PLS April - June 2009

Free TrackersHelp

PRAY AND LIVE YOUR SUNDAY
January to March 2012

Jesus : We enter into this hour of prayer once again with a careful weeding out of all the distractions that could be disturbing your peace of mind right now. Should some of these distractions be particularly troublesome, it would be worth making them the subject of the first few minutes of your prayer. Share freely with Me what seems to be worrying you to the extent that it will not allow you to attend to My message, important though it is … Once you begin to see that this troublesome thought/feeling is not really of that much importance, you will be much more receptive of what I seek to share with you… Allow yourself a few more minutes of quiet and then speak to Me about the effort you made in the last week. Did you experience any particular difficulty with the living out of your prayer insights? Spend a few minutes sharing with Me about this, seeking always to learn how to respond better and better each new week.

Jesus : For this year, we shall reflect on the 2nd reading each Sunday, gleaning some of the riches that St. Paul places before us. Notice that today’s little section begins with a very important truth, viz. that God had planned every event to the least and last detail… so when the ‘fullness of time’ had come, in other words – at the right moment, God the Father sent his only Son in human form. Just as every detail of My life and coming into this world were planned meticulously by the Father, so has he worked out every detail of your life too. Some authors call this ‘the “Intention” of God’ Just imagine for a moment what the world would be like if every single human being did fall in line with the marvelous plan of the Father. That would require that everyone lives according to the ‘Intention of the Father’! Would this have been the real life of Paradise before the Fall?

Having worked out this marvelous plan from all eternity, God’s design was that we should be happy all through our lives, enjoying the marvels of his wisdom and love. How unbelievably happy and contented would not every single human be – if only we have understood something of God’s ways from the very start. But, from the beginning itself, God wanted human beings to collaborate freely in accomplishing this plan – to your own benefit, first of all but that also to the benefit of the rest of creation. But, that was not to be! By a wrong use of human intelligence and free will, the wrong choice led to the total disruption of the plan, with the threat of a return to the primeval chaos from which God had initially created the world. Of course, all was not lost right from the start, but the beginning was made, and if human beings did not repent and decide to return to God’s original plan, the wreckage would work itself out inexorably till all of God’s work would be totally destroyed.

Because not all human beings were hell-bent on destroying God’s work, the progress of the spread of evil was arrested somewhat, but as you can see from what happens even in your own day, mankind is moving steadily towards a total destruction of all of God’s beautiful creation. Just think of the ecological chaos that the world is heading for. It is said that by 2070, there will enough drinking water left on earth to provide each living person with only one litre per day. The irony of the whole situation is that using his God-given intelligence, humankind has been able to discover that this kind of a tragic end awaits the whole of creation – but yet people keep hurtling towards it with unimaginable persistence.

What is the root cause of all this? Perhaps it can be expressed in just one word ‘self-centredness.’ It is this myopic self-absorption which makes people look only to their immediate gains that ultimately will lead to a total return to chaos. It is precisely to reverse this whole situation that the Father sent Me into the world. Even My presence as the Son of the Father would not suffice if I limited My intervention only to precept and theory… and so I had to get down to brass tacks and show people how to live a truly selfless life of love and other-centredness. But, of course, one person alone, even if he were the Son of God, would not be able to reverse this tsunami type of avalanche of evil and so My first job was to find like-minded people who would help in this work. The Father had already provided Me with a family of such wonderful persons in the form of Mary and Joseph – but these could form only the nucleus… At some point I would have to go out and try to gather round Me all kinds of people having a common feature – a great fund of generosity and love and a burning passion like Mine to spread the Good News of God’s love and mercy.

To make a long story short, I have today reached the very threshold of your life and I stand before you to invite you to join Me in reversing this tide of evil in the present day situation of the world. One of the key aspects of My preaching to people was, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it” (Mt 16:24-25). Not too many people understood this, and to most it seemed rather frightening and forbidding. Could you remain in silence and check out what is your reaction as you hear these words today? Can you accept that this is the only way to re-fashion the world according to the original plan of God? The point is not just to accept suffering for the sake of suffering, but rather to listen to what the Father asks of you and be faithful in doing it the way he suggests and invites you to – and it is in following the Father’s will that you will have to accept suffering, as the Father himself reminds you that “My ways are not your ways…”

You : Lord, yes, I have understood this much and am ready to do the Father’s will – and yet ever so often I fail and slip back into my old ways of choosing the self. Enable me, Lord to remain close to You and to really become one with You, so that in everything I will do what You would choose if You were in my place!

Jesus : That is the kind of cooperation I look for from you and from every single person. You will notice that when you collaborate with the Father, the outcome may be painful at the start, but in the long run it brings about a lot of good – unless of course, someone else intervenes and throws a spoke in the wheel and blocks everything. I would be happy if you could remain in silence and listen to what the Spirit tells you about how you would need to remain faithful to your choice to be My disciple. Allow the Spirit to lead, guide, mould you as only he knows best… try to be like a patient allowing the surgeon to perform a very intricate yet necessary operation. In a situation like this, the patient undergoes pain but readily accepts it all, knowing that after some time, he will enjoy much better health than if s/he were to resist that operation!

If you have the time, run through the entire schedule of a typical day in your routine life and see how you could maximize your cooperation with all the events of your life as ordained by the Father. This way of working together with the Spirit would need to become a habit with you, so that you do it almost instinctively.

Further, just as it was not enough for Me to work alone, or with just a handful of collaborators, so also today, you too would need to gather around you a whole multitude, an army of generous people who understand what is the real cause of Evil in this world, and how the solution must begin with each one, and in some mysterious way includes a fair sized cross in the bargain! These associates of yours need not be intellectual giants; they would more likely be the sick and aged, the home-bound in your parish or locality, people struggling to make both ends meet, to live sensibly within their meager earnings… these are the ones who would most likely be the most ready and effective people to help bild God’s kingdom! Visualize different situations and see how in each of these you would need to be ‘a part of the solution and not a part of the problem!’

When you reach the end of the hour, turn to a few Intercessory prayers and finally conclude with a burst of praise and thanks and perhaps a short hymn or ejaculation!

Jesus : Begin this hour of prayer also with a couple of minutes of intense silence and stillness in which you consciously put aside all extraneous thoughts and feelings that seem to crowd your mind and heart right now. Keep a definite picture before your mind, e.g. My visit to the home of Martha and Mary; see Mary seated at My feet listening intently to each Word that I utter while Martha moves around briskly and officiously attending to a thousand and one little chores. She catches only an odd word or two that I say, but surely the meaning of it all would be quite beyond her comprehension and interest too perhaps, given her present situation. Watch Mary, on the other hand, enjoying every insight that I share with her … When things are a little quiet, you could share with Me how you spent the last week after leaving off from your prayer. Listen to what the Spirit says to you about how you could improve in your prayer and also your living out of your Christian commitment.

Jesus : As you read the section from the letter to the Ephesians what strikes you is the claim Paul makes that he has been told about the mysteries of God’s love which have been kept hidden from eternity. If God did reveal these mysteries through Me (in flesh and blood) and later to Paul through a special insight granted by the Spirit, (and to several others down the centuries), the only reason for this is that the Father wanted this depth of love-relationship to be the source of all your actions and entire life. There is nothing like genuine selfless and unconditional love that motivates the human heart and mind to respond generously. No matter where the person comes from, no matter how difficult and painful the experiences he has gone through, there is only one power that can and will reverse all this, and that is the power of love!

