The Lord’s Day

“…And on the seventh day, God rested. (Gen.2,2). God worked for all six days of the week. He did not say ‘I will do the remaining work latter. After separating land from water, he did not say, ‘I will create creatures latter on.’ That means He worked constantly till His work was over and than He set apart a day for rest, The Sabbath or in today’s language we call it ‘Sunday.’ That means He clearly set apart time for work and time for rest.
What do we mean by rest? Dose it mean that we cover ourselves in the bed and sleep away the whole day or with a little rest we do something that would strengthen our relationship with our Creator?
It is a day specially set apart to communicate with God. Its Lord’s day. We can’t sit in church the whole day and pray, than we shouldn’t even spend it just going around for movies and picnics. The best way to spend the Lord’s Day could be after church (Holy Eucharist or prayers meeting); we can spend sometime with the nature. Appreciate the Heavenly Father for making so beautiful things around you. He Has given you your parents, relatives, and many other near and dear ones. Why don’t you meet them and make them feel that you are thankful to God for giving them to you and making them part of your life. I remember the peon of a school where I did my regency[i], he was a Muslim by religion, but not particularly regular for prayers. Poor people may have religion but the most important religion for them to follow, is to arrange bread for the family. His Sunday was set apart to go to his native house and meet his old father and talk to him… spend some time with him. And you know, for that, those were the most beautiful moment of his old age.
[i] Regency is a stage in priestly formation where a candidate is put in a school or parish to have out field experience.

Success

God has made every person as unique and a mystery in him/herself. A well-known western philosopher Nietzsche says that every truth is an interpretation. We interpret and understand things in our own way. Similarly success means different for different persons. It is decided according to the context and situation.
Success for me is something unique and very personal. It involves various steps. First I set a goal. This goal is usually the goal that contributes to my ultimate goal that is to be a real human being that God has created me to be. After setting the goal, I discover the opportunities and resources available to me. Sometimes these both are in disguise. I make the best use of these resources and opportunities. With full confidence and dedication I move towards my goal. That reaching to my set goal satisfies me and that is success for me.

Are we to be punished?

The Cuckoo said, “See the funny fellows have finished praying, now they are coming out to meditate on the nature. They pretnd to seek God in nature. But same nature they destroy mercilessly.” . . . . . The philosopher within me was awakened… I felt speechless.As I came out of the chapel with others to have nature mediation, I heard a cuckoo cooing. It was a beautiful morning; the whole nature seemed to coming out of its night’s rest. It was very pleasant to hear a cuckoo’s sweet voice. I thought to give an ear to it. As I heard it with little attention, I felt that the sweet voice of the cuckoo was smeared in pain. I tried to understand what it was telling. The things, which the cuckoo told me, really compelled me to think. It said, “see, the funny fellows have finished praying. Now they are coming out to have nature mediation. I am pained to say that these people pretend to be meditating on the nature, on the presence of God in nature. The same nature in which they try to seek God, they mercilessly destroy, they don’t bother to preserve it.”
It was clear that the cuckoo was blaming all of us, though nobody paid attention to it. I being one of them, thought to interrupt it. I said, “hallo, my dear little cuckoo! How can you blame us blindly?” The philosopher within me was awakened. The cuckoo was very much interested in replying me: it said, “You people don’t bother about little creatures likes us. You yourself cannot live in harmony, neither you allow us to live, you don’t love each other, and you are the cause of our separation from each other.” I heard some other cuckoo cooing somewhere far. Its sound was not very clear but faint. This cuckoo continued, “Can you hear my friend trying to communicate?” Earlier this communication was not difficult at all, there were many trees, no vehicle, no noise, we could hear each other from very far. But now you human beings make so much noise that we are not able to communicate among ourselves.”
I tried to defend human beings, “why, being one of the parts of God’s creation, don’t we also have right ot live on this planet?” the cuckoo was prepared to answer me, it said simply, “well, you are the ones who made this principle ‘your freedom ends where my freedom begins’ but is it only applicable to human beings? You have freedom to construct huge structures, you have freedom to cut trees, you have every freedom to exploit the nautre, the way you want; but have you ever thought about our freedom?” have you ever thought how we suufer because of your freedom? Have you ever thought who pays the price of your freedom?”
The philosopher within me had no more questions to ask, I was speechless. Perhapse I could feel the weight in what the cuckoo said. The cuckoo, seeing me speechless, flew away.

Love, Love, Love

Love, Love, Love…

Feel awkward to see the title? Yeah, naturally, why some word has to be repeated three times? Probably just to capture your attention. Don’t you think this group of four letters L O V E is the most wonderful and most important thing in the world?
Wisdom, knowledge, faith, hope and many other great virtues and spiritual achievements are just dwarfs before this small thing called “Love.”(Cf 2 Cor. 13:2) It is everywhere, in every person, every creature and in everything that exists, because “it is out of love that God created the world.” In the absence of love, the life is not ‘life.’ This small little thing is so important, yet we rarely give it a deep thought. Can you name me anybody, anything or any creature that is totally strange to this thing called ‘Love?’ you know it is because of your love for wisdom or knowledge that you keep on reading things like this article.
Can you name me anybody, anything or any creature that is totally strange to this thing called ‘Love?’Love can be defined in different ways, depending on the context. It has got sifferent meanings. For instance, love between, so-called “lovers” has different meaning whereas love between parents and children has different meaning, et cetrea. Probably you know all these types love already and may be you will be irritated at my lack of knowledge in detail about all these. But have you noticed one thing? All these kinds of love are conditioned by time, place and situation, hence not long lasting. Yet they are adequately sufficient to give us some idea about Love.
You must have experienced love from your parents, love from your kiths and kins, even love from “friends.” But you must have realized that love of these persons in our life is not ever lasting, or at least not lasting for long. If we go to “ultimate cause” of love, we find that ‘God is the source of all love, only His love is everlasting. Real thing starts now, He says, “I loved you with an everlasting love.” (Jer. 31:3b) We have a door opened to us for everlasting love, just free of any cost, so, should we run behind anything else that is temporary and lasting?
Though we are not worthy, yet He has called us to be the instruments of His everlasting, unconditional love. And it is because of this love that we are called children of God. “See what love Father has given us that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are.” (1 Jn 3:1). It is not that God has suddenly started to love us, but He has been loving us from the very beginning. Our very existence is because of His love for us. “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” (Rom. 5:5).
Have we ever realized the presence of His precious love in our hearts? If we have realized than it is our bounden duty to express this love through our actions and our behaviour and if still we have no serious interest in feeling and experiencing His love then “get up and come back to Him and ask Him to give us grace to experience His love because if we don’t experience His True love that what else id there to speak about, to the people in our life to come?