Fifth Sunday of Great lent - Devotional

This week is the fifth Sunday of the lent. Our Lord was teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath. There was a lady who had a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years, and was bent over and could not raise herself up. For a human being, to live with out being able to raise one head or body and look up is horrible. The situation has similar effect if it is physical or spiritual. As believers in God, our will is to “lift up my eyes to the hills, from where comes my help” as the psalmist sings with faith.

 Physical inability to look up will make us unable to see or understand everything going on in front of us. The psalmist says to lift the eyes to the hills, to the heights; we believe that our Lord is in the heights, and therefore we wish to look to the heights while praying. God appeared to Moses in the heights. We always look to the heights while we worship our Lord.

 The woman in this story was physically unable to lift her body up to worship Lord. Physical inability does not always hinder our will to worship our Lord lifting our minds towards Him. Moreover, it not the heads which has to be with Him but our minds, hearts and intellects as we hear in the Holy Qurbana. Our minds, hearts and intellects have to be in the heights at the right side of our Father. And therefore, physical inability does not always hinder the mental ability of the mind to be spiritually unified with our Lord.

 Jesus saved the woman who was physically unable to stand upright. Even though her body was bent over, her mind must have been with Lord and that should be the reason why Jesus saved her as he saw her. Scripture says that Jesus called her to Him when he saw her. For all of us who are not crippled, the message or insight we should get from this is that, Jesus who cured the physical inability of the women is able to cure the mental inability of us too. How many of us have bent over minds which is unable to look up to the Lord and praise Him. The light is always kept at the highest point, and therefore to see its full glory, we should be able to look up.

 Different reasons can make us unable to look to the heights and praise God. A Christian community does not need to be explained about the reasons which will make our minds bent over. To be brief, when are not following a life as it was commanded by our Lord, we are unable to look up. Some do not have the knowledge to look up and find the light, some do not bother to, and some are ashamed to. Our Lord is the strength for us during these situations and he can definitely save us from our mental crippleness.

 The women glorified God, but the synagogue ruler as we read in the 14th verse argued against Jesus for healing the women on Sabbath. Jesus answered, “You hypocrite, does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound, see, these eighteen years, is loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?” Quoting St. John Chrysostom from Homily XL on Mathew XII, 1, 2. B#, pp. 259-260.

Holy Father says, “So first in the case of the blind man, He does not so much defend Himself to them when He made the clay: and yet then also they were blaming Him. But the manner of the creation was enough to indicate the Lord and the Owner of law. Next, in the case of the paralytic, when he carried his bed, and they were finding faults, He defends Himself, now as God, and now as man, and as man, when He says, ‘If a man on the Sabbath day receives circumcision, that the law should not be broken’…’are you angry at be because I made a man completely well on the Sabbath day?’(John 7: 23). As God again, when He say, ‘My Father works hitherto, and I work’ (John 5: 17). But when blamed for His disciples, He said, ‘Have you not heard what David did’ (Matt 12: 3, 4)… He also brings forward the priests…

And the other evangelist (Mark) says that He also looked about on them when asking these questions, so by His very eye He might win them over; but not even so did they become better… None of these things made them meek, rather while the man was healed; they become worse by his health. For His desire was indeed to cure them before them, and He tried in numerable way of healing, both by things He did in their presence, and by His words, but since their malady was incurable after all, He proceeded to work… They have received no injury, yet they went about to slay Him. So great an evil is envy. For it is ever warring, not only against strangers, but even against our own.”

In the gospel according to Mathew we read, “³But he said to them, Have you not read what David did, when he was an hungered, and they that were with him; ⁴How he entered into the house of God, and did eat the show bread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests? ⁵Or have you not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless? ⁶But I say to you, That in this place is one greater than the temple. ⁷But if you had known what this means, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless. ⁸For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.” (Matt 12: 3 – 8)

Faith in our Lord is a blessing we receive from Him and not some thing which we will be able to acquire by our intelligence. This faith is what makes us believe in Christ.  To receive the blessing, there should be a will to understand and accept our Lord. Moreover, there should be an urge to understand the truth and the true God. We read in the epistle to Galatians 3 :1 that, “¹O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ has been evidently set forth, crucified among you?” Our lives are greatest examples for His blessings, and therefore we should not remain blind any more. The light is up there to lighten our hearts and minds, and we all should look up to the heights, up to the skies so that our Lord answers our prayers from there. Our minds do not need to be bent any more; our Lord is there to heal us all.

Praise Him!!!