Now, no human mind left to itself would ever be able to discover all this. As it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him” - these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God” (1 Cor 2:9-12).

St. John too has something similar that he shares with us, “We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life - this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us - we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete” (1 Jn 1:1-4).

Review all that you know about the teachings of other religions and you will notice that God is always considered as Someone distant, aloof, high above the heavens – inaccessible and unconcerned. But all this is far from the truth. As you have been told from your earliest days, the inner life of the Trinity is one of loving relationship among the Three Divine Persons, bonds that are so solid and deep, that the Three Persons are but only One Godhead. There is nothing that one divine Person does, thinks or wills that the other two do not know or do not will/do equally. There is nothing else but love which constitutes the Trinity – God IS love itself! And so whatever We in the Trinity do originates from love, is accompanied by love and ends in love! It is love all down the line.

But this kind of vision of God cannot be yours unless God himself reveals it to you and helps you to understand something of what this means. It is far easier to conceive of God as the philosophers do – stern, distant, demanding and so on. It seems to go against the grain to think of God as loving, because perhaps in the minds of most people, love is always seen as something soft and changeable, it seems that love is very easily taken advantage of, as if love gives in to every demand of the beloved! That is an incomplete understanding of love … For love to be genuine it must always seek selflessly the supreme good of the other. Otherwise it is not real, genuine love. So then, if that is the way all the Three Persons of the Trinity love you, can you imagine Us permitting or willing anything that is explicitly for your harm? Never! that kind of thing can never happen!

Remain now in silence and review the events of this day itself and try to pick out the manifestations of God’s love in them. Do this not so much by digging and poking into each event; rather let each event ‘reveal’ God’s love by its very being, as it were. How would you know that you are allowing events to really speak to you? One sign will be the tremendous ‘surprise’ you experience when you ‘discover’ this love of Ours hidden in the heart of that event! Marvel at each expression of Our love till you begin to understand Our way of loving. I say this because, as you are reminded several times in the Bible, “God’s ways are not your ways” and so you would need to learn, through a lot of careful reflection, the pattern of Our dealings with you and all human beings. Spend as much time as you can learning this skill with the help of the Spirit… check to see how you could continue this exercise all through the week, as it will give you a very precious tool which will help you immensely all through your life…

You : Lord, thank You ever so much for enlightening me on this. I can well imagine how fruitful an exercise this is going to be, and I sure will continue it through the week.

Jesus : I am happy to see you enjoy this part of your prayer… when you come to the end of it, turn your mind to a few intercessions for those in need. This week you could perhaps pray for those who regularly fail to see My loving hand in all that happens to them throughout the day, and hence spend so much of their valuable time in grumbling and complaining about their crosses… Finally, conclude with a burst of praise and thanks, possibly expressing all this in a meaningful hymn, one like, “O give thanks to the Lord for he is good …”

Jesus : With today’s celebration we will practically end the Christmas cycle and enter into the yearly one. During the year, we consider the various facets of Christian living, particularly how you need to live out your commitment day by day and hour by hour. It can be a fascinating experience, if you have learnt how to remain close to Me. So, spend the first few minutes intensifying your union with Me from every angle possible. Your mind must be fully focused on Me and you could use your imagination as well, to help you to achieve this inner stillness. When you have worked this out to some extent, turn to your weekly review of your prayer, picking up an area or two in which you could improve your performance for this coming week.

Jesus : Read the text of the 2nd reading from Acts 10:34-38 and stay close to St. Peter as he marvels at the way the Spirit led him to understand clearly the vision he had had earlier that day while praying on the terrace of Simon the Tanner’s house. If you have had similar experiences in your own life where you did not quite understand God’s message to you through the events that unfolded, recall some of them and let your joy and surprise resonate with that of Peter. However, at some stage do get down to the key point which is that the Father would never allow you any experience, especially if it is puzzling, unless there was some definite purpose behind it. Generally such events bear very important messages not only for you but primarily for so many others depending on you! In this particular case of Peter and Cornelius, it opened up the infinitely wide range of God’s salvific love to all peoples, not allowing human prejudices to get in the way and restrict it only to the Chosen people!

But remember that the particular way in which the Spirit draws your attention to the message can vary from situation to situation. In this case, notice that Peter was inspired to spend time in prayer, but as it was nearing lunch time and he was hungry, his mind naturally veered towards food and so the Spirit used the simile of food, forbidden and lawful items of food, to bring home the message to Peter. As you learn and master the art of “reading” the mind of the Spirit through several such experiences, you would possibly guess what the real message is even before you get the confirming signs as and when the Spirit offers them to you. However, it is important to have your ‘hunch’ confirmed or better, not to take any definitive action until you have it confirmed and absolutely clear. This is all the more important when it concerns the lives of others, as it did in this case of Peter and the admission of Gentiles into the Church.

You : Lord Jesus, I recall also how this deep insight that Peter got at the house of Cornelius helped him face the critical questioning and grilling he was put through when he got back to Jerusalem. He was faced with the task of getting the entire Jewish Christian community to break through their own prejudice against the gentiles – and that was not an easy task at all! Yet, even as he spoke straight from the heart, he could feel the power of the Spirit clearing away all the hurdles one by one. Lord, what an uplifting experience for Peter… Permit me to mull over it for a while, as I believe it must have strengthened Peter in innumerable ways to face all the other difficulties that he would encounter as he led the fledgling Church to its God-given destiny.

Jesus : Yes, I hope you will see clearly that the Father’s ways are mysterious indeed! But if you can stand before him always as a humble and ready servant, eager to accept and do whatever the Father tells you, no matter how ‘strange’ it may appear to you at first – you will be given some fairly challenging tasks in the Kingdom! After you have remained in contemplative and receptive silence for as long as you need to, you could come back to the feast being celebrated this Sunday, that of My Baptism! The evangelists narrate something similar happening to Me, when they speak of the heavens being opened and the Spirit descending on Me in the form of a dove – evidently, these are spiritual experiences and I too would have needed quite some time to decipher exactly what all this meant.

That is why I went off into the desert, to be totally undisturbed since it was clear that this was the turning point in My life… I would soon have to begin My public ministry and I had already glimpsed that My entire life would be involved in chalking out a totally new and different way for the whole of humanity – and that was not going to be easy… First of all I would need to be thoroughly convinced of the truth that, even though fully human, I was truly the Son of God and hence could count a hundred percent on the Father’s love and presence to Me all through this immense task! Besides, I would need to remember always that this was God’s plan and his project and that I was only the Instrument. Several consequences follow from this truth: I would need to keep in constant touch with the Father to know exactly what his plan was at any given moment. That was one of the reasons I needed to spend so much time in prayer all by Myself. Further, since it his plan and project, I would need to accept whomever he gave Me as helpers, no matter what their limitations… I would have to trust the Father’s judgment regarding all these details and work within the limitations of the concrete situation.

