not run for miracles , healings , feel good experience or to achieve name  or fame but let us seek the Kingdom of Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Forgiveness, self control, Humbleness, meekness, gentleness. I am not writing this because I am perfect  but I have the realisation of the Word of God and trying my level best to follow my servant King through his grace and mercy throughout my life.

 

 

God’s Vision for Man:” To be holy”

 

Solemnity of All Saints
November 1, 2017

Today’s Readings:

Revelations 7:2-4, 9-14
Ps 24:1-6
1 John 3:1-3
Matthew 5:1-12a
www.usccb.org/bible/readings/110117.cfm
USCCB Podcast of the Readings:
ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/17_11_01.mp3

God’s Vision: Blessed are the pure of heart,
for they will see God.

As we celebrate the feast of all saints let us ponder on their life and examples while they lived on this Earth.  The Gospel talks about the Beatitudes which is the Centre of the Jesus teachings. In Beatitudes the possession of the Kingdom of God Completes on this Earth and heaven.

Man lost his holiness to see God face to face, when he disobeyed not only once but repeatedly, despite of God’s repeated Covenants and miracles and call to come back to him in holiness. By Holiness we can see God as he is, this stage is called Heaven. To achieve Holiness, one must be pure in heart, mind and Body.  Most of the Saints on this Earth lived a life of holiness and saw Jesus face to face. God is holy and if we have to see God or Communicate with him we must be holy. God called Israelites through Abraham to be holy and pure in heart so that they may see God face to face but Israelites from the time of Abraham till the time Jesus saw God in the fear of Law and traditions. This form of traditions and Law nullified the Law and God’s Spirit was absent in the Law. Now Jesus himself who is God comes upon this Earth in a human form and gives a new interpretation to the Law and Commandments. The Beatitudes echoes the ten Commandments of the Old Covenant. Jesus removes the fear of God from the mind of People and interacts humans in a human way and invites them for a divine encounter. Many People saw God’s face in him and made him their Lord and Master. Jesus formed the Church with the gift of his Spirit and drew people towards him in Divine love.

The Saints are the people who experienced the love of God and Worshiped him in his Spirit.  God is love and truth, so we must worship God in Spirit of God’s love and truth.  Every Beatitude reveals the face of God on this Earth. God’s Vision for Man is: To be Pure in Heart so that they may see him as he is and Worship him. This encounter with God brings many revelations of the Kingdom of God while we are on Earth because we have seen him face to face. All the people Who have seen the face of God in Holiness are called Saints on this Earth.

Many saints saw the face of God in many ways. Some saints saw him in Prayer and some in Praise & Worship. Some saw him among the poor and sick, but some saw him in living a dedicated life of Chastity and poverty. Some saw him in the Word of God, reflections & revelations. Apostles saw him in Physical & divine body. Mother Mary saw him as her own Son.  We can see him in our own vocations, professions, families, friends but in everything we must do the will of him alone in prayer and power of his grace and mercy. To do his will is to live the beatitudes in this World and become his children.A