God Thus Loved the World…

We, human beings are not like other living beings on this planet. We have rationality, probity, religiosity and many more qualities that make us poles apart from other beings, but that does not mean that there is nothing in us that is common with other beings. Each one of us has come into this world with a special purpose, with a plan already well charted out by God for us. When we do something great, something good for others, we feel contented and blissful. Whatever we do according to the will of God, it makes us happy and whatever we do that is not according to the will of God, it gives us dissatisfaction and deprives us of internal peace.

There is nobody who is born without an aim or with no purpose. What is most significant and heartening is that we are sent here with apposite knacks and capacities to accomplish that plan or do the will of God in our lives. Nevertheless we cannot deny that we have weaknesses and hurdles on our way to do God’s will. When we forget the ultimate aim of our life and do things that lead us astray from doing God’s will, that creates a chasm between God and us. But that’s not all! The bright side of this story is, when we take one step towards God with a rueful heart, He takes ten steps towards us with compassionate heart.

Very often we live our lives without even making an attempt to know God’s will for us, leave alone doing it. People are busy doing their own will; they feel unperturbed to live in ‘darkness’ or ‘Avidya’ in philosophical terms. We have the Holy books, scriptures and ‘good people’ to help us to discern God’s will for us. They act like sign posts for us. From the very beginning of creation God has been trying to bring people out of this ‘darkness of ignorance’ and give a life of light, a life of fullness. That’s why every so often He sends ‘good people’ to do this job for Him.

When world did not listen to the good people and God’s messengers, He decided to send His own Son, so that he could teach the world a New Lesson, a lesson of love, lesson of doing God’s will. He is called Jesus Christ. It is out of His unconditional love that God sent His only Son into this world so that whoever listens to him may turn away from darkness, discern and do God’s will. God’s will for us is always for our good, for no creator would want evil for his creation.

Nobody had seen God; His Son presents before us the True face of God, the True Nature of God. He told the world about the love of God, not just by words alone but by his deeds and by his very own life. He walked on foot from place to place, carrying the Good News and calling people to live life that God wanted them to. He healed those who were sick; even raised the dead back to life. He taught them the message of life, a message that could turn them back to God and restore that loving relationship with God. All through his short earthly life he did what was good and what was according to God’s will. He never did anything bad, anything against God’s will, because he knew he was sent with a specific purpose and so are we – each one of us!

But some people could not stomach his radical teachings and so for their selfish motives accused him falsely and tried to get rid of him. They gifted him a cross to die on. He could rebel; change everything in a moment, but not. If he could give life to dead, he could also take away life, if he could heal; he could even give sickness, but not so, why? Because that was not the purpose of his coming; he came to give new life and teach a new lesson. He humbly accepted to die a shameful death even without a fault of his own. He was son of God, and how could God wish evil for his children? Even when he was suffering a terrible pain on the cross he pleaded to God, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Perhaps he knew better that we would know it latter. We would understand the value of his sacrifice and immense love latter. God thus loved the world that he came down to us, becoming like any of us and taught us, gave new life by dying a humiliating death for us. He was raised after three days of death and lives with us till the end of time.

-         B. Johnson Maria

A Prayer: Help me Lord!

(Also in "Inspirational Quote" (April 2011 issue) - a monthly from Mumbai)

A little girl, holding her mother’s hand tightly, entered a church to pray. Imitating her mother, the girl knelt down with utmost faith and devotion, to pray. She looked at her mother, communicating with God with eyes closed. She had learnt from her mother that when someone closes eyes, and with full faith, asks anything, it will be granted.

            This little girl heard her mother pray thus: “O most merciful God, you are the creator of all. You have created the world and you take care of everything, every creature that dwells in it. Please bless my son in his studies, let my husband do his job well and may he get a promotion, may I always serve my family actively for this grant me good health…” and more. When her mother finished praying, the little girl who was waiting patiently for her turn just murmured few words very softly and finished her prayer very quickly.

           

When they came out of the church, the curious mother inquired:

“What did you pray for, my sweet darling?”                                                                   

The little girl replied:

“I didn’t pray for anything, I just said to God, ‘help me Lord!’”