What I did realize as I went along was that the Father’s plan was the best indeed, even though at times it did look as if there were so many other better ways. Besides, the Father never fails us, but provides the right opportunity and means at the right time, even when everything seems lost. If I were to go over My entire life once more I would not want to change a single detail – now, that calls for a lot of faith based on one’s personal experience of the Father’s greatness and wisdom, which, of course, is so different from the limited human wisdom and experience that people have. I think these few reflections would be sufficient for you to review your own situation in deep silence and stillness. How do you view all the events of your life? Did your own baptism imply a sincere commitment to the task, so much so that the Father can rely on your total cooperation in every situation, even when things seem to be going in the opposite direction? Maybe you did not make that kind of a commitment at the actual moment of your Baptism, but did you ever think of renewing that commitment consciously later in life? Would you be ready this evening to do just that – make a conscious commitment of yourself to place yourself in God’s hands as his instrument to bring salvation to others around you? The Father loves the people of today too, as much as he loved those of ancient times, and in the present age, he would want to use their contemporaries as his instruments of salvation.

Remain in deep silence and allow the Spirit to guide you in your decisions. After you have spent sufficient time listening attentively to the Spirit, you could move to a few petitions for others in need. Make these petitions of yours as real as you can, in the sense that they apply to specific persons you know of and are not just something very general and vague! End your prayer with the outburst of praise and thanks and a concluding hymn or short vocal prayer.

Jesus : As you enter into the ordinary time of the year, prepare yourself to attend exclusively to all that I want to share with you. Imagine that you are going to be paid a handsome reward to every minute of intense attention you offer Me – how would you like to benefit from this generous proposition? Having quietened your mind and heart, turn now to a brief review of how you made your prayer and lived your week – were there any important events that shook you up somewhat? Were there times when you felt lost or alone, left to your own resources in battling against difficulties? Speak to Me about these moments and see if there is something you could learn to improve your response during this coming week.

Jesus : We continue with the writing of St. Paul to the Corinthian community and in this Sunday’s excerpt he has some very important admonitions for them. This passage could be considered as a continuation of last week’s advice of being fully committed to the Lord’s work. Perhaps the greatest obstacle you could encounter in doing God’s work effectively is your attachment to Self which makes you run after selfish pleasures and projects. Now if you did consider yourself as united to Me through your Baptism, then you would willingly and joyfully place yourself totally at My disposal. Remember that My chosen way of reaching out to people is through the instrumentality of other human beings. But, knowing how fragile and short-lived are the good intentions of humans, you would understand when I say that I have to ‘strike while the iron is hot!’ And for this, I need to have ready instruments, persons ready to drop whatever is their current agenda and rise to the challenge I place before them.

If, when I call on them, these instruments have their own personal agenda to care for first, they are of no use to Me. That is why I said to the man who wanted first to go and wish his family good-bye and then he would be free to come and follow Me, that he is not fit for the Kingdom and its extension. Notice what Paul says, “All things are lawful for me, but I will not let myself be dominated by them!” He is the good and faithful servant who keeps himself always on the alert for the odd occasion when I call on him – no wonder he was able to do so much for the spread of My kingdom. He was equally ready and willing to wait for several years while laboring as an ordinary tent-maker at Tarsus before I sent Barnabas to invite him to join in the missionary journeys the latter undertook! He was really one person I could totally rely on, for all kinds of occasions and challenges. How I wish I had many more like Paul today too, and especially today because in these times, people turn away from the right path for any and every reason and just when I need someone desperately, it is difficult to find even one who is readily available and willing to take on anything, trusting that I would not ask him/her for something for which s/he is not fit or capable!

Besides, I always ensure that the person chosen for a particular task is specifically trained for the job chosen or at least has been offered some previous experience which will enable him/her to do the work effectively. Once you realize this it would be much easier for you to collaborate with My plans and reach out to whoever I have in mind. Remain in silence now and allow the Spirit to point out to you where you could be of much more use to the Kingdom through the various gifts and opportunities he provides for you. Spend some time visualizing how quickly you could adapt to the demands made on your time and energy… if you can, offer your services for Kingdom work so that the Spirit can call on you whenever he needs your help…

You : Lord enable me to believe firmly that you will never ask of me anything for which I am not equipped in all important ways . Also, that as long as I myself do not interfere with Your work, You will never leave me alone at any job entrusted to me. I can always presume on Your effective presence to me, so that as long as I listen to You wholeheartedly, the positive results of the job are guaranteed.
Jesus : That is right. You could now move forward to another important point. St. Paul asks you, “Do you not know that you were bought at a price?” And you know what that price is – every single drop of My precious blood was freely poured out for you, as if you were the only one in the world that mattered! Does that enable you to value yourself, especially at times when you feel low, rejected by others, or when you meet with some failure or other… Such situations are bound to occur in your life, but this truth that Paul enunciates should help you to bounce back and take up the task given to you with greater trust and confidence.

Regress into silence and drink in the full import of Paul’s words to you… go back over the details of My Passion as explained in any one Gospel and see if you can appreciate their meaning more deeply against that background. How can you ensure that you will never forget these words especially when you most need them? Visualize some situations in which you would need to recall these words… can you make it a point to write them down on a piece of paper and keep that poster handy, at your desk or in your wallet – for ready reference? Work all this out in the depths of your heart and listen carefully too lest you miss out on some important points shared with you…

As you come to the end of your prayer time, take up a few petitions for others in need and conclude the prayer with an outburst of praise and thanks for the Father’s goodness to you, ending with a hymn or a small prayer.

Jesus : As you prepare to enter into this week’s prayer, begin with a quiet yet serious reflection on last week’s prayer and living out of the main insights gained therein. This need not be very detailed, but it would be important to touch on the significant events that constituted your week. Which were the highpoints of the week? Were you able to reach out to someone in a special manner? Did someone challenge you in a way that left you deflated and drained spiritually? Speak to Me about some of these situations and see if there is anything you can learn from these insights which will be helpful to you in the coming week…

Jesus : The advice given by St. Paul in the short excerpt we have today might seem rather strange to you, yet it is full of wisdom. He would have noticed from experience that people are generally caught up with the worries and anxieties of daily living, of their striving to make both ends meet. For many persons, even the question of finding a suitable partner in life can become a major hurdle in their lives. They worry about what their future will be if they do not have a stable partner or family to care for them, or again of whether when they do actually begin to build their family everything will go smoothly or not – for this is so rare in our world today. However, the reason St Paul gives may not really appeal to most modern people for he bases his arguments on the fact that the world is soon going to end – so why worry about all these material and worldly details?

You could say that whether the world (or better, your world) ends tomorrow or not, you need to strive to become the best possible reflection of God’s goodness and love to all whom you come across in your daily transactions. But it would also help to note that Paul is more concerned about needless worry and anxiety regarding these matters, especially when this happens to the exclusion of more weighty spiritual considerations. When we give enough importance to the spiritual viewpoint and also that there is a proper balance between the two, then we would not be expected to do anything more than that!

Perhaps you might ask, ‘What does it mean to give more importance to worldly details’, or to maintain a proper balance between worldly and spiritual values? An example might help. If a person is more preoccupied with finding a suitable partner in life than in checking the way s/he relates to others (with courtesy, respect, humility and the rest), that would be an example of an lack of proper balance. For, in this case, the choice could be resting on pure externals, like looks, financial stability, family, education and so on. Or again, when in your work-a-day life the amount of time and energy you spend on worldly details far exceeds the time spent in prayer and other such spiritual duties, there would seem to be some imbalance that needs correction. Unfortunately, all such imbalances are more readily seen by outsiders to the situation than by the persons directly involved in it.

