“Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete” (Jn 16:24)

If Jesus were to come to me today and invite me to “ask” what would I request? Wealth, a better Job, a mansion, great power? Do these bring fulfillment and “Joy?”

 There are many ways we get joy but they may not true be joy with material things.  But we need to serve others to get true joy in our hearts.

God gives us his holy spirit to go against the flaw of the world, the devil. We need to let go our timidity laziness and attachment to worldly things and we seek to walk in the ways of the spirit.

Peace

Peace is very important for human. Every one wants individual peace in life. Pleasure, power and possessions are poor substitutes of peace of heart and mind. Jesus promises and gives us peace, if we are to live in peace, harmony and victory. We must build our relationship with God by praising and thanking him daily.

 If you do what I command you” and “because I have made  known to you everything..

God is love, he loves us . Obeying him is to love others as he loved us . It is not so easy to love our brothers and sisters. But we can still go out of our way to love others. And we can do that only if we are healed of our own hurt feelings, resentment and hatred. We need to clear our prejudices. Then only we can love our brothers and sisters whole heartedly.

 A friend of God cannot be a friend of the world…(Jn-15:19)

When we think about death. All of us get scared; There is nothing to get scared of our death. Because God tells us that we do not belong to this world but we belong to God the almighty. If you want to meet God you just do your task well then you will see God in heaven. Spiritual duties are also very important. Like every moth going for confession for our happy death, sitting in front of the Blessed Sacrament and praying  for our good death. And God  will offer us an everlasting life.

  Holy Spirit

Lord Jesus Christ gives us his holy spirit to spread the good news to the whole world especial to poor youth and poor people around us.

We need to let go  our timidity, laziness and attachment to worldly things and sincerely seek to walk in the way of the Holy Sprit. Holy spirit will make us firm witnesses of Christ just as the many fathers were not fearing  persecution or even martyrdom. But Many fathers and sisters and lay brothers are testifying through their upright lives and proclaiming the goodness of God to everyone they come across.

Dryness.

In moments of dryness, do all human being feel acutely the absence of Lord in their lives? This question is difficult to answer because I have seen people who say that they love God with whole my heart. There was a time in his life with lot of dryness and he did not believe in God and he started worshiping devil in his life and he went away for  God the almightily. I know it is very difficult to believe when we are totally in the dryness. But our loving God teaches to believe when we are in the dryness and we should have firm faith in the Lord our God. 

  Life as I know it..

“LIFE”. A simple four letter word. Life is a journey, Life is good, Life is precise. Whatever you name it , it has its own pros and cons, gains and losses. It happens that many times we forget to thank for this beautiful life which God has blest with each and everyone in this world. But always we want to complain about our cons?  We know that life is simple and God’s gift to us. But still we make it complicated. Many times we think of on past experiences that are bitter and upset ourselves. And many times we think about our future and get worried about it. Many times we want to make our present worthwhile. We know that problems in our lives are never ending. We all have problems and in all stages of our lives. So Believe God’s mercy and live your life to the full.

 Community news…

          A person was very active and humble.  His sermon was well appreciated in the community. He was the man who always taps on your solders we all know that he is our dear father Mathew, he had already departed form our community to his next destination. His destination is now international community. He is going to teach his favorite subject “Moral Theology”. I hope wherever he is God is always guiding him we  hope that his international mission  be fruit one .

  

   Hypocrites….

          When I think about Hypocrites first thing comes to my mind is, that I should not act in front of others  and I need to be humble and serene. I know many people are hypocrites in the world, family, priest, laity, politics ministers, and so on. All human wants to make a good impression on many, As Christians we cannot deny the fact that we feel good when we are decked out in our Sunday. On the other hand, we may come across people who are simple in their attire, yet they exude something different. It may be  seen in their eyes, or how they carry themselves. And we ask ourselves, what is striking about this person? What sets them apart perhaps is what is inside. Love, sincerity, self-confidence, transparency, Compassion , joy and so on. As good human we need to be different from others. You should ever act like hypocrites. You should always remember in your life that “GOD SEES YOU”.

