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Today 31st July 2016 we are in Cycle 3: celebrating 18th Ordinary Sunday mass,
Inviting us to analyse,How to become God centred person;.
Let us summarise to days readings:
Reading 1:
Ecclasest 1:2,2-21-23 says life make no sense if it has no deeper goal than achieving worldly success.
Reading 2:
Paul says(Col 3:1-5, 9-11) says" having Raised up with Christ, we are to keep God at the centre of our life and avoid anything endangers eternal joy.
Reading 3:
Lk 12-13-21 says. Jesus parable about rich man who grows rich for himself instead of growing rich in the sight of God.
All 3 readings allow us to analyse, 3 major points:
(1) Steps that need to be followed for you to become God centred and enjoy your life
(2) What is the practical Situation ?
(3) How to go rich in the eyes of God ?
(1)In order to find steps to follow for you to be God centred let us analyse the purpose of your life?
1.1 You know very well, that you cannot decide the time of your birth, as well as time of your death, which will be decided by God.
After your birth without your knowledge, you start breathing,then walking, start eating and start taking, till death, you keep on developing all these 4, for you to obtain earth bound needs such as Money, power,desires and health.
These 4 elements now become the basic tires of your life cycle. When you get problems for this 4 basic tires- ie no air, you use God as a spare wheel.
On the other hand, for your living you need to earn money, have a house to stay, spent for clothing and maintain yourself and your family. For this your talents may or may not be used. When you +ve at your work, you can always, get a liking towards that job,then you can start converting your talent to skills and then to knowledge,finally to good attitude, generating energy to serve the society.
Now let us analyse, where are we heading,by developing earth bound cravings?
You have seen, moneyed or powerful or desirous or healthiest people almost all of sudden, loose their possessions,and becoming frustrated. Why? Because they think that they can do all those things without God. Their God become one of these earth bound cravings. They use God as a spare wheel.
1.2 Then what is most safest way to be happy?
You know, that you cannot know 100% outcome of your action. You hope to travel back home from office, but you might end up in a hospital. This is reality!. When you baptised you belongs to God's family, God is the father. You know, HE knows 100% outcome of your actions. Hence better to transfer your centre of your living from earth bound cravings towards to identify who is you real father and what he has asked to do.
1.3 For that step no 1 you have to follow is to have 4 tires of your life to focus on the following:
(1) your belief(understand creed 21 facts)
(2) Worship God(practice 7 sacraments)
(3) Establish connection with God( understand Lords prayer(7 facts)+ understand Holy Mary and saints to associate with them to get the help for your worries with God.
(4) Your behaviour (adhere to 7 ethics): 10 comms/avoid 7 vices/practice 7 sacraments/practice 7 corporal and 7 Spiritual mercies/pardoning and love.
And your spare wheel become earth bound needs.
1.4 Step no 2: how to hand over your worries in your life.
In Cana, the 1st miracle(Jn 2), God shows us clearly,that, when you invite Mary/saints for you to hand over worries, so that they will intercede with HIM, to resolve your worry.
1.5 3 rd and final step for you to be God centred, is when you follow the 2 steps discussed here
Your 4 tires, will become,
(1) Follow 7 ethics
(2) Train yourself, how to be happy, with peace and worry less mind.
(3) Convert your talents to good attitude to serve the society
(4) Train to follow God's Will and not yours.
Then you will see, your spare wheel has to be used very rarely.
today all readings invite you to think about how to be God centred in your life.
2. What is the practical situation?
Sometimes, we might think, that we are God centred, but in actual practice, it may not be so!.
2.1 In order to understand, let's hear the story about wealthy man who was dying. The priest at his bed side urged him to be sorry for his sins of his life,specially the sins of avarice, he held a beautiful silver cross,before the man's eye. This dying man was asking"father how much do you think that cross is worth?, showing that how much he has been focused to evaluate things by their material value.
2.2 We take another story: a rich person who has achieved a pinnacle of his ambition when he became president of a company. One day he sat in his office he thought to himself,"Now I have reached the age of retirement. I have every thing I ever wanted; but I live in the same house as my wife, and,we never learned to talk together. I don't know my children and they don't know me. I don't know anything about enjoying music,literature or art of any kind, I am going to retire in a month and I don't know even how to fish.
These two stories might be modern version of jesus parable of today's Gospel. They contain terrible warning about what can happen to a person whose life priorities are upside down. About the frustration and despair of any human who places material success instead of God in their lives.
2.3 The retiring man is doubly guilty. First wrong set of values and life priorities and secondly failing to allow life to enrich him with it's God given treasures. He has refused to become educated, refused to grow up into a whole human being. He has organised his life without reference to God. Kept God as a spare wheel in his life rather than at the centre. Such a life at the end can bring a person, nothing but frustration and despair.
2.4 But it is not only material riches and the unholy search for them that today's reading warn against. Seeking intellectual knowledge without reference to benefiting others can also be dangerous, as reading 1 indicates. The wrong search for wisdom condemn in reading 1, is an attempt to presume knowledge and control over God. This is vanity of vanities. This is not to down grade the education and study, but simply to point out How intelligent one is, the way of God are God's way.- a mystery that always beckons us to more study, more prayer!
2.5 Avarice,possessiveness,greed for either riches or unholy knowledge- are all self destructive. May we all learn this truth before we end up like dying man who asked what is the value of silver crucifix
3. How to grow rich in the sight of God?
what doesn't our lord mean by"growing rich in the sight of God. It means placing and keeping God at the centre of ones life rather than fringes. It means self giving, living for others rather than oneself. It means friendship and intimacy with Jesus and learning to appreciate all those things that the rich man has neglected music, poetry, literature, may be learning how to fish.
Growing rich in the sight of God means how to love, having love at the very centre of our being. Love for God,over all else and love for one another. And love has to be worked at,it has to be created by sacrifice,learning to live for others. We have to give love, but before it can be given, we have to learn how to receive love - receive it above all is from God. This is the true meaning of hospitality!being open to the lords desire to be at home with us.
In conclusions: today church invite us to analyse how to become a practical catholic and how to follow God's will as given by Christianity
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http://holymaryreflection.
In life there are many actions to carry out. How to find out which action has to carry out first and which has to carry out last!. This is prioritise the action. This is what you lead in your life, when you don't know how to prioritised, you lead your life, miserably and rest less!.
Today reading:
Reading 1:
Eccl 1:2,2-21-23 says life make no sense if it has no deeper goal than achieving worldly success.
Reading 2:
Paul says( Col 3:1-5, 9-11) says" having Raised up with Christ, we are to keep God at the centre of our life and avoid anything endangers eternal joy.
Reading 3:
Lk 12-13-21 says. Jesus parable about rich minute who grows rich for himself instead of growing rich in the sight of God.
How to identify priorities in your life!
Every day, cells of your body is changing
Today reading summarises, how you become rest-less, Without identifying the priorities of life. All 3 readings summarises: how we tend to go for earth bound cravings: fornication, impurity, guilty passion, evil desires,greed, avarice, worshipping false God, telling lies, vanity Etc, forgetting our life in this world is short when you compare with eternal life. When you carry out above vices, you ignore God: Since, HE has told us not to do these things.