You : Lord Jesus, wouldn’t all these difficulties be equally valid even if the world were not going to end so soon? Evidently when we do attend to God and his just demands on us, we could be sure that he will not abandon us to our own resources, but would still continue to work alongside us, sharing the burden and problems we encounter.

Jesus : Surely, attending to My person and the quality of your relationship with Me is far more important than whether you have more or less difficulties as you seek to be faithful to your commitment to the Father in covenant. Paul’s real concern, however, is that you be spared needless anxiety but instead are enabled to give of your best to the Lord in every situation. The key point to be kept in view is the effectiveness of the spread of the Kingdom – which is the only one thing that matters. All the rest will eventually pass away, but the Kingdom which I was sent to establish is unending and is the main thing that people are looking for.

Move into silence now and consider a couple of important points: are you keenly interested in the spread of the kingdom of God? Are you prepared to sacrifice any and everything for the sake of the kingdom? Remember the assurance I have given you, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels” (Mk 8:35-38). And again see how Paul understood and practiced this same teaching, “For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law) so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings” (1 Cor 9:19-23). Remain now in silence and allow the Spirit to guide you to see what you could eliminate in your current life-style for the more effective establishment of the Kingdom among the people you live with…

When you come to the end of your prayer, turn to a few intercessions for the needs of others and conclude with the burst of praise and thanks and then the final hymn or short vocal prayer.

Jesus : Begin once more this hour of prayer with the few minutes of intense effort to keep your mind and heart at peace. This is perhaps the most difficult thing to do, since the rest of the day is spent precisely in allowing our minds to wander at will. Hence, it will help you immensely in the hour of prayer if throughout the day you consciously work at avoiding needless distractions. Particularly train yourself to be fully present to whatever it is that you do at a given moment… live in the present moment as that is the only moment that is truly yours. If you allow it to slip out of your hands, you run the risk of losing your eternity as well, for eternity depends precisely on how you live each moment of the day. After you have quietened your mind, turn to a brief review of the past week, both with regard to your prayer itself and also more importantly, about how you lived out the teaching received in prayer…

Jesus : In today’s little excerpt, Paul continues in the same strain in the following section of his letter to the Corinthians, adding another reason why he wishes his people to be spared of needless worry while they await the imminent coming of the Lord in glory. Although unmarried himself, he knew well from his experience in dealing with his Christians how full of troubles and worries married life can be. Marriage which is meant to be a beautiful reflection (and a kind of anticipation of the covenantal bliss of heaven) of the new and everlasting Covenant that God made with all mankind through Me, sending Me into the world specifically for this purpose, can often be just the opposite. While ideally the two marital partners are full-fledged Christians, hence fairly proficient in practicing the Paschal Mystery and availing themselves of every opportunity to live its main teaching viz. that of dying to oneself for the benefit of the other, in practice this is often not true at all. Each partner is riddled with heaps of Self and while it is difficult to deal with one’s own payload of self, one can well imagine what it is to deal with two persons who are still full of self! It is not as if these difficulties cannot be resolved, but it does take quite some time and effort to come to a mutual understanding and acceptance of one’s marital partner.

Besides, if the two partners are busy mainly with their own mutual adjustments that need to be made, they would evidently not have much time to give to the spread of the kingdom. That is why he suggests that since, in any case the Lord is due to come fairly expeditiously, why bother about entering into marriage at all? Why not focus exclusively on Kingdom work and sacrifice the legitimate joys and advantages of marriage? You must remember that Paul was a person totally committed to the growth of the Kingdom, and having himself ‘wasted’ a large chunk of his own life in the ‘darkness’ of Judaism, he wanted that others should not fall into the same trap, not only with regard to religion but also concerning all other possible obstacles to the rapid spread of God’s kingdom of love. However, at no stage would he have said that to get married was wrong or less conducive to a kingdom way of life!

So, moving away from the explicit question of marriage, what you could reflect on is: “do I ensure that the Self in me is consistently kept out of the way of the real spread of the kingdom? Does anything in my life prevent others from appreciating the message of the Lord, or even the experience of the Father’s love and care for them? Would even ordinary people pick up the genuine and important kingdom values by observing my way of life… Try to answer these questions and others that the Spirit suggests to you, in a relaxed kind of atmosphere and see if there is something that he asks you to change – for the sake of the Kingdom. John the Baptist said with great largeheartedness, “He must increase, I must decrease” (Jn. 3:30). Would you be able to say that this is your own main preoccupation in life also? Do you see in yourself a real passion for conquering every bit of Self that you discover as you go along? Are there any ways in which you compromise with the Self in your day-to-day activities? Listen attentively to the Spirit as he offers you varied suggestions and visualize carefully how you are going to implement these in your life during this week.

You : Lord, I never ever gave this aspect a thought up to now – that life in the home is also part of my apostolate – because of the witness that we Christians bear to the kind of life that flows from our Baptism. Actually, a Christian bears witness at every moment of his life and is preaching the Good News in whatever circumstances he finds himself. Hence, the more free the Christian is of all hindrances, not only from outside of himself, but more importantly from within, the better will be his/her contribution to the extension of God’s kingdom.

Jesus : Yes, you seem to have caught the key point, which is what is important always. So, the real point made by Paul is not so much about getting married or not, but on being a dynamic missionary in all circumstances. That must be the dominant passion of a Christian’s life. And further, to highlight the central point in all this missionary work, it is good to remember that merely loving others with an ordinary love will not achieve much. The love offered to others has to be limitless and totally selfless – only then will it convey to others the correct picture of the Father’s infinite and unconditional love. Now this kind of love cannot emanate from the human heart – it has to be poured into you by the Spirit, as Paul tells us, “and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly! Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person-- though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God! For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life” (Rom 5:5-10).

Once again, in silence, reflect and see how much love stands out in your day-to-day life. Would others be struck by the generosity and lavishness of your love, especially when unasked for, so that in your actions they see reflected the power of the Father’s own love for his people … Pick up from the teachings of the Spirit some ways in which you will radiate God’s love. As you prepare to wind up your prayer, make a few intercessions for others in desperate need and conclude with the usual burst of praise and thanks and the brief hymn or vocal prayer at the very end.

Jesus : Once again remember that the first few minutes of your prayer are the most crucial moments of the entire hour – on them will depend the power and efficacy of your contact with God! So, put your heart and soul into your efforts to remain silent and still… make a conscious effort to focus on one point rather than chase out the distracting thoughts and feelings by getting after them. When you are totally engrossed in something that really interests you, the extraneous thoughts will disappear by themselves, leaving you all the freedom you need to attend to the Father’s loving message for you and those dependent on you… When you are sufficiently quiet, turn your mind to a brief review of last week’s prayer, particularly regarding the way you put the teaching received into practice all through the week. It is good to remind oneself from time to time, that after all is said and done, it is the living out of your prayer that is the most important part. Prayer is for transformation, and not for information alone!

