निराशा पर जीत पाएं

 

    हर साल की तरह, लिटर्जिकल कैलेंडर हमें प्रभु के स्वर्गारोहण का जश्न मनाने की याद दिलाता है। लेकिन यह समय दूसरों से अलग है। दुनिया अभी भी छोटे से क्रूर वायरस, कोविड -19 से लड़ रही है। कुछ देश धीरे-धीरे सामान्य स्थिति के लिए खुल रहे हैं, लेकिन भारत और कुछ अन्य देश बुरी तरह प्रभावित हैं और संघर्ष जारी है। इजरायल और फिलिस्तीन युद्ध में लगे हुए हैं। केरल, कर्नाटक, गोवा, महाराष्ट्र और गुजरात, कोविड महामारी से लड़ने के अलावा, चक्रवात तौकता के प्रकोप का सामना करने के लिए मजबूर हैं। चारों ओर बहुत दुख, भय और मृत्यु देखी जा सकती है। क्या प्रभु के स्वर्गारोहण का उत्सव हमारी पस्त और टूटी हुई दुनिया के लिए प्रासंगिक है? मुझे विश्वास है, हाँ! 

    यीशु का स्वर्गारोहण, हम सभी के लिए दुख, मृत्यु और निराशा जैसी सभी सांसारिक सीमाओं से ऊपर उठने का एक उदाहरण है। वर्तमान कष्टों और मानव जीवन के बड़े नुकसान के बीच, निराशा में पड़ना आसान हो सकता है। फिर भी, प्रभु का स्वर्गारोहण हमें सभी निराशा और अर्थहीनता को दूर करने और आशा में प्रवेश करने के लिए आमंत्रित करता है।

    आशा वह अनुपम कृपा है, जो चारों ओर घने और दर्दनाक अंधकार के बावजूद सितारों को देखने की शक्ति देती है। आशा वह छिपी हुई शक्ति है जो हमें अपने जीवन की सभी अनिश्चितताओं और अंधकारमय घटनाओं का सामना करने का साहस देती है। आशा की सच्ची शक्ति हमारे जीवन को बदल सकती है, विशेष रूप से जब हम अकेला, खोया हुआ और निराश महसूस करते हैं। आशा हमें सभी निराशाओं से ऊपर उठने के लिए पंख दे सकती है।

- फादर जॉन बैपटिस्ट

Ascend Despair

    Like every year, the liturgical calendar reminds us to celebrate the Ascension of the Lord. But this time is unlike others.  The world continues to fight the tiny yet brutal virus, Covid-19. Some countries are gradually opening to normalcy but, others like India continue to gasp and struggle. Israel and Palestine are engaged in war. Kerala, Karnataka, Goa, Maharashtra, and Gujarat, apart from fighting the Covid pandemic, are forced to face the fury of the cyclone Tauktae. One can see around a lot of misery, fear and death. Is a celebration of the Ascension of the Lord relevant to our battered and broken world? I believe, YES!
    Jesus ascended to His Father, showing an example to all of us of rising above all earthly limitations such as suffering, death and despair. Amidst the current sufferings and loss of lives, it can be tempting to give into despair. Yet, the solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord invites us to ascend all despair and meaninglessness and enter into HOPE.
    Hope is that unique grace which, allows one to see the stars despite the thick and gloomy darkness around. Hope is the hidden power that gives us the courage to face all uncertainties and dark events of our lives. The true power of hope can transform our lives particularly, when we feel alone, lost and hopeless. It can give us the wings to ascend above all despair. 

- John Baptist OFM Cap.

Adam And St. Joseph: A Comparison

 

Sr. Roobini Chinnappan CTC,
Journalist, Vatican Radio, Rome, Italy


    There are number of stories of people who fell in love with God and did incredible things. Whether they see Him face to face or not, men fall in love with God for various reasons. Some fall in love looking at the created wonders, and see God in the winds and waves, snows and rains, in joys and sorrows of life. Some fall in love with God even in the fatigues of their lives. There are some who encounter the Almighty in the silence of their heart. We have examples from the Bible: prophet Elijah with his zealous love towards God,[1] the mother who loved God even to the point of sacrificing all of her seven children to be torn apart and burned in the frying pan,[2] the love of the soul in search of the beloved in the Song of Songs, the unshattered love of Job even in his loss of every possession, children and in the misery of bodily illness,[3] the unfailing love of the three young men in the furnace,[4] the love that compelled St. Paul to declare, “it is not I but Christ who lives in me”[5] and Peter’s wet eyed confession to the Lord, “You know that how much I love you.” [6] Therefore, we find people in all walks of life falling in love with God in their contexts of life.

