Marriage Bond

Today’s Gospel Text:  And he left there and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan, and crowds gathered to him again; and again, as his custom was, he taught them. 2 And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" 3 He answered them, "What did Moses command you?" 4 They said, "Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce, and to put her away." 5 But Jesus said to them, "For your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. 6 But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' 7 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two but one flesh. 9 What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder." 10 And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. 11 And he said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her; 12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery." Mark 10:1-12

Reflection: The husband-wife relationship is a special relationship? It is a great mystery that can lead us on to reflect on the great miracle of unity, love, comfort and the peace it accomplishes within this gamut of relationship.

The human person relates with a whole lot of people and yet no relationships or interactions can replace the special place that the husband-wife relationship enjoys.

Those of us who are immersed in the mystery of God and his constant working in creation can be lead to praise the marvels of his action in creation.

The mystery and its working is above rationality in many aspects.

This relationship is rendered challenging and delicate by the sinful and selfish actions of human beings, even among cultures and customs which recognize the institution of marriage as permanent bond till death do them apart.

It is a relationship that needs to be worked out and not just lived.  For us Christians we see our own frailty and weaknesses and depend on God the savior who is able to save even through the bond of relationships. (cfr. I Cor. 7:14) 

Humans knowing the frailty of their actions have adopted the institutional approach, ratifying the marriage bond in public, before witnesses.

It is also an action, wherein, in their desire to care for each other the strong seeks to care for the weak. 

Prayer: Lord God, bless the bond of marriage, especially those who struggle to maintain a life of unity and peace in and through their relationship.

DD = Dedicated Discipleship:  Come grow in the Lord with us

Love of Jesus

Today’s Gospel Text:  As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

12 "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. 17 This I command you, to love one another. John 15:9-17

Reflection: Jesus’ discourse on love is often the most misunderstood teaching.

We are called to love and the essence of Christianity is indeed love; ask anyone and most of them will describe Christianity as a religion of love.

In the process we have failed to realize that the love of Christianity is not an indiscriminate ideology of love which can be freely interpreted by anyone and anyhow.

Many who practice this ideology of love compromise on the faith of Christ and thus given love a different twist and turn, giving love its own meaning. 

When Jesus loves us he loves us from an eternal perspective. Hence he is the standard; love personified. 

His coming to us and taking our nature and then living like us and revealing to us God and his nature and giving us the freedom to address him as our Father and his suffering and death on the cross and his resurrection tell us a story: the story of God’s love for us.

    

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.  For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. He who believes in him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. John 3:16-18

We cannot say we love people and don’t reach out to them in service and the primary service is not feeding the people with material things but of feeding the world with the word that is able to save us for all eternity – an eternal perspective!  

In other words, even if immediate compulsions may compel us to feed them with the material things for sustenance, the ultimate has to follow if not begun with.  

Christ who loved us as the Father has loved him, proved this love for us by his various actions and ultimately by the death on the cross.

Prayer: May your Love O Lord fill and satisfy us and thus compel us to reach out with your Gospel to others.

DD = Dedicated Discipleship:  Come grow in the Lord with us  

ACKNOWLEDGE JESUS

Today’s Gospel Text: "And I tell you, every one who acknowledges me before men, the Son of man also will acknowledge before the angels of God; 9 but he who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God. 10 And every one who speaks a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. 11 And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious how or what you are to answer or what you are to say; 12 for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say." Luke 12:8-12

Reflection: Christ Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through Him (Jn. 14: 6)

The above is a revelation of love by Jesus to the world. He loves us and hence he died for us on the cross while revealing to us the necessity of believing in him.

If we do not believe in him then we are believing in the many falsities that exist and are constantly proclaimed in and around us by our education, media and the people we interact with in daily lives. 

Besides these factors we are also inspired by the dark world of the evil one and hence create our philosophies and world view with the assistance of the evil one.

No one who denies Jesus can claim that they are free from the evil influences of the evil one and yet be true to their word; that they are independent and do not believe in him.(cfr. 1 Jn. 2: 22-23)

Such is the nature of the belief system which clearly shows that not to believe in Jesus is to believe in either self or others, which ultimately includes believing in the lies of the evil one.

When we believe in Jesus, we primarily believe in the truth of God as revealed by Jesus and this truth is able to save us.

Hence, he who believes in Jesus or claims to believe in Jesus cannot deny Jesus and his salvific mission of love to mankind.

Not to acknowledge him before men means not to participate in this mission of love of Jesus. At the same time it means to promote the mission of the devil and his lies. It means a failure to tell our human enemy that God still loves them and he can save them only through his Son Jesus.

No saints or angels can be an instrument of this Salvation which Jesus offers if they have not acknowledged Jesus before men. They are saints because of this role they have played in acknowledging him before men.

Prayer: Lord, help me realize that not to acknowledge you before men means to promote and proclaim a lie that leads to eternal damnation.

DD = Dedicated Discipleship:  Come grow in the Lord with us

Purpose of Forgiveness

Today’s Gospel Text: Then Peter came up and said to him, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?" 22 Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven. 23 "Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. 24 When he began the reckoning, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents; 25 and as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. 26 So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, 'Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.' 27 And out of pity for him the lord of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. 28 But that same servant, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat he said, 'Pay what you owe.' 29 So his fellow servant fell down and besought him, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you.' 30 He refused and went and put him in prison till he should pay the debt. 31 When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. 32 Then his lord summoned him and said to him, 'You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you besought me; 33 and should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?' 34 And in anger his lord delivered him to the jailers, till he should pay all his debt. 35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart." Matt 18:21-35

Reflection: It is always good to remind ourselves of the great injunction of our beloved Lord to forgive our brothers and sisters in the Lord, even seventy times seven.