Jesus : Paul continues with his reflections on preaching the Gospel telling you how he sees this mission entrusted to him. For him it is a duty, an obligation though not an imposition, but instead, an obligation of love and gratitude. Paul realized how he had been ensnared in the trap of Self and that there was no way in which he could have escaped by using his own resources, clever and resourceful though he was! He puts it so sharply when he says in his letter to the Romans, “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin” (Rom 7:21-25).
What is worth noticing here is that Paul asks a simple question of himself, “Who will rescue me…?” and instead of saying exactly who it was that would rescue him, he bursts out with ‘Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ, our Lord!” Now a person says thanks only after s/he has received a gift. So, if Paul here says ‘Thanks be to God’ it means that he recognizes and acknowledges that the freedom he longs for has already been given him and that too by God, through Jesus our Lord! How grateful Paul is then and his gratitude is not just a matter of words, said once or maybe twice and then forgotten altogether. Rather, from the moment he recognized how much he owed Jesus for this freedom, he gave his entire life as a thankful offering in service of the Kingdom. No wonder then that he was such a tireless labourer in the vineyard.

In life too you will notice that the ones who work hardest for the spread of the Kingdom are those who are personally and consciously indebted to God for his innumerable blessings showered on them. They seem to be driven by this sense of immense gratitude and nothing will ever stop them. History seems to show us so many great saints who lived in this fashion, St. Francis Xavier being one of them. Today too if you look around, you will find quite a sizeable number of people for whom every moment of life is precious because they have personally experienced great favours from the Father, maybe their very lives themselves spared from some fatal illness or accident. Contrast these with others whose response is a measured and calculated one; not only that, but these latter seek a compensation from God for every little job they do for him, as if they were doing God a great favour.

Stay in silence and may be you could read today’s 2nd reading again, slowly and prayerfully and savour every word given there. Then look at the way you live your life to see how much depth of gratitude one would discern in the way you live it. Listen also to the Spirit who will point out to you what he would expect you to do as an adequate expression of your gratitude for all the Father has done for you… possibly he will remind you first of what God has done for you, since often these seemingly ordinary gifts are taken for granted or not even noticed! Now with regard to your response from now on, if at all it is to be any better, you would need to determine clearly in your mind (reinforced no doubt by passionate feelings of gratitude) which are the blessings you have been graced with and exactly how you intend expressing your thanks to God! Visualize the key spots in terms of time and space when you would express this gratitude and place your good intentions in My hands.

Another important point is to make a start with the first opportunity you get, without waiting for the ideal situation to begin. Come at it enthusiastically especially in the first week of your effort, because that is when you are likely to forget the entire project quite easily… Once this living of your gratitude becomes a habit you won’t forget it so easily and you are well on your way to becoming another St. Paul in this matter. Further, energized by this kind of motivation, you will find no sacrifice too great no matter how much it demands of you on the physical, psychological emotional or even spiritual levels. Your entire life becomes an articulation of the realization, ‘what would my life be if it were not for your intervention, Lord!’ Visualize yourself, like Paul, consciously making yourself ‘all things to all people’ around you. Now while all this might seem that your life would need to be a hectic one, always on the go, yet you will see that you are a happy and fulfilled kind of persons, very positive, gracious, ready to help and eternally grateful.

After you have listened attentively to the Spirit and expressed your gratitude first verbally prepare to go back to your work-a-day life there to express the same gratitude existentially. Again filled with thanksgiving pray for the needs of others and finally conclude with an outburst of praise and the short hymn or vocal prayer you usually end with.

Jesus : As you enter into this hour of prayer, focus your mind and heart on Me and what I say to you. You could take a line or phrase from the Gospels and repeat it silently but consciously and slowly, e.g. ‘If you wish to be My disciple, take up your cross and follow Me!’ If you can combine this with your breathing, that would make it even easier to control your mind. Recall also what we have said several times before, that concentration during prayer becomes easier if you consciously practice it all through the day - it has to become a habit with you only then will you have a distraction-free hour of prayer. Do not omit the review of last week’s prayer – you must be able to pick out at least one point which you could improve during the coming week…

Jesus : What Paul shares with you in today’s little excerpt is again a natural consequence of the deep realization of how much he owed the Father for all his goodness and kindness towards him. But before you come to that, reflect for a while on really how much the Father loves you and is prepared to do for you. Using again some expressions of Paul, we have – “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?” (Rom 8:28-33).

Stay in deep silence and review as many of God’s blessings as you can recall – ensure you give yourself enough time to really warm up to his love, personal and deep as it is, shown in these marvelous ways. The idea would be to appreciate better these gifts of God to you and through this realization see if you can feel that deep sense of gratitude to God which will inspire you, in fact, urge you on to do something to make God better known and loved. So deep must be your love and gratitude that Paul’s suggestion to you begins to come almost naturally, “whatever you eat, whatever you drink, whatever you do at all, do it for the glory of God…” placing before you his own personal example he says, “I am not anxious for my own advantage but for the advantage of everyone else, so that they may be saved.” Actually, this will be your crown of glory at the end of time – the number of people who have benefitted from your personal example of grateful dedication to the Lord’s mission. So remain in this deep silence for as long as you need to and can profit from it. Focus more on listening than on speaking; and again while listening ensure that you catch the meaning intended more than the mere words.

As you near the end of your prayer, turn to Intercessions for those in need and end your hour of prayer with a burst of praise and thanks rounding it off with a short hymn or vocal prayer.

All the blessings that have come to you are in virtue of the Paschal Mystery of Christ Jesus, your Saviour. This mystery is at the centre of your entire liturgical year. However, wishing to keep the remembrance and celebration of these saving events as close in time to the actual ‘season’ at which they originally occurred in my life, the Church’s recalling of these events coincides with the Jewish feast of Passover. Starting from that date, we calculate forty days backwards and that is when the season of Lent begins.

Lent is primarily a preparation for a fruitful celebration of the feast of Easter with its important preceding elements of the Eucharist and My passion and death. Our preoccupation then, in Lent should be not primarily ‘penance’ for the sake of accepting suffering, but rather a concentration on the key element that brought us salvation, an effective dying to Self.

This is expressed very powerfully for us in the hymn in Phil. 2:5-11: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death-- even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” This ‘dying to our own self-will’ in obedience to the Father is the first and most important ingredient of our Lenten penitential effort. If this is missing then perhaps our efforts would be mis-placed. In the season of Lent this year, then, focus on this key element and make it as fruitful as possible for yourself and others too.

Listen deeply to the Spirit as he points out to you which areas in your life need the most urgent attention in terms of dying to Self: in the home, at your place of work, with regard to your dealings with specific persons in your life, certain ingrained habits emphasizing your own selfish and person point of view – and ask the Spirit how you could effectively grow by eliminating these tendencies … but always out of love and gratitude!

Jesus : Recalling that Lent is about the most important section of the Church’s liturgical calendar, I presume it will be your heart’s desire to benefit as much as possible from this hour of prayer you make each week. With that goading you on, begin with an intense period of silence and stillness which will enable you to be fully attentive to all that I say to you. The main message you would need to hear is how you could renew your life from within during this period. To do this successfully, you would need to start at the root of all your problems and as you know only too well, the root always lies hidden deep in the ground. Or you may compare the key element to the queen bee – once she is captured, the entire hive belongs to you. So, focus earnestly on these first few minutes of your prayer and do your best to be quiet and still – fully receptive and eager to learn where and how you can allow yourself to be totally renewed this Lent.