Adam
    But there is also an incredible story of God who is in love and creates the world narrated in Genesis. Even though everything He created out of His love was beautiful; God was unsatisfied, until He created Adam in His own image and likeness. Adam was the fruit of His love and He made an extra effort in His creation and breathed on to him His life giving breath. He blessed Adam with every possible good and made him head of all His created universe. He also gave a female companion to Adam to avoid his loneliness, whom Adam recognized as the bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh. God, Adam and his wife used to converse and have evening walks, and the three lived in perfect harmony with each other and nature. Yet was Adam in love with God? The story gives us a lot of grounds to doubt. For, Adam with all that God blessed him with, was an unsatisfied man. He desired to become God himself. And on a fine day heeding to the temptation, he moved against God. It upset all the plans of God. With a saddened heart God punished him and sent him out of Paradise, but not without a promise of hope. God would not abandon them, he promised them a Saviour.

Joseph
    Joseph was the man chosen by God to father the promised Saviour, the Son of God. When we read the Bible we understand Joseph was a man in love with God. He lived around God. God was in his dreams.

    It is true that Joseph had heard about God only from his forefathers. He knew Him only in his dreams. But he was a just man who marked his love without even leaving any remarkable sign of his existence and disappeared from the scene. [7] He had a hidden hard life. He spent all his energy to be faithful to the call God gave him, to protect His beloved Son on earth and His mother. The Bible states about him with a very assertive acknowledgement that he was a righteous man.[8] It is not very difficult to find the reason behind such a statement. But we can understand its deeper meaning if we compare the man Adam and Joseph.

Adam Vs Joseph
    The world and everything in it were the materialization of God’s infinite love. In his infinite wisdom God created Adam in His own image and likeness, to carry out the works of God. He put him in charge of taking care of His creation. Adam saw, touched and listened directly to his creator.[9] Yet he could not remain faithful to God. When God saw that His plans were at stake, He had to punish His own image and likeness. But He promised to save it by a salvific plan in the future.[10] It is here that He had to find a man who would be faithful to Him. And God brings in Joseph, the righteous man, to safeguard His vision of salvation. If Adam did not do justice to God’s expectations, here is a man Joseph who is righteous in every sense.

Seeing and Believing
    If God communicated all His desires to Adam directly, clearly and without any intermediary and let him live in all happiness, the communication with the man chosen for the new salvific plan was entirely different. The New Testament, especially the Gospel of Mathew puts it down as communication that comes in dreams through the angel of God.[11] In dreams God asked him things that were absurd for a human mind to conceive. Let alone a carpenter.

    Adam had the role of the husband of a woman called the mother of all living, whereas Joseph’s role was to be the husband of a woman called the mother of God’s own Son. [12] If Adam was entrusted to be the guardian of the created world, Joseph was given the charge of safeguarding the Son of God. Thus, Joseph becomes the guardian of all that is very dear to God, the salvific plan, and the incarnated Son and His mother. Therefore, by becoming the guardian of the Son of God, Joseph enjoys the privilege of being the Guardian of God himself. If in the case of Adam, it was all seeing, for Joseph it was all believing.

The Trusted Guardian of God’s Dreams
    It may seem an exaggerated statement. Does the omnipotent and omniscient God need a guardian? But it was the will of God, that His plans upset by a man be restored by the faithfulness of another man. It was Joseph who was chosen for that task.

