Giving Gifts: Faith vs. Superstition

Giving Gifts: Faith vs. Superstition
 

       First let's define, "What is a superstition?" A superstition is a belief or notion, not based on reason or knowledge, in or of the ominous significance of a particular thing, circumstance, occurrence, proceeding, or the like. It is the belief in supernatural causality - that one event causes another without any natural process linking the two events—such as astrology, religion, omens, witchcraft, prophecies, etc., that contradicts natural science. It is based on or lack of true knowledge of God and His ways. It is also based on the fear of the unknown.

            On the other hand, faith is based on God. Faith is based on the knowledge of who God is and how and why He does things. Faith is also something that God gives to us and not something that we can generate. We can, at best, respond in faith to what He speaks to us. It is based on trust and confidence in God and His revealed word. We are willing to leave the unknown in the faithful hands of our God who knows and plans our future.   Therefore, superstition, unlike faith, has no substantial basis; nor is its conclusions reached by logical deductions. There are many different superstitions about gift giving. Here are some...

 

“Let my body be turned...!”

“Let my body be turned...!”  - St. Lawrence

            Jesus in today’s gospel (John 12:24-26) presents to us an analogy of living and dying. In dying to oneself especially of our being conceited, self-centered and individualistic, a new life develops. Every human person is like a grain of wheat that falls to the earth and dies. It is in dying that life produces much fruit. Take the example of Jesus.

            The analogy of living and dying is also exemplified by St. Lawrence, the saint we honor today. Saint Lawrence was Chief of the seven deacons of Rome, a Spaniard by birth and was in charge of diocesan properties and charities.

            In the year 258 Pope Sixtus II was led out to die by the Romans. We are told, in the first place, that when the pope was seized, Lawrence accompanied him and asked, with tears in his eyes, “Father, where are you going without your deacon?” The pope answered, “You shall follow me in three days.”

            Inspired by this prophecy, the deacon prepared for death by distributing among the poor all the church funds he had on hand, even adding to that welfare fund by selling some of the sacred vessels. When the prefect of Rome learned of this distribution, he concluded that the Christians were very wealthy. So he summoned Lawrence and ordered him to turn over the church’s treasures, to be added to the fund supporting the Roman army. Lawrence asked only for a few days (three days) to make an “inventory” of church possessions before he presented them. When three days were up, the deacon returned to the prefect accompanied by a large crowd of his poor: the blind, the orphaned, the aged, the lepers, the crippled, the widows and the maidens. “These,” he said to the prefect “are the treasures of the church." The prefect was furious with Lawrence’s answer. At once he arrested him and condemned him to death by roasting alive on a grill (gridiron).

            The story goes on to say that the deacon did not hesitate at one point in his torture to tell his executioners, “Let my body be turned; one side is broiled enough!” what a saint! His death and example led the conversion of Rome that signaled the end of paganism in the city. For us there is no need that we have to follow literally what St. Lawrence did, died a martyr’s death. Each one of us has the capacity to do good and to show kindness to one another. Our acts of kindness might be insignificant but at least we have contributed in making our world a better place to live in.

 

"Me and my Big Mouth!"

19th Ordinary Sunday - Yr B.

Complain and Remain...Praise and be Raised!

            It seems such natural that we are people who love to complain. We are a people who love to murmur. This Sunday's gospel starts by saying that as soon as the Lord said to the Jews: “I am the Bread that came down from heaven,” the Jews murmured to one another. They started to say: “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph? Do we not know his father and mother? Then how can he say, ‘I have come down from heaven?" What a difference our attitude towards life makes to our enjoyment of life. This is the positive approach of one woman I knew: "Lord, thank you for this sink of dirty dishes, we have plenty of food to eat. Thank you for this pile of dirty laundry, we have plenty of nice clothes to wear." Such a beautiful positive attitude is what you would expect of a disciple of Jesus. This is not the attitude we see in the Jews who were complaining about Jesus in the Gospel today (John 6:41).

            He said to them, “Stop complaining to each other.” (John 6:43) Why were they complaining? If they had known Jesus properly they would not have complained. We would all do well to pay heed to these words of Jesus, “Stop complaining to each other” because sometimes we complain like the Jews of his time. You have the power to be happy and stop complaining. It is a question of attitude. Be grateful for what you have. See the presence of God with you. Count your blessings. The attitude in the first verse of our Psalm today is an example to us. “I will bless the Lord at all times, His praise always on my lips” (Ps 34:1) Jesus is the bread of life to strengthen us to overcome all our problems. I strongly recommend reading a book called "Me and my Big Mouth!" by Joyce Meyer.  The title of chapter 6 is Complain and Remain, Praise and Be Raised. 