 Father

          When I think about my father and mother I feel best. God has given me good father and mother. When I think about many who are on the streets, who do not have any body or some broken families, or single mothers, I feel sad. Because we know that if we do not get fathers love in our life we may face tremendous relationship problems and stresses. Also single-parent children may be addicted to drugs or become victims or perpetrators of sexual abuse, violence and so on. So it is very important that when we (religions priests or nuns, clerics) are dealing with orphans we need to give special attention to them, we need to show our love and compassion to them. 

 Be poor…

 When I think about our religious life. I think that I am the richest person in the world with out martial things and as spiritual. We all know that the life and teachings of Jesus, his disciples and the saints reveals that in order to have a authentic relationship with God to be poor is the first step. We need to question  ourselves that “Why does God wants us to lay aside our Wealth (as religious)? Love of God means predominance of God in every corner of our mind and heart. Wealth is something that challenges his presence. Many times Wealth is taking the place of God in our life. Like Mobile, gadgets, lands, houses, and so on.

We need to  be poor in heart then only we can be true disciples of God. Our desire towards martial thing can keep God far form us.  

     KUBHA MELA,,IN NASHIK..

 When I think about my self as a Christian I feel to be proud & to be good. When I think about our Indian culture and Hindus I do feel great I have stayed with them from my childhood and still I am finding majority of Hindus around us. It was on one of my Thursday walks that I saw such a  huge crowd in Nashik. It was my privilege to be a part of this event there were many pilgrims and many Hindu priests (Gurus) and sadhus. I saw them having bath in the holy river Godavri. It was really amazing. Really I need to admire their faith on their God.

   Pornography.

In India, we are not open to speak about “Porn” Because many boys and girls do watch porn in their teenage. But parents do not know about them. Media is so easily accessible and anyone can watch many Porn videos on the net. We need to be very careful in accessing the net because some times though we   do not want to watch porn but unknowingly  through the net we may get tempted to watch porn. Once we start watching porn then it will go to our sub-conscious mind and  we will have desire to watch again and again in that way  we need to be very careful. Porn will affect us in many ways in our relationship with the opposite sex (women) dehumanizing, we lose our ability of imagining, It leads to addiction, and so on. So as a religion we need to be very careful when we work with the young boys and girls because they are so much open to the media. As youth worker or as religious we need to help our youth and we need to guide them on right path to live a healthy life.

  Sexuality

     In India sexuality is not an openly spoken. In the western culture parents are very open to sexuality that they can talk about sexuality to their children. Where as in India it is impossible. Today’s generations need to be open towards sexuality because we are sexual animals and sex is one of the ways to express our sexuality. In the context of love and marriage sex is holy, so we need to learn that the sex is not bad for the human. Sex is an expression of love, between husband and wife. When we think that sex is only for pleasure it would be a big mistake. When we focus only about copulation in relationship it is a narrow view of sexuality. It becomes profane and obscene. This is what pornography portrays.

      And especially as a religious I /we need to respect women. We should never think that women are sex object they are our mothers and sisters and all above creation of God. 

 The human…

          The human person has many things to share with the world like love, trust, humility, prayer, joy, happiness and so on.

          I think that as a human being, I have a great role to play in the human society. Through my life I can change many lives. I can draw many people on the wrong way as well as on the right.  But by doing this I may not find joy in my heart. If I love people as God loves me than I can see my life or my heart filled with joy, love brings happiness in my life as well as that of others. Even prayer can change the lives of millions. I believe that without prayer, humans cannot have good things within themselves. Only those who love God can experience the love of God in their lives and they can change their lives as well as the lives of others. If I can love God with all my heart than only can I change my life as well as that of others. If I love others than only can I do good to them.