The little girl believed that God had given her the ability to solve all her problems, now and latter, only things she felt was that she might need God’s help in doing so, therefore she prayed ‘help me Lord!’ How much do we rely on God and how much on our own abilities?

- B. Johnson Maria

Lent: A Season of Grace and Transformation

          God created the world and all that is in it. At the end He also created Man (of course it includes woman as well), and He created him in His own image. But man disobeyed God and went astray from God due to sin. Time passed and then God sent his son Jesus Christ to reconcile man to God. And to fulfill this, Christ chose to suffer for whole humanity so that we are saved from the punishment. God is not punishing God, but compassionate God, but our sins keep us away from God and what greater punishment can be for a creature than to remain without seeing His creator, to remain away from the One for whom we are created!

            But the fact is that we are all weak human beings and fall astray from God, again and again. And God gives us opportunities to turn away from our sinful ways and return to God. The Season of Lent is among one of such opportunities. God says, even if your sins are red like crimson, you come to me with repentant heart and I will make you pure and white like snow. In other words, we can say that there is no boundary for God’s love and compassion. He loves us unconditionally, despite of our being weak and going away from Him again and again.

            Lent gives us the opportunity to retrospect and introspect into our lives and see where we stand, in how much deep waters we stand. He has given us the norms to live our lives – the Commandments. And as we know Jesus had summed up all the commandments into two great commandments viz. Love your God with all your might, with all your heart and with all your soul, and the second commandment also is similar viz. love your neighbour as yourself.  How simple! Only two commandments and we become worthy to live in His presence forever! We become suitable candidates for eternal life!

            But the story is the other way round. We even cannot obey or fulfill these two ‘simple’ commandments. Today the world is filled with many things that becomes hurdles for us in becoming God’s loving children. The consumerist attitude of the world poses before us a big threat. People are used as objects, just means to achieve selfish motives. People have become so indifferent to each other, that nobody actually has a feeling of concern for anybody. The corruption is at its peak. The weaker sex is ill-treated and mistreated. Women and girls are raped, children are abused, old people are ill-treated, and people have become so selfish that nobody no more thinks anything about others then themselves. People have become so self-oriented; forget about God, they don’t even bother about their own neighbours. Just pause for a moment and think, what is going to be the outcome of all this? Will you expect a good reward from the Almighty for all this? Certainly not. Then what’s the way?

            God is ever compassionate, and ever-ready to receive those who repent and decide to mend their ways. Lent is the time to examine ourselves, go within and try to see ourselves form the perspective of God. Nobody is perfect, nobody is saint, so wherever you are, start turning back to God. Lent gives us many ways in which we can examine ourselves and transform ourselves. This is an opportunity to make up the broken relationship with God. The spirit of sacrifice and charity will lead us to walk on the path that leads us towards God. The time spent in praying and fasting will become the precious moments of our experience of our closeness to our Creator. It will create an in-depth longing to be united with our God, our ultimate destiny. And mind you, God is always waiting for us to come back to Him, but during Lent He gives us special grace and strength to transform ourselves and change our lives. Just try to love others and love God whom you ought to. We owe our very existence to Him, so can we live without Him? He loves, waits and forgives... though we may turn away from Him and go against Him but He cannot because that’s His nature!!!

-  B. Johnson Maria

Book Review

 “The World’s First Love” by Fulton J. Sheen.

(Presented in Khrist Premalaya Theologate)

Introduction

A book lover would like to read any book given to him, but when s/he is asked to choose one particular book and read it, it’s a hard task indeed. The book I selected for my book review is titled as ‘The World’s First Love.’ It may sound a very romantic title, unless one is familiar with its author namely, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. This is a romantic book indeed. Before proceeding to tell about the book itself, I would like to say a little bit about the author.

The Author: Fulton John Sheen (May 8, 1895 – Dec 9, 1979) was an American Archbishop of Roman Catholic Church known for his preaching and especially for his work on television and radio. His cause for canonization for sainthood was officially opened in 2002, and so he is now referred as a “Servant of God.” He was ordained a priest for the diocese of Peoria in 1979, and then he soon became a renowned theologian and in 1923 earned the Cardinal Mercier Prize for International Philosophy. He went on to teach theology and philosophy as well as acting as a parish priest before being appointed Auxiliary Bishop pf the Archdiocese of New York in 1951. He held this position until 1966 when he was made the bishop of Rochester. After three years he resigned from this position and was made the Archbishop of the Titular See, of Newport, Wales. He hosted the night time radio program ‘The Catholic Hour’ for twenty years. He then moved to television, presenting “Life is worth Living” (1951-1957). He won an Emmy Award for most outstanding Television Personality. Because of his contribution to televised preaching he is often referred to as one of the first televangelists.

The Book: Of all the books written about Our Lady, Fulton Sheen's The World's First Love is one of the most beautiful ever written. So popular was it when first released in 1952, it was soon republished by various other world known publishers. Its author, Archbishop Fulton Sheen, one of the greatest apologists of the English-speaking Catholic world, a pioneer and leader in Catholic broadcasting, first on radio and later TV, wrote this work at the height of his career. This book is divided into two parts spread over 238 pages, each part consisting of 11 chapters. The first part is titled as “The woman the world loves” in which he explains about the role of Mary in the salvation history from the very beginning till its fulfillment that is till her assumption. In the second part, that is “The World the woman loves” in this part of the book he describes the love Mary has for the world even after her assumption into heaven. Though she has completed the task assigned to her that is to bring forth the Saviour of the world yet she is with the world, she doesn’t abandon the world, she is with the world and this she makes known through various apparitions and unexplained miracles.

The author begins by stating that, when we love somebody or something, it is because we first had its idea and desire and when that is presented before us, we fall in love with it. For example, in a big group of strangers we choose only those people as our friends, who match our expectation and dream of a friend. Our likes and dislikes are also decided based on this same principle. So to say in a nutshell, when we love somebody or something, we already have a prior blueprint of that person or thing. When that blueprint is presented before us in reality, we start loving it. No painter does make a picture without having a blueprint of it in mind.

            Even God, before creating this world, had a blueprint of everything and when everything is ‘good’ and according to the blueprint, He loves it. For every created thing, He has one blueprint and they are created accordingly. But this is not the case with human beings, for human beings, God has two blueprints – one as somebody is created and the other as that person should become. The more we move from what we are to what we should be, the more God loves us. But this is not the case with Virgin Mary. She is the only one person in all humility of whom god has one picture, and in whom there is a perfect conformity between what He wanted her to be and what she is, and that is, she is His own mother!

Critical Appraisal: Now some reflections on the work: The work is structured largely chronologically; thus, the author moves from the fall in the Garden of Eden, to the annunciation and visitation and ends with an analysis of Mary's role as intercessor in a world living with the then threat of a nuclear holocaust. The author brings out his extensive knowledge of theology, Scripture and philosophy throughout his reflection, in such a way as to make complex ideas that theologians and thinkers have struggled with for centuries accessible to the average reader. While some of his writing reflects the concerns and assumptions of the 1950s, the vast bulk of the book's content remains relevant for contemporary readers. Indeed, it could be argued that many of his reflections have more relevance for today than the 1950s. For example, in his discussion of Mary as the model of authentic freedom, he distinguishes between false freedom, that is the ability to do whatever one wants to do without any responsibility, and authentic freedom, that is the ability to make the responsible choice that enables us to grow as persons in our relationship with God, the annunciation being the archetypical example of authentic freedom. This book also looks at apologetics type questions, most notably the question as to when belief in the Virgin Birth emerged. The author demonstrates, contrary to liberal theological positions that argue that belief in the Virgin Birth emerged only centuries later, that the evangelists firmly believed in this doctrine. This work's chief strength is that it contains something for everyone on Our Lady: apologetics on the Virgin Birth, analysis of philosophical and theological concepts, devotional chapters dealing with the rosary and the seven sorrows, and discussions of apparitions, particularly Fatima. After reading this book one would discover that this book is written not only for Catholics to deepen their faith, but for non-Catholics wanting to gain more of an insight into what the Catholic Church actually believes and teaches about Mary and her role.

                                                                                                                       - B. Johnson Maria