DON'T fear...DON'T lose the focus...

DON'T fear...DON'T lose the focus...
      Fear cripples us. In the gospel the disciples are terrified of the storm even if they are seasoned fishermen. They are more terrified when they see a ghost! The worse of all they even consider Jesus, a ghost. Mt. 14, v. 25: “During the fourth watch of the night, he came toward them, walking on the sea.”
      But when Jesus tells them that it is He, Peter wants to walk on the water with Jesus. He is already taking a few steps when suddenly he notices that he starts to sink. He starts to sink because when instead of focusing himself to Jesus, he focuses on the wind. He starts to sink when his attention is not on Jesus but on the strong wind. He looks down instead of looking up on God. This is also what happens to us when we lose focus of life and of Jesus and give more focus on our problems and difficulties.
     Don’t look down; look up to God and to life. Don’t look at storms of problems and difficulties but let your focus be on what give life and on Jesus. Fix your eyes on life and on Jesus. Somebody said: “The natural temptation is to focus on the difficulties, on the wind and the waves, on the sense of not being in control. Fix your heart and your will on Christ. Trust in the strength and power of his saving hand. He will not let you down. If he has called you to a certain work, to a certain way of being, to a greater level of faith, he will give you the graces necessary.”
     At the time we don’t expect, in moments of distress and darkness, Jesus comes to us. He walks in our sea of doubt and fear. Nothing can stop him to care for us. Recognize him. Hear him say: “it is I.”

A great lesson from Mary Magdalene....

A great lesson from Mary Magdalene....

 

            Many a times we hear sayings like:" Where there is a woman there is magic", “Behind every successful Man is a great Woman” and so on and so forth. Today I want to believe that Jesus too understood the same and much clearer than we do, and that is why he chose and gave Mary Magdalene the opportunity she got in life: been forgiven, been an apostle of the apostles and been first to see the resurrected Lord.

            As we celebrate the feast of Mary Magdalene today (July 22), and I would say, one of the most important feasts in Christian life, we don't want to focus on so many accounts as: she was a sinner, prostitute, but really on how come she could not recognize Jesus at the tomb! In today’s account of the gospel (John 20:1-2, 11-18) we see that Mary Magdalene failed to recognize the Lord. Why did she fail to see that the man talking to her was already the Lord?

            I see at least two reasons why she missed the presence of the Risen Christ initially. First is because of her tears. She was weeping and therefore she could not see very well because all her energy, all her attention was focused on her weeping. Her eyes had blurred from the tears, had swollen and so when the Lord came, she could no longer open them wide. Isn’t that the same with us, my dear friends? If we carry lingering doubts it may be because we still do not enjoy the Easter peace. We are not enjoying the Easter joy because we still live in tears of complains and doubts.  Let us not live in the past. Let us not miss the presence of the Lord because of our excessive sorrow, because of our excessive sadness. Mary missed the Lord because of those tears.

            The second reason why Mary missed the presence of the Risen Lord was that she was looking in the wrong direction. She was talking to the Lord but she was looking at the tomb. That is why she missed the Lord. Well, again, in a sense, that is the same with us. We miss the presence of the Lord because we choose to look at the tombs of our past rather than look at the Lord in the events of the moment. We may be focusing our attention on the trauma of the past, of what we did in the past. Our gaze maybe fixed on our failures, our abuses, and our sins of the past. We need to be roused from our fixation on the tomb. The Lord was buried there but the Lord is already risen. We are still looking at the past. We are still looking at the tomb. And if we continue to do so, chances are, when the Lord comes, just like Mary, we will not be able to see Him. The Lord is not in the past. The Lord is in your present. The Lord is beside you, in front of you, behind you, on top of you, under you, inside you. The Lord is there and we must look where the Lord is. And then enjoy His presence.

            Talk to Mary during the moments of silence today and tell her, “Mary, you missed the presence of the Lord because you wept too much. You missed the presence of the Lord because you were looking in the wrong direction. You have taught me a lesson. I want to enjoy the Lord’s presence. I will stop crying. I will be happy again. I want to enjoy the presence of the Lord. I will not look at the tombs of the past. I will look at the Lord now." The past is history, the future is unknown, and the present is a gift. Live the present life with total joy, happiness, emotion, feelings, pleasure, dedication, service, etc...And remember as Eric Fromm said: ''Mature love says, ‘I need you because I love you.’ Immature love says, ‘'Love you because I need you.''

Love that insists on loving...