  Good   Leader

          As religious, we are called to be humble and good leaders. Many a time, a question arises in my mind: Where are the religious leaders?  This question is often repeated today. There is definitely a dearth of quality leaders in the socio-politico-religious spheres of life, who can make a positive difference to society and make it a better place to live in. Many societies, groups, organizations and even nations have fallen apart because of inefficient leaders. Any leader who only works for his or her own well-being and prosperity will soon realize that his or her followers are dwindling in humbler conditions and will soon be overthrown. No leader survives long on selfishness, pride or deceit. A leader should provide a vision to follow and be ready to commit himself/herself to pursue that vision relentlessly and become models to his/her followers. We know that the most genuine, loving, kind, holy, hard working, committed and never compromising leaders are every-ready even to sacrifice their life for their followers. Jesus is our real leader we need to follow him.

“You can give without loving but you can not love without giving.”

It is truly said that we so often give things to many but we never give things to poor with love. So when one gives a gift to us do they give us with love or just for the sake of giving What about us? how do we love people? Do we really love Jesus with whole our heart ? Or just as Christian we need to follow to the Catholic Church? Our love for Jesus must be more then just following ten commandment or law of the church. Following Jesus is wonderful but we need to sacrifice ourselves for Jesus by going for mission, serving poor, helping the church in a  contrite way, and most important thing is prayer for other and for the  church. This way we can give  love to church as well as to our poor brothers and sisters.

Poor & Needy         

Our tendency perhaps is to look around for someone we define as “poor” or “needy” and give them a little money. When we do this perhaps we are helping  someone who is in need but being poor or needy is a basic element of any human being’s existence: poor in spirit, needy of time, poor in judgment, needy for love, poor in wisdom, needy in friendship. And this experience is not confined to a season, but we know that we are poor and needy 365 days a year.

“Love for the poor is at centre of the Gospel”

Pope Francis

I feel that what Pope Francis is telling us is very true. As a Christian or a religious we are very open to the concept of talking about the poor. But very few wants to work for the poor in the village or in the city. We want to live our life with comfort and enjoy our life with our friends and we are concerned about our office time. Because whenever any poor comes to our religious house. Do we ask them that to meet on the office time? Today this is a big question. How we deal with poor on daily life?  If you really want to work for the poor  we need to show in practical way not theatrical .

Ordinary Christians..

Do you like  Christians?  We know that human nature is such that we tend to lapse again and again into our old ways. We need constant reminders, exhortation and motivation to bring us back to the right path. That is why we require the clergy. And it is the diocesan priests who have the special pastoral role and mission to continuously exhort the faithful and help them become their best selves. We know that priests are human like the rest of us. Sometimes their mission may put them under great stress and they may seem to leave the path of ‘true righteousness and holiness’. In a world that appears to be moving away from God and godliness, they need our prayers more than ever.

Today

          In Today’s world all wants to be rich and happy.  We think about enjoying  material things. Material cravings and desires of the flesh are too tempting in today’s world. Today all people want a bigger house, a more luxurious car, good clothes to wear, lots of money and so on. This sometimes leads us to accept malpractices at our job or in our personal life in order to get something.  Lust is a very common temptation of our time. It may also be a danger for religious as well as any lay person. We have all experienced temptations. Jesus too was sorely tempted. But Jesus was able to overcome temptation through prayer and an intense desire to do His Father’s will. Every time we are faced with temptation can we stop and think if this action, thought or attitude is in keeping with “ who I am in Christ”?

Family

          We know that it is very important in the Christian family for the children to be able to recognize their freedom in obeying their elders. In the family, as a school of moral values and virtues, we learn love,  generous and selfless dedication to others, self-esteem, reconciliation, solidarity, temperance, a spirit of service, respect, good habits and good behaviour, that lead to order and peace in society as well as in family.

          In the year dedicated to the family, and on the basis of their personal experience of faith, parents who have mother Mary as their model, need to lead their children towards an encounter with the Risen Jesus. It will completely transform their lives.

Mother

We know that Blessed Virgin Mary is the model of the church, As she lived her life serving the Father, so too we will one day serve the father in heaven. She was taken into heaven in reward of her glorious service to Christ. It must be affirmed that the grace bestowed on Mary is special and unique because of her special and unique role in salvation history. When we see Mother Mary as our mother we need to ask a question to ourselves that do we really serve our father with wholeheartedly?