Donation of Time

            Charity basically means giving. One of the commandments Jesus has given us is to GIVE your belongings to others. He said to the rich man to sell all the property and share it with the poor and that’s the way to enter eternal life. Most of the Christians and the Christian churches has given great importance to this and is helping thousands of poor around the world. We also share our money with the church and its members to build our own places to worship and get together. All this money is the money we are giving to God from what He has given us. And most often, our charitable activities gets compressed to dollars or rupees, and nothing else. Even in church, a lot of people just give importance only in paying the subscription and all, and we often forget to spend our time with God.

             When Jesus says to GIVE, He just doesn’t mean to give the wealth we have. It has a wider meaning; I basically mean to give or submit you to the Lord God, submit the whole life for the GLORIFICATION of Him. As Father has given us His own Son for the redemption of the world, we all who testifies as believers in Christ has the responsibility to submit to God. Submitting to God includes spending our time to God too. And therefore it means spending our time for the poor and the needy too, with a helping hand and a wish to care and that is what I mean by the title Donation of Time. Mother Teresa will be the best example we could find in this century who has purely and completely donated all her TIME for God and the poor, and the sick. She found God in them, and she spent her whole life taking care of them. This was the purest form of Love, and this was the greatest gift God received back from St. Teresa for redeeming her by giving her His son (Jesus was given as a gift to the whole world. Jesus died for each and every one of us). Father Damien is another well known example who was taking care of the leper patients, and finally died acquiring leprosy.

 Purpose of Creation

It will be good to explain the Purpose of Creation to understand the donation of Time in a better way. I believe that Purpose of Creation of human being is the Divine Love found in the Holy Trinity, which THEY decided to share with THEIR children (humans), so that the Love and sharing in the Holy Trinity will reach its completeness in all aspects. The purpose of humans is to glorify God, which is very necessary for the survival of us. The glorification of our Lord reaches it maximum when there is a completion in Love, when we truly understand what God’s path is meant and when we truly accept it.  This completeness of Love to God has to be attained to Glorify Him purely. As Christians our journey should be towards achieving the completeness of Love towards our Lord.

             I think completeness of Love in Humans towards God occurs when there is an equal amount of flow of Love among the Father and the children, or the complete sharing of Love between God and man. Our Lord has given us all the Love, has shown us all the Love and its seen right in front of our eyes. He came to the earth and suffered and died for us and that is the greatest expression of His love towards us. He submitted completely to redeem us. To have the equal amount of Love between us and our God, we should also submit ourselves completely to His will. As Jesus has obeyed His Father completely, we all have the responsibility to obey our Heavenly Father completely. “Be you therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us, and has given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling smell.” (Eph 5: 1, 2)

             To complete the purpose of creation, we all have to submit ourselves and submitting ourselves basically means spending our time for Lord. One way to spend our time for God is prayers. Our great Fathers have divided a day in to seven parts and different prayers were being composed to be prayed at those particular times. Nowadays, we often hesitate to do that even in church on Sundays. We often skip through the Morning Prayer before the Holy Qurbana to save time. The same culture is developing in our homes too, when we change our prayer schedule from one time to other based on the time schedule of different shows we have to watch on TV’s. And prayer of course has become something which can be easily omitted if we don’t have time, or it is some thing which can be done in a very short way just by saying a word and a cross.

             At the time of creation, God has spent 6 days creating this beautiful world for His children. The effort of God to us is simply amazing, and this shows the love and care He had to us. We read in Psalms 121 that “he that keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he that keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.” We have a Lord who is watching over us every minute, and not just watching over us but my giving everything needed to sustain our lives as a blessing every single day. God has spent 6 days to create a world for us. How many days do we spend in loving and glorifying Him??? Prayers have become a ritual nowadays, and it has become a 2 hour service on Sundays. Is this what we are giving His back for all the Love He has given us???

             St. Paul in his epistle to Ephesians says, “be filled with the Spirit; Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks ALWAYS for all things to God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.”

St. Paul insists to give thanks to the Lord ALWAYS, and to live in speaking words of our God so that it will enhance the spiritual lives of everyone. We all get attracted to the world of pleasure so often, spent all the time for that and forget about the words of God, which is a huge hindrance to the completeness of love we have to acquire.

             St. Paul says, “Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.” This leads us to the path of helping those who need it. Helping with money is great but our time and presence also can do a lot more. As I said above, St. Teresa is the best example. By money we can help only the economically poor, but by time we will be helping the spiritually poor and struggling, and we will be saving lives. We will be bringing more souls to the path of salvation by spending our time for those who needs the word of God. And if we are spending our time praying just for our needs, it is very selfish and is against the word of God. As Christians we all have the responsibility to bring our brothers and sisters to the word of God, to the path of salvation so that they also can be with Jesus when He comes again.