    There are certain things I see when someone entrusts something to another for keeping it safe. First-of-all, the thing that we entrust must be dear to us and we fear for its safety. We entrust these not to any passerby, but to a person most trustworthy. The more the value, the more the trustworthy element that we search. When God created the world and entrusted to steward His dear creation to Adam, He had all His faith and love in him. Yet Adam failed and brought God’s creation to peril. But in the plan for the new creation, entrusting it to Joseph, God found the realization and fulfilment of it. By becoming the guardian of His dear Son who was sent to become man to save the creation and the lady who mothered the blessed plan, Joseph becomes the guardian of God’s dreams of the new creation in Christ.

The Coward and the Courageous
    God’s creative wisdom is a wonder that surprises us when we examine every aspect of it. It is even more surprising to know that in womanhood, He hides the power of motherhood. Whatever we may say, the strength of a woman is her womanhood. The one who safeguards her womanhood is considered by her like God. God created Eve when He found Adam sad in his loneliness, to give him company. In the holiness of Paradise, God entrusted her to Adam to protect her womanhood. Adam himself called her ‘Isha’ as she was taken from him ‘Ish’ and she was the bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh.[13] Yet in the trail of her life, even though he himself was an accomplice in the fall,


[1] 1Kg. 19: 10
[2] 2 Mac. 7: 1-41
[3] Job 19: 26
[4] Dan. 3: 16-18
[5] Gal. 2: 20
[6] Jn. 21: 17
[7] Lk 17: 10
[8] Mt 1: 19
[9] Gen 2: 9-25
[10] Gen 3: 14 ff
[11] Mt 1: 20
[12] Gen 3: 20
[13] Gen 2: 23

Leaving the World - The Three Inspirations

 

 

 

We are at war with the pandemic caused by Covid-19. Many are affected directly or indirectly by the pandemic. Some individuals are fighting Covid-19 at hospitals and others at their homes. A significant number of patients have lost their lives. We might have lost someone dear to us or known to us. 

As we read about so many among us leaving this world, there are three things which, I believe, can inspire us.

 

1. When a young person dies - Being taken away too early or too soon

 

According to us, it can be too soon but perhaps according to God's time, it's the perfect and exact time. Jesus knew when His time was approaching and prepared Himself. Are we ready?

 

2. After a long time of suffering - so and so lost the battle

We might think that some people lost the fight with Covid-19 but actually won the battle of this life.

It's the daily battle of life that makes all the difference. Then the final battle on the sickbed also contributes to the winning of the war.

 

3. Often, the funeral services, particularly of consecrated persons, include the eulogy which consists of degrees and positions

Do they really matter? What actually matters is how we use it and other gifts and talents of our life.

I am almost planning to write my own eulogy to keep it handy whenever it might be needed. 

 

All we need is a little bit of ground and a blessing, and even if these are lacking, the ever available MERCY of our Saviour suffices.

 

-         Sr Teresa Francis CFMSS

Why Change Is Hard? How to Make Room for the New?

 

Why Change Is Hard?

Many of us, consciously or unconsciously, like to make changes in our lives. The need for change can be concerning our education, profession, health, lifestyle, relationships or spirituality. Perhaps, we ardently desire about the necessity of change yet, find ourselves scarcely making any progress. At times, we make a progress, but tragically, we soon discover ourselves falling back to the same old rut. Why does it happen? Neale Donald Walsch an American spiritual writer says:

“Yearning for a new way will not produce it. Only ending the old way can do that. You cannot hold onto the old all the while declaring that you want something new. The old will defy the new; the old will deny the new; the old will decry the new. There is only one way to bring in the new. You must make room for it.”

How can we make room for the new? Obviously, one good strategy is to end the old ways, which are no longer helpful. 

At this moment, I invite you to think of the pain and misery that you might be experiencing in your lives or often tend to experience. Identify the thought or behavioural patterns, which might be playing a role in producing pain, regret and despair in your lives. For instance, one might realize that their spending excessive time on social media is blocking the deepening of their relationship with their dear ones or God. In this case, one cannot make room for a deeper relationship with dear ones or God unless they end the old pattern of the excessive use of social media. 

The old must die to give birth to the new. Unless a seed dies, it cannot produce a new tree that gives abundant fruits. Change is painful but not to change is more painful. Change can be very rough nevertheless, it is necessary for growth and happiness. 

  

Reference:

 Neale Donald Walsch, Facebook post, July 22, 2014.