All those familiar with the language of the scripture know for sure that this exhortation invites us to forgive our brothers and sisters seventy times seven, which in reality means ever forgiving and never withholding that forgiveness.

Here I would like to look into one aspect of the motive or the reason for such an exhortation to forgive always, it could lead to a tendency to be tolerant of the wayward behavior of individuals in our midst.

We could be breeding a community in which we could go on sinning again and again and there could be no end to this wrongdoing.  If such wrongdoing continues on, then what witness could this Christian Community be to the world, where good deeds is the criteria for judging things.

That brings to the fore the whole human weakness and the reason for such weaknesses in individual and the need to cry to God for a spirit of patience and fortitude while dealing with people.

Unsound character is not always the fruit of unsound formation, it happens to creep in our sinful nature. In the case of some, even the best formation fails to form that most perfect character.  What is important is to have a desire to walk righteously and to keep working at it with the Lord’s help and grace. 

The Christian community was to be that crucible in which every type of individuals was to find its nest and would be working to develop their character in keeping with God’s word and God’s help.  While God would be working out his priority in the lives of the individual, the individual on the other hand would seek to work out on God’s priority in their lives.

True love exists and is made visible in such a community of the weak, where in we are still dedicated to love and care no matter what the other is going through and how the other behaves.

It is the love manifested in such a situation of unconditional forgiveness that a perfect transformation would take place, more so because God would be working out his own priority in the life of  the person, as he will keep infusing his patience in our lives.

Prayer: Lord, teach me patience as I seek your grace to forgive and love as you love and forgive us. 

DD = Dedicated Discipleship:  Come grow in the Lord with us

Be troubled in spirit

Scripture/Bible: When Jesus had thus spoken, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, "Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me." 22 The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke. 23 One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was lying close to the breast of Jesus; 24 so Simon Peter beckoned to him and said, "Tell us who it is of whom he speaks." 25 So lying thus, close to the breast of Jesus, he said to him, "Lord, who is it?" 26 Jesus answered, "It is he to whom I shall give this morsel when I have dipped it." So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. 27 Then after the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, "What you are going to do, do quickly." 28 Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. 29 Some thought that, because Judas had the money box, Jesus was telling him, "Buy what we need for the feast"; or, that he should give something to the poor. 30 So, after receiving the morsel, he immediately went out; and it was night. John 13:21-30

Reflection:  We are often irked about people and their behavior pattern, especially at the way they deal with us. It could make us feel hurt and disturbed, either mentally and sometime we are left with agonizing mental trauma and bruises. 

Many a times our egos are bruised and we may feel rejected or we may feel the other has not been respectful towards us. 

Similarly our attitude or instinct for survival will not allow ourselves to accept a defeatist attitude in the face of such onslaughts. We will do something and rarely not act unless we have accepted a defeatist attitude to the greater onslaught.

There are four different ways in which we actively face a situation like this and we could belong to one of these four categories in our response to such an external stimuli:

1) In the first instance we may deal with such a situation with punitive or vengeful action, hoping to teach the other a lesson.  This action is in proportion to the hurt that we feel has been cause to us. It may not always be based on justice though the one executing it may feel that they are being just in their ways and in most case even feel that with all sincerity.

2) On the other hand we have a situation where  no matter what the insults hurled or the abuses, whether physical as well as verbal, except for the momentary hurt, one still loves the other and is willing to overlook the others faults and failings. This could happen in families and is very common factor in fraternal and husband-wife relationship.

3) The third category is that perfect love which Jesus manifested and is uncommon among human being and even if it exists then it is at very base level.  This is something which only Jesus who can teach us and empower us to do when he says; Love one another as I have loved you. (Jn. 15:12)

When the text of the gospel tells us that Jesus was troubled in spirit, it is reminding us that it was not the ego that was hurt on account of the betrayal and the disrespect of Judas but his spirit that was troubled. 

This is pure love and we can only learn this at the feet of Jesus; "as I have loved you".

4) Today there was Psychologists who in way also promote a concept in which they say that nothing should affect you.  Such philosophy also in a way has its roots in many eastern traditions and their spirituality of meditation braces the mind for subliminal action. This is the extreme category based on self deception.

Such worldly wisdom even if taught in a Christian setting by Christians, can never be Christian. It is the betrayal Christ by the modern day Judases astray with their swollen head practicing a spirituality of openness.

The troubled spirit of Jesus is a language of absolute love in which the others action does not affect him at the level of his ego but rather disturbs him at the level of his spirit. This troubled spirit is a healthy concern for the other who doesn’t know what he is doing; this is Christian love. 

Prayer:  Lord, may we not be fooled by the modern day rabbi’s into believing a worldly wisdom that can only lead to eternal doom.

DD = Dedicated Discipleship:  Come grow in the Lord with us

Love

                                                                                              Fr. Conrad Saldanha

Scripture:  Woe to you! for you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. Luke 11:47

  

Reflection: Let’s have a definition for love and I am sure that Jesus will fall short of our human understanding of love. Which means, in spite of knowing so much about him and his love, we could still be crucifying him once again in our midst.

We look at love as being kind, gentle with the aim of pleasing people. Be nice to everyone, which means, to please everyone. To be non-judgmental, means to absolve oneself of the responsibility to correct those who are under their care. A form of love deprived of truth, including the truth of a moral obligation.

‘Woe’ could be a curse or a way of telling the Pharisees that they better change or their future is going to be worse; an outreach of love to change the other even if it means misunderstanding, rejection and crucifixion.

Prayer: Lord, teach me to love just the way you love us.

DD = Dedicated Discipleship:  Come grow in the Lord with us