Don’t omit the brief review of the last week… pick out an area or two in which you need to do better.

Jesus : The pattern usually followed on these Sundays of Lent is to place before you for your consideration and imitation the struggle against sin and self on the 1st, 3rd and 5th Sundays of Lent and on the 2nd, 4th and 6th Sundays the positive and beneficial results of a wholehearted surrender into God’s hands to fulfill his will and receive from him the reward of his love and kingdom fellowship in Covenant. You will have noticed the basic pattern of the Paschal Mystery in this arrangement – the dying followed by a rising at one particular level… and this pattern is repeated several times at deeper and deeper levels, reminding you that your relationship with the Father is a living one, and so has to keep growing with each passing week. If for some reason you just stagnate, getting stuck, as it were, at only one level, it simply means that there is no relationship with the Father worth talking about. You have not yet understood the basic challenge of the Gospel message: lose your Self and you will have new life!

Recall also that this call to die to Self comes at every moment and in every possible kind of situation, so that you almost find yourself facing a new challenge each moment. At no stage could you say that you have mastered the technique and hence can afford to relax or lower your guard. The warfare will end only with your last breath on earth – and then you receive the fullness of life with the Father, Son and Spirit. In other words, there is no holiday in the spiritual life, no let up whatsoever. For in the spiritual life you either move forward or you are, in fact, moving backwards – there is no way in which you can stand still, at the same spot for more than the duration of the present challenge!

Now in the 2nd reading of this Sunday, St. Peter shares with you his personal insights gained from personal experience, not always positive, for even Peter took quite some time to master this spiritual approach. While it is not such a difficult process to grasp, what often happens is that the Self keeps raising its ugly yet subtle head every now and then, and perhaps without you even noticing it, injects a subtle message taking you in the opposite direction altogether. And before you wake up, you possibly have undone all the spiritual gains so painstakingly gathered over a fairly long period of time. Yet, this is the spiritual adventure that all people have embarked upon and if you can manage to remain united with Me, the damage will not be too great nor long lasting.

Remain in silence for some time, now and see if you can recall this pattern in your recent past… try and follow the process step by step to see whether you have been alert at each step or have been taking things for granted and hence paying a heavy price for it… However, do not attempt to do this review by your own strength; rather allow the Spirit to point things out to you – focus more on listening to his inner voice, as this way is more fruitful and beneficial. As soon as you notice something, pause and seek to delve deep into its various ramifications so as not to miss any angle or aspect… always find out what you can learn from your mistakes for the future and make your response better and more generous each day…

You : Lord, You have often spoken to me about this pattern of the Paschal Mystery and while deep down I am aware that it frightens me somewhat, yet, I feel attracted to give myself to its call totally and with complete trust in You. Enable me to respond better in this season of Lent, using it as the “one more year” that the divine gardener offers me to see if my response improves before he decides to uproot me totally from his vineyard!

Jesus : To encourage you, St. Peter places before you the picture of My triumphant reign in heaven. Remember what I said to My apostles during the Last Supper itself, “You are those who have stood by me in my trials; and I confer on you, just as my Father has conferred on me, a kingdom, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Lk 22:28-30). Picture this scene in your mind’s eye and remember that I mean every word of what I said to My disciples. So, the more generous you are in your self-giving, the greater will be your share in My glory …

Remain in silence for a long time and let the Spirit work on your motivation, inspiring you greater and greater generosity and love… When you come to the end of your prayer, turn your mind and heart to some Intercessions for others, who either have not heard of this teaching that I have shared with you or still find it difficult to respond with wholehearted devotion! Towards the end bring in a heartfelt outburst of praise and thanks and taper off with a short hymn or vocal prayer.

Jesus : Once again, begin by earnestly quietening your mind and heart so that you can be as effectively receptive as possible – you will be the first to benefit from this effort. Use the help of a much slower pace of breathing; make your breathing more regular and rhythmic… When the distractions have lessened considerably, turn you mind to a brief review of the past week. Is there something you could do better, more enthusiastically and effectively? How about the ‘dying to self’ which is the key element in your Lenten effort? How many conscious efforts at this can you count during this past week?

Jesus : As mentioned at the beginning, this being the second Sunday of Lent, the accent is more on the benefits that one derives from entering wholeheartedly into the pattern of the Paschal Mystery. Paul puts it in his own inimitable manner – “When God is for us, who can be against us?” When it is God himself who has established this pattern and he himself who provides us with the opportunity to enter into it and be transformed, how can one not be transformed, except if the person concerned flatly refuses to cooperate with God? A few sentences below, Paul reminds Christians further that the Christ, God’s chosen One, himself died but God has raised him up to his right hand and has given him a place far higher than anyone else, so how could the same loving God deprive the loyal followers of his Son of all that he himself has chosen to freely give them? Hence, no sane person should harbor any doubts or fears that accepting the cross that God has fashioned for them will destroy or harm them in any way! It is no wonder, then, that so many saints all down the centuries eagerly longed for the Cross, for although the Cross is a clear sign of suffering and rejection, yet for true Christians it is the guarantee of Christ’s closeness to them; through this sign he assures them that he comes to share their suffering and give it an unimaginable value and importance.

But then if the small daily crosses that a Christian bears are so precious while they are here on earth, how much more must they not be worth once they actually begin to share life with God to the full in heaven. Besides they are often reminded that in heaven we shall see the Lord as he really is, in all his splendor and glory. And to think that every faithful Christian will be closely associated with him, belonging to him as his very Body itself – pierced and wounded yet glorious, telling of nothing but his eternal triumph! It is this hidden reality that Christians accept in faith and the stronger their faith, the easier it is for them to share in his suffering while here on earth, without complaint but rather with a winsome smile on their faces. The sufferings they bear need not necessarily be persecutions, insults and injuries coming from others outside of themselves. They can also be natural phenomena like illness, a painful lack of commitment and love on the part of other family members no matter how often they invite them to a more Christian response or irrespective of the consistent good example they give them.

The one thought that buoys up the Christian in all his/her struggles is that at no stage are they altogether alone; in fact, they do not any longer have an independent identity – they are part of the Body of Christ. When I emphatically tell them that ‘whatever you do to the least of My brethren you do unto Me’ (Mt. 25:40) this applies not only to their actions towards others, but also to the actions (good and bad) of others towards these Christians as well. Experience shows how different it is to be challenged to accept even the severest sufferings when someone near or dear is around, silently yet eloquently encouraging the sufferer through a deep sense of solidarity. This happens not only in the face of unjust suffering, but even say when someone has undergone a painful surgery yet sees that s/he is surrounded by loved ones. Their presence offers not only comfort but real solace and maybe even healing at such moments. Now if this can happen with the presence of other human persons, who in such times may not be able to do much to alleviate the other person’s physical and mental sufferings, how much more will the presence of the Lord be comforting and rewarding, especially when we realize that with him nothing is impossible? Such is the inner strength that comes from a deep conviction of My presence to you in times of suffering.