             To have completeness, we have to share equal amount of Love with God, which means we have to provide the same amount of Love to the nearby brother and the sick and poor we see in this world. As we read in St. John “My children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.” We have to love in DEED and in TRUTH. That is love in action, and that is expected from the humans while he was created. There lies the true completeness, when we 'DO LOVE' and not 'Say Love'. Doing Love is different than saying Love. Doing Love requires our time and will. The love we received from God was not said but DONE. And that is the step towards completeness and that is the step to glorifying Him and therefore that is what expected from humans by God, because Loving Him and Glorifying Him is itself the purpose of creation.

             Dear friends, donate your time for God, and donate your time for the needy. Let us share the time with each other which we receive as a free gift from God. The smallest amount of time spent can bring marvelous changes. Lord is with us. Praise Him!!!

Fourth Sunday of Great Lent

This week’s gospel portion is from St. Mathew 15: 21 – 31. It tells us about the Canaanite woman who was begging to Jesus to cure her daughter. The story goes like this. The Canaanite woman came to Jesus and said, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, you son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.” Jesus didn’t answer her and the disciples asked him to send her away. After the conversation Jesus realized the faith of the woman and finally cured the woman’s daughter.

A few things have to be noted from this passage. 
1. The faith of the Canaanite woman.
2. Blessings to the gentiles. 

1. The faith and the humility of the Canaanite woman was the crucial factors in her receiving blessings from Jesus Christ. The woman believed Jesus as Lord and Son of David and asked him to cure her daughter with faith. She was trying to reach Jesus to achieve his blessings and all she had was obstacles in her path. She cried and Jesus didn’t answer at first. The disciples asked Jesus to send her away. 

Her first response to Jesus when he said “I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” was “Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.” She cried for help even though the answer she got was not favorable. Again Jesus to test her faith said, “But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.” Her faith and humility was great. She said, “Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table.” And Jesus continued saying, “O woman, great is your faith: be it to you even as you will. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.”

The woman in this story possesses two qualities. One was her strong faith that Jesus Christ will save her daughter and the second was her humility to go to the maximum level to please Lord. She has to face unfavorable conditions three times and still her faith and humility didn’t change. She didn’t turn silent, neither she desist. Even when Jesus responded as a common Jew saying “It is not right to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs”, she continued her begging. And thus Jesus realized her humility and faith and gave her wish.

A lesson to be learned from this woman is to have maximum faith and humility towards God no matter what obstacles are in front of us. How many of us will have the same faith and humility? The obstacles we face will be easily moved by our faith. Those obstacles are different ways in which our Lord will be testing our faith, similar to the obstacles Job had to face during his life time. During adverse situations, we have to continue in faith and humble ourselves in front of our Lord as Jesus has humbled himself in the cross. We may have to face hardships, we may have to hear what we don’t like, and all kinds of similar things, but our hope is that the Lord watching all of us will answer our prayers for sure. 

2. The second topic to be discussed here is the blessing given to the gentile lady. Jesus as a response to the lady said, “I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” and “But he answered and said, It is not right to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.” These are common responses a gentile will be receiving from a Jew. Jesus asked that to test the faith of the women, but that throws light to the conception the Jews had that blessings from God will be only to them and they are the only people of God. Through the act of redemption of Christ, the new Israel was formed and all who believes and testifies Jesus Christ as God are His children. There is no difference between gentiles and the Jews, but all have equal rights to receive blessings from the Lord. Jesus has proven that by blessing the Canaanite woman. 

This same thought throws insight in to the racism we see in today’s world. From the lowest section to the highest, we see racism one kind or the other. The caste system we had for years still prevails in our Indian society. It is seen even in some churches where a group of people makes division between others based on their color or financial status. A church in Pathanamthitta dist has two prayer groups, one for the higher class, or for those with more money and ‘whiteness’ to their skin, and another for the poor and those under the scheduled castes. The same situation will be prevailing in other churches too. 

Distinction just doesn't always is about color. Money has a great influence too, and many parishes divide people based on their financial status. I have seen the same happening twice in my life time at two parishes. Another Church, to keep their ‘purity’, does not allow marriages outside the Church. 

Jesus through this occasion is proving that all are equal in front of Christ, and there is no distinction between gentile and Jew. All are equally acceptable to receive His blessings. And this is another instance to argue towards the socialistic ideas of Christ, and the formation of a socialistic church where all will be considered equal. All are children of God, and all has the same rights. Praise is to Him…

Third Sunday of Great Lent

The gospel portion, St. Mark 2: 1 – 12, is the story of a paralytic who was carried to the house where Jesus was preaching, by four men. They carried the man to the house and because the house was so crowded and they could not bring him in, they went in to the roof made and opening and made him reach the Lord.