Love that insists on loving...
            On my blog, I have written various articles about love; many would wonder why do I have to speak of love many a times; well, partly because we’re such love obsessed people, but mainly because it’s a philosophically inexhaustible topic.  And secondly because of an experience I have gone through in recent times - do we really love to change people or to be changed?  Why do people in love have knowledge of what can irritate their partners and still go on and do them; do that mean they are not loving?  Is knowledge enough for love? What then is the condition of love? So and so many other questions can click on into our minds...Rules, laws and regulations and traditions, all these are good for they are meant to provide peace and order, social order to give direction to one’s life and to promote life. They are beneficial to us. But the moment we forget the person, for whom the laws were made and become too legalistic, too formalistic and structured, the laws cease to be life-giving. They stifle life. Instant judgments and counting the mistakes of others become then so natural that mercy, forgiveness and compassion are easily forgotten; love starts to condition...

           

Our focus this time will be less on romantic love, than on unconditional love, in all its manifestations – whether between romantic partners, between parents and their children, or between humanitarians and all humankind. I should start out by admitting that unconditional love is rare and difficult thing.  Parents may profess to love their children unconditionally.  But how often do children test the limits of parental love? Couples in the first blush of new love may make dewy-eyed promises to love each other for better or for worse.  But how often do such promises give way to betrayal and recrimination?   Still, it’s an amazing gift when it does happen.   And it’s one that we all want.  We all want someone who will love us forever, through thick and thin, no matter what we do or become. Part of me thinks that unconditional love is the highest form of love.  Most religions certainly seem to believe that.  That’s why they attribute unconditional love for all mankind to God.  It’s why Christ commands Christians to love thy neighbour as thyself. But, of course, unconditional love is easy for God - with his infinite patience and boundless capacity to forgive.   You can’t hurt God – not really.  But humans are vulnerable.  In us, too much hurt, betrayal or disappointment kills even the deepest, most enduring love.

            Of course, its one thing to focus on the work it takes for us to give or sustain unconditional love. That’s hard, I admit.  But think about what it’s like to be the recipient of such love.  That seems, at first blush, to be a really good thing to the recipient of.  Who wouldn’t want to be loved unconditionally, despite all your flaws and failings? On the other hand, part of me thinks that maybe unconditional love isn’t all its cracked up to be. Don’t people want to be loved and appreciated for who and what they are?  When somebody loves me unconditionally, doesn’t that mean they don’t care who I am or what I do and they are blind to my particularity? But isn’t love about delighting in the particularity of the other? But maybe that’s being too quick to dismiss. I mean just because you love somebody unconditionally, doesn’t mean you don’t care about what they are or what they do. Presumably, if you love them, you want them to be their best self.   You might even hope and believe that your love will help them become that. The “unconditional” part of unconditional love just means that - you won’t withdraw love when things go badly.

God must be Surprised....

God must be Surprised....

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened,

and I will give you rest... (Not take away problems...) Mt. 11, 28

            Scott Peck begins his great book, “The Road Less Travelled” with the simplest statement possible: “Life is difficult.” I think all of us agree with this. People complain a lot about problems in life, forgetting that complaining will never solve them. Some feel burdened by their job (or by not having a job), by damaged relationships and so on. And at times they are burden to themselves. To deal with such burdens, some pretend that everything is fine, others cover up, again others drown their heavy feelings in the hustle and bustle of a mall, the noise of a disco, or in the taste of alcohol. Some complain to God, “Why did you give to me all these crosses? One is more than enough.”

            It’s true, God allows suffering in our lives but He did not create us to suffer. The many burdens and problems which we generalize as “crosses” in our life might be self-created. Did God give us the cross of a damaged relationship when it was us who in our pride hurt a person and are not ready to make the first step to reconciliation? Is it God who gave the cross of anger which causes high blood pressure, when we are the ones who expect too much from ourselves or from others?

            God must be surprised sometimes when we blame Him for self-inflicted crosses. Jesus wants us to be happy as he was happy – in spite of the cross. We may pray, of course, that God takes a cross away from us; Jesus did the same in Gethsemane. But He trusted God and accepted what the Father had designed for Him. Jesus invites us to follow Him, to come to Him (not to mega mall or a disco) and find rest and learn from Him how to carry life’s burden. It is in his merciful presence that we find peace. Then we will stop complaining and begin to solve our problems and unburden ourselves from self-fabricated crosses.

            Always remember, this famous passage from St. Augustine's Confessions in which he states "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you", and still, Joyce Meyer said something that can be easy to remember: “Complain and remain. Praise and be raised.” Basically, that means that if you complain, then you’ll stay wherever you are emotionally and nothing will get better. If you give praise and stay positive about things, then you will find yourself happier, content, and, amazingly, with less problems. The problems won’t disappear, but they’ll become smaller or even nothing at all in your perspective. This is exactly what we get when we are with Jesus (Mt. 11, 28), "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest...more energy, refreshment, vigour, to continue fighting in this tiresome world...