Remain in silence and inwardly contemplate My face turned towards you with love in situations of intense suffering, particularly when you are externally alone. If your faith is strong and alive, what a difference does it not make? The important question before you then is, how can you deepen and strengthen your faith all through the day and week, so that when you need its help most you will be spiritually prepared to face even the darkest hour with the greatest fortitude! Should you see yourself weakening a bit, turn to the Spirit and seek a fresh outpouring of his gift of fortitude; recall the number of people who depend on your steadfastness when facing their own trials and tribulations. Also do not forget that the Holy Spirit eagerly awaits the opportunity to shower his choicest blessings on you, particularly when he sees you battling against severe odds in your day-to-day activities. So, all you need to do is ask for his help sincerely and be open to receive it and put it to good use when the occasion arises. You could recall the incident of the apostles who were hard put to rowing on the stormy seas while I came to them walking on the ruffled waves (or the other incident when I was asleep in the stern of the boat being tossed about by the angry waves). My presence brought them assurance and comfort!

Visualize how you are going to remember all through this week that God is on your side and so you have nothing to fear… in fact as you visualize some of these tough situations, ask the Spirit to give you really challenging opportunities, for it is only in such times that your faith really grows. Even if you fail, it doesn’t really matter as long as you return humbly to Me and seek further help…

After a fairly long period of silence and receptiveness, ask the Spirit to pray in and through you for intentions that are most important and urgent. He not only knows which these are, but will also teach you how to pray in such circumstances… attentively follow all that the Spirit inspires in you and learn a lesson or two for the future. As you near the end of your prayer, spend some time in selfless praise and thanks, again relying totally on the power of the Spirit present in you. Finally, make use of a short hymn of praise or an ejaculation which you could repeat often throughout the week.

Jesus : This week too, spend the first few minutes in total silence and stillness, even if this means quite a struggle for you to keep at it - much of the power of the prayer that follows depends on these opening minutes of prayer are made! Well begun is half done, goes the proverb, and so put your heart and soul into this beginning. Once you have gained sufficient control over your mind and heart, move to the review of the past week and ensure that you alight on at least one point or area in which you can improve your performance in prayer and also in daily living.

Jesus : In this passage from his letter to the Corinthians, Paul reminds you that he preaches primarily about My suffering and death because that is the biggest hurdle for all kinds of people. Whichever way people tend to look at My sufferings, they generally do not seem to see much meaning in this approach, particularly in the modern era with its heavy emphasis on the pleasurable and enjoyable aspects of life. Life today seems to promise all kinds of remedies for the painful and ugly aspects of life, and yet try as one might, this side of life cannot be simply cast aside or ignored as if it just does not exist. Many great minds are just turned off by the fact of severe suffering either in their own lives or in the lives of those near and dear to them. While they might tend to become cynical about life and religion, in their better moments perhaps they begin to see the benefits of this difficult aspect of Life.

The Cross is a mystery, especially when it is suggested that suffering (innocent and unwarranted) is actually a mark of God’s love, that it is a kind of pruning of the tree so that it may produce more and better fruit. The argument generally put forward is, how can a just and loving God allow such suffering in the lives of human beings whom he claims to love dearly? I guess it is this aspect precisely that made the Father ordain that his only beloved Son should suffer and that too unjustly and in the manner he did! While My sufferings on the Cross do not necessarily answer the agonizing questions that people put, it certainly makes everyone who faces the question to pause and reflect whether there is really something more to it than just a puzzling mystery! You must always keep in mind that God’s ways are not your ways and also that your logic is not necessarily the most correct one. God’s ways though mysterious to human minds are far superior to all human thinking put together – and this can be seen from the final effects when people surrender in faith and accept to work things out the way He indicates.

You : Lord, this question of suffering, especially when it hits an innocent person seeking to do his very best in the service of the Father, is very puzzling. We know that God is always with the person called upon to accept suffering, and also that suffering does produce several beneficial results, yet most people would rather do without it, as far as is possible.

Jesus : There is another angle that would help you to keep in mind and that is that no person ever suffers alone. It is not as if God decides that this particular person should carry this particular cross – and then he leaves the person to fend for him/herself all by him/herself. Rather, we can truthfully say that the Father also agonizes with the suffering person, sharing in that suffering. The only reason why the Father permits people to suffer is that it is somehow necessary for personal growth and positive development. At every possible level, true growth comes only through some kind of suffering or the other. And so, perhaps the best and most profitable approach is to look at all kinds of suffering in a positive manner. It s said that when Thomas Edison finally succeeded in developing the incandescent light bulb, several people asked him (some sarcastically, no doubt), ‘So you failed five thousand times before you finally hit on the right procedure to make the light bulb glow!’ And he would respond, tongue in cheek, ‘No, not at all! Rather, I learnt five thousand ways in which a light bulb does not work!’ This is but another example of the classic case of the glass being seen as ‘half empty’ or ‘half full’ depending on the viewpoint of the persons concerned.

Remain in silence for a while and reflect in the presence of the Holy Spirit on how you usually accept the cross in your life especially the ones that come upon you suddenly or unjustly! Narrate a few instances to Me in this deep silence and maybe we could discover a trick or two to enable you to face these difficulties more constructively. Try and discover at which particular point you go off the track and need a long while to get back on course! Place these situations in My hands and permit Me to guide you for this coming week… Listen deeply to what the Spirit says to you but respond primarily with a deep interior silence and stillness. What the Spirit too would be saying to you is that you need not waste time trying to make sense of the crosses that come your way. Every cross becomes meaningful and valuable when accepted with love and trustful surrender into God’s hands. Ultimately that is what matters - that you surrender lovingly into My hands so that My plans for your welfare may be accomplished in your life.

When you draw near to the end of your hour of prayer, turn to a few intercessions for the needs of others around you, remembering particularly those who are challenged to carry their seemingly heavy crosses… conclude with a burst of praise and thanks to the Father for all his wisdom and love in dealing with you… end with a short hymn or vocal prayer.

Jesus : As I said to My apostles when they had returned from their trial mission, so I say to you today, “come away to a lonely place and rest (with Me) for a while!” And as happened on that occasion, what really transpired in the remaining part of that day was not so much a quiet peaceful rest, but an intense period of learning some very basic truths about Me and the kingdom the Father had sent Me to establish. Again, as the apostles were invited to review the time they had spent in mission, so you too could review your past week and learn something important for the future.

Jesus : Using an excerpt from his letter to the Ephesians Paul reminds you of the important truth that God, in his infinite goodness has already raised you up and given you a place in heaven. This he has done not because of any work or merit on your part, but purely out of his own goodness and love… this is his gift to you and to all human beings who choose to freely and lovingly do his will. By your own power and skill you would hardly have been able to rescue yourself from the clutches of sin and death, but because the Father loves you with an infinite love he has spared no effort to make it possible to have you as his eternal guest at the banquet of his Son’s wedding in heaven. Now all you need do is accept the invitation to join in the festivity and relish all of God’s goodness towards you.

As a matter of fact, at almost every moment the Father offers you yet another sign of his love and goodness – if only you could pick up these signs of his love… The problem often is that the signs the Father gives you are not the usual ones that you can easily interpret as positive gestures of love. Remember, his ways are not your ways and so it does happen that what the Father offers you as signs of his love are sometimes taken to be signs of his neglect, or anger or distance from you. How often do you not punish yourself with a wrong interpretation of God’s love? What you need, therefore, is a robust faith that enables you to accept even what seems to be rejection… yours must be an unshakable faith that the Father cannot possibly ever reject you, no matter how poor your response has been.

Usually a person recalls his/her own poor response to God’s commands and then measures God’s love according to that scale, as if God followed the ‘tit-for-tat’ kind of relationship so common among human beings. But if you can rise to the level of remaining calmly in the embrace of his love, no matter what you feel, or what your human senses and reason tell you, you will find that nothing ever disturbs you, no matter how grim the situation appears to be. Happy the person who approaches the Father with this kind of faith! You possibly would recall the incident of the Syro-phoenician woman who came to Me pleading on behalf of her daughter. “Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.’ But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.’ He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ But she came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ He answered, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.’ Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed instantly” (Mt 15:22-28).

Remain in silence for quite some time seeking to drink in this truth which is at times hard to accept… visualize different difficult situations you have been through and try to see, if you can, the faint glimmer of God’s saving presence even in those circumstances. You might recall the incident given in the Book of Kings (1 Kgs 18) when Elijah was able to sense the imminent showers of rain even though there were no external signs of the drought ending so soon! He bowed his head between his knees and listened to God’s inner voice, shutting out what his own senses told him, and right enough that same evening there were torrents of rain which ended the drought and suffering of the people. Ask for a faith like that of Elijah, especially in difficult circumstances when no external signs are visible to support and encourage you!

Towards the end of your hour of prayer, turn to intercessions for the needs of others, remembering especially those whose lives are difficult and challenging; pray that their faith might be deepened as they seek to respond generously to all that the Father sends into their lives. End your prayer with the usual joyful burst of praise and thanks and the customary brief hymn or vocal prayer.

Jesus : For this evening, you could see yourself among the group of apostles as I led them after the Last Supper to the Garden of Gethsemane, inviting them to stay awake and pray with Me for some time. St that time I was facing the most crucial hour of My life – and as you well know, everything in Me seemed to go against the present expression of the Father’s will … that I accept the suffering and death that awaited Me. While I grappled with this decision, I looked for a little support from My chosen ones, but unfortunately, they were unable to be of any help. While that was an invaluable opportunity for Me, personally, for them it was a disastrous failure, so much so that I had to warn them, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not come into the time of trial” (Lk 22:46). How would you respond to My appeal this evening? Ensure that you make some time for the brief review of last week!

Jesus : For this week, using the text of the letter to the Hebrews, the Church places before you My own experience of God’s love and concern as I took up the challenge of entering wholeheartedly into the rhythm of the Paschal Mystery. Remember what we have been saying all along, that suffering is something naturally abhorrent to human nature which tends to flee it at all costs, partly because of fear that one will be annihilated by that suffering. Yet, for one who knows something of the immense love of the Father, there is really no reason to fear. When I have repeatedly told you that “… before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to testify. So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls” (Lk 21:12-19).

If you recall some of the examples of heroic sacrifice made by some who chose to remain faithful in the time of persecution, (be it in Old Testament times or even all down the centuries after My coming) you would perhaps be put to shame because especially in the Old Testament, the fidelity of the Father to his promises was not always clear to all. It is only through several experiences that they came to realize that no matter what happened to them even because of their own sinfulness, the Father would never abandon them in times of suffering. Rather, it is at such times that God is even closer to his suffering people: “See, the Lord GOD comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. He will feed his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep” (Isa 40:10-11).

Further, is it not the Father himself who sent Me to bring the whole of erring humankind back to him? He knew very well that there would be opposition from those who chose to look at the whole of Redemption in a different light! And because of this opposition, I would have to face severe resistance, death even in order to take the Father’s loving plan to its ultimate conclusion. But one thing is sure that with the way the Father has worked things out, all of mankind will benefit and for all eternity. That is the reason why I had to be ready to sacrifice Myself and that too with a total surrender, raising not the slightest resistance on My part – only then would be valid for all people of all times.

Now, what I would want you to do is to stay in silence and see how YOU today are called to keep this alive through your own personal sacrifice. Notice also that My submission is characterized as being ‘humble’ and it was exactly that because I did not question God the Father’s Wisdom in establishing such a plan. And it was because of this total trust in the Father’s way that My prayer was heard… See how all this is applicable to you today if you are to become part of this chain of salvation for people today. Remember that all this is difficult to grasp and so you would need to be truly attentive and maybe even ask questions of the Spirit so that he can enable you to understand.

After you have grasped at least the basics of the Father’s way or plan, move to the level of seeing
How you can become part of this great network. Focus more on the qualities you would need for this and how you can acquire these qualities particularly through the prayer that you make regularly and faithfully each week. Listen deeply to what the Spirit says, particularly regarding the details you need to attend to… place all these in My hands and express your readiness to collaborate wholeheartedly as we go along.

You : Lord, in line with the reading from the letter to the Hebrews, I would like to become at least in part, the source of eternal salvation, sharing in this work with You. Right now I feel ready to accept any kind and amount of suffering as I am convinced that the Father holds me in the palm of his hand and will not allow any real harm to come to me, especially when all I seek to do his will. Keep this resolve firm in my mind and heart and never allow me to stray from this path of obedience which You yourself have chosen so courageously.

Jesus : You have got it right, now the key thing left is to practice it - else you will become like those who say ‘Lord, Lord’ but may not enter the Kingdom of heaven… and that would profit no one, neither yourself nor the others who depend on you! So continue in silence and earnestly implore the Holy Spirit to lead you to a fruitful programme of life that will not only offer you a sense of moving forward, but also encourage you when you see others benefitting from your humble efforts!

As you draw near to the end of your prayer, turn to Intercessions for others and finally end your prayer with a joyful burst of praise and a short hymn or vocal prayer to round it off!

Jan. 1, 2012	Mary, Mother of God	Kairos: God’s Time is the Best!
Jan. 8, 2012	Epiphany	Needed: a Deeper manifestation of Love in your Life!
Jan. 15, 2012	Baptism of Our Lord	Be Attentive to God’s Spirit!
Jan. 22, 2012	2 Sunday of Year – B	Glorify God in your Body
Jan. 29, 2012	3rd Sunday of Year – B	First Things First; Get Down to Essentials!
Febr. 5, 2012	4th Sunday of Year – B	“For Me, to Live is Christ!”
Febr. 12, 2012	5th Sunday of Year – B	Happily grateful – at every moment!
Febr. 19, 2012	6th Sunday of Year – B	A Heartfelt Response of Love!
*The Season of Lent*
Febr. 26, 2012	1st of Lent – Year B	True Loss of Self is the Highest Gain!
Mar. 4, 2012	2nd Sunday of Lent – Year B	Launch into the Deep, with God on your side!
Mar. 11, 2012	3rd Sunday of Lent – Year B	Through the Cross Comes Life Eternal!
Mar. 18, 2012	4th Sunday of Lent – Year B	Filled with Every Spiritual Blessing!
Mar. 25, 2012	5th Sunday of Lent – Year B	Learning from your Daily Cross!