 A couple of personalities to be noted here.

1. The first ones on the scene are the four men carrying the paralytic man to Jesus. What could be the reasons which made them work that hard in bringing the man to Jesus?

1. One of the reasons will be the love they have to the man. They wanted him to be cured and be able to walk and live like them. Jesus said to love your brethren, and therefore it’s the duty to take care of those who are struggling. The man might have been in bed for long time and when the four people heard about miracles happening, they wanted him also to be able to receive the blessings.

2. The second reason was of course their faith. They had strong faith in the man who was doing the miracles, and they believed that he is able to cure the man. In last week’s gospel, we heard a testimony saying, ‘if you are willing you can save me’. No doubts arising there. They all strongly believed that if Jesus was willing, he can save them. And that faith made them climb up the roof to reach him. Abraham believed and his belief has saved him.

 Two guidelines for practical Christian life can be derived from here.

1. Love your brethren and be ready to suffer anything to bring him or her to the way of Christ. The person to be changed often will not be able to respond or struggle with you but as we all are children of God, we all have the responsibility to bring our brethren to Christ even if they can’t struggle by themselves. That was the reason why all the apostles, and the disciples and the church fathers struggled so much to keep the faith. The wanted the whole world to be evangelized as they all were God’s children and therefore brothers and sisters and therefore, it was the responsibility God has given. The same responsibility is given to us too, and as Christians it is our duty to do whatever needed, climb the roofs, struggle, whatever to bring our brethren to the path of Christ.

2. Second guideline is the faith we saw in the four young men. If we have the same faith, we can do miracles in this world with the power of Jesus Christ. Because they believed and had faith, they climbed the roof. The majority if Christians today lacks this true faith. We often doubt the God, and we often think if the promise given from our God will happen or not. We often hesitate to do something in the name of God worrying that if it fails you will be ridiculed in front of others. Abraham followed God by faith and therefore he was considered righteous. We need to follow this same faith and belief while struggling in life and while struggling to help others in life.

 2. The next key person in this story is the paralytic man. He was cured by Jesus Christ and before curing his body, his sins were forgiven. Sins and different actions of a person can lead to spiritual or physical paralysis or both. The will to be cured from that condition is the important factor. In this story too, the will of the paralytic man to be saved is very important.

Spiritual paralysis has become a major issue in the Christian church nowadays. There are a lot of people who are paralyzed by the strength of sin, and not able to reach God. As this person was unable to get up by himself and travel to see the Lord, there are a lot of people who are spiritually paralyzed who are unable to go and seek the Lord. Similarly, a lot of us are spiritually paralyzed and are unable to reach the Lord even if we wish to do so. As the body of the man kept him away from reaching the Lord, the paralyzed minds of us keeps us away from reaching the Lord.

But the man had the wish to be saved and therefore he was brought to our Lord and was cured. We all should have the wish to be saved from the state of paralysis we are in and we all should be ready to wake up and walk in Christ proclaiming his name. We have the responsibility to bring our spiritually paralyzed brothers too to the path of God so that He can save them.

3. The third type of people we saw in the story was those who questioned the authority of Jesus to forgive sins. Those who claimed to be the most knowledgeable about the religion have failed in understanding that Jesus is the son of God and he has the right to forgive sins. Their knowledge has not saved them; it has neither taken them to the right path. What saves is the belief and faith in God. And this was lacking in those who questioned Jesus.

Similar kinds of people are seen today too who claims to be the most knowledgeable about God but often denies the path of Lord. Some go by worldly explanations to justify their actions; some misinterpret the teachings of Christ. Its some times amazing how certain people explain the word of God and make it apt there own wishes and thoughts.

As Christians one of our responsibilities is to stay away from these false teachings. St. Paul said not to accept any preaching against what our Lord has taught us. This can happen in our church too, and as Christians we have to be awake in realizing the right and the wrong. When those people correlate word of God to wrong explanations, we have to stay in Christ understanding the truth he has taught us. Understand and realize Christ first and then we all will be able to distinguish between the right and the wrong.

To conclude, this story is able to strengthen our faith. Jesus has forgiven the sins of the man; similarly, we all have the chance to have our sins to be forgiven. Jesus has cured the paralytic; similarly he can cure our physical and mental paralysis once we reach him.Praise God who has come to earth to save us. Praise him as we have given great opportunities to have our sins to be forgiven and to be cured from our paralysis and proclaim the word of the living God. Praise Him!!!