23rd Week, Tuesday, Sept 12
Colossians 2:6-15 / Luke 6:12-19
Live in Christ; Abound with thanksgiving.
Books on how to reduce stress are among the best-selling items in bookstores. An excellent book on this subject is Dr. Hans Selye’s Stress of Life. The Montreal expert says that one of the simplest ways to reduce stress is to develop a sense of gratitude. Selye says | that people who focus on life's blessings invariably experience contentment and peace, while people who focus on life’s crosses and complain about them invariably experience anxiety and tension, Paul's exhortation to “abound with thanksgiving”’ isn’t just good theology; it’s also good medicine.***
Think of five things for which we should “abound with thanksgiving.” “Our Father, why, when we have so much to thank you for, have we nothing to say? Why, when things go wrong, are you the first to hear?” Lucy Scott Watkins
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The community of the Christians of Colossae was threatened with deviations from pagan philosophies and Jewish practices. In the very dense and rich passage of today, Paul insists that all that counts is Christ; we live in him through baptism, and die and rise with him.
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This passage usually bears the title of “warning against heresies". 1t is a warning, but more than that, it is a summary of what Christian spirituality is: Live your whole life according to Christ: We must be rooted and founded in HIM. Our roots must be in him. He is the soil. He gives us food and water. The principle of life in us will constantly feed on him and find all its nourishment in Christ. It will absorb the life-giving water and change it in the light into living matter. He is also the rock on which our life is built. Our foundation is sure and our structure firm and immovable, because it is built on the rock (1 Corinthians 10,4). We are both ‘life’ and ‘structure’. Constantly changing and growing, and yet immovable, fixed and firm. And both in Christ. In him we have the fullness of life and the permanency of our existence. Older writers stressed that to become another Christ is the aim of all spirituality. Modern authors use the words Self-fulfilment, a self-realisation or Sadhana. Paul says the two are the same. We become what we are, we become fully ourselves when we are in Christ, in whom dwells the fullness of the divinity.
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Living nowadays in a fast-paced and high-stressed society, it is inevitable that we will experience worry and anxiety. Hence one of the resulting afflictions could be that we will have sleepless nights even as we lie in bed at night. Weighing heavily on our minds might be those difficult decisions to make, or bugging problems that don't seem to have any solutions. So, although we might be lying in bed, yet our minds are running and racing all over the place. In our minds, we might be running through all the options that we take on for an action plan. But in situations like these, we may miss the obvious and necessary first option.
Very often we may just miss out God as the first option. In fact, we often put God as the last option, and that's because everything else has failed. In the gospel, we see that Jesus did not spend the whole night thinking; rather He spent the whole night praying. For Jesus, God was always the first option and also the only option.
Like Jesus, we should also ask God for His blessings before we begin any task and ask for His continued blessings on the work we are doing. For us, God must always be the first and only option. Any other options will result in sleepless nights.
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As in other very important occasions in his life, Jesus prays before selecting twelve apostles from among his disciples. For this is a very important moment. He will train them and then will take the risk of entrusting his own work to fallible people. He knows they will not always do the best they can, as they will have moments of fear, discouragement, cowardice and compromises. Still, he trusts them enough and will help them to bring his work to a good end in God’s own good time. In this eucharist we express our trust in the Church of Jesus Christ.
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Prayer
Almighty God, and Father, in one of us, your Son Jesus Christ, is found the fullness of what you are, and which we can only stammer and surmise in our inadequate human thoughts and words. Root us and build us up in Christ; liberate us from all forms of alienation and let us share in his new humanity, that we may live the life of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
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September 12
Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary
The Story of the Most Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary
This feast is a counterpart to the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus; both have the possibility of uniting people easily divided on other matters.
The feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary began in Spain in 1513 and in 1671 was extended to all of Spain and the Kingdom of Naples. In 1683, John Sobieski, king of Poland, brought an army to the outskirts of Vienna to stop the advance of Muslim armies loyