Prayer and change of heart

Prayer will make us leave sinning, or sinning will make us leave prayer.  Such a simple formula.  If one goes about doing his/her best giving time for the things of God, such as Holy Mass, prayer meetings, being together with the family or one’s brethren, then sooner or later, especially if one prays to God for the grace, the person will achieve the change for the better.  This change is what is called in Greek—metanoia, or a conversion of heart.

After all, what we’re after is really a change, but for the better.  What else?  Christianity is not a “palabras” but a religion of grace and power.  Yet like a person who needs water and opens faucets, we too can meditate on God’s word and receive the Sacraments, since these are instruments of change.  If human ideas can, how much greater will the change/conversion produce by divine ideas be.

In a homily delivered in June 1968, Blessed Paul Vi expressed this idea, thus: “We can imagine, then, that each of our sins, our attempts to turn our back on God, kindles in God a more intense flame of love, a desire to bring us back to himself and to his saving plan…God, in Christ, shows himself to be infinitely good…He loves us, seeks us out…He will be—so to say—delighted on the day when we return...”  Let us never forget that we are God’s children, and He awaits our final return at journey’s end.

Peaceful cemeteries

Life is meant to liberate a person from deceiving attempts to demean his/her human dignity in order to ensure protection of one’s human rights.  Sometimes agitators do not seem to realize where or what they are agitating for.  They say they fight for the rights of man yet in sequel to their acts come those riots where more and more victims are piled.  Think that the first right of man is—life. 

Will the acts of violence leading to bloodshed justify the cause for life’s defense?  Such bloodletting in the name of justice is pure deception, revenge and victimizing.  The sad thing about this is when protagonists are false prophets using the name of the Church, yet mouthing violence, anger and hate in their hearts.  Just look at the victims.  Is that justified?

The Spirit says: “Let not your anger reach sundown so as not to give the devil a chance to set a trap for you” (Eph. 4:26).  May true peace reign in our hearts so that one’s life may follow in the footsteps of the Sacrificial Lamb, whose Blood was shed to restore Divine Justice and a reconciling spirit of dialogue for life in the whole of creation.   

The Lord of the harvest calls!

"There is a large harvest, but few workers to gather it in.  Pray to the owner of the harvest that he will send out workers to gather in his harvest."

To follow Jesus is to listen to His voice, for He does not stop calling for people to share in His mission of redemption--challenging both young and old to witness to the Kingdom values--living out a dedicated, joyful readiness to sacrifice oneself so that our poor and needy brethren be not deprived of a dignified way of living.

As God called Abraham and our Fathers of faith into the unknown to help form His people, so does He in our modern times continue to knock to open doors to global newness but still on the way of communal love shown us by Jesus and the first disciples and early Christians.  "The group of believers was one in mind and heart.  None of them said that any of their belongings were their own, but they all shared with one another everything they had" (Acts 4:32).

The challenge today resounds ever more loudly for more workers, modern apostles to attend to those desiring to hear the Good News of a Savior God full of mercy and compassion, and to bear witness to Jesus' mission of love and forgiveness.  "Don't be afraid," Jesus encourages those who follow Him, as He did Peter, "from now on you will be catching people" (Lk. 5:10).

The Lord of the Harvest will supply all the strength needed in leaving behind the fears, anxieties and tensions embedded in the wounded human heart to emerge with the gentle power of the Holy Spirit to communicate the eternal legacy of Faith of the Divine Master and Teacher. "They pulled the boats up on the beach, left everything, and followed Jesus" (Lk. 5:11).

May and the Saints

Those who keep on attacking the Church regarding Mary and the Saints do not seem to understand the rationale behind the revered veneration. 

The honor rendered to Mary and the Saints is first and always because of Jesus and God.  Why?  This is because the honor we give them is for their being servants of God, carrying the law of the Lord in their hearts, and not for their own individual persons.  Jesus himself declared their ‘blessedness’ when He said, alluding to His own Mother as thoroughly attentive to the Father’s will, “Rather blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it” (Lk. 11:28).

Think about it, would we honor Mary and the Saints if they were not somehow connected with God, as faithful servants of the Lord?  If that is so, what’s all the useless fuss about?  There is nothing to argue about after all, and the call is there for us also to consider ourselves God's faithful servants.  Noteworthy to remember is St. Thomas Merton who exclaimed before his martyrdom, "I am the king's [loyal] servant, but God's first."

Giving is progress

"It is more blessed to give than to receive," Jesus says (Acts 20:35).  "In the measure and quality you give, the same shall come back to you overflowing" (Lk. 6:38).

This is the very secret of progress.  But look at where world economies set their footing, following the human philosophies which turn out to be oppressive structures of the Capitalist or Communist systems.  An age-old proverb says: 'Give the best to the world and the best shall come back to you.'

Simple enough is God's philosophy, which can neither deceive nor be mistaken.  Try them, that is the only requisite.  "Taste and see that the Lord is good" (Ps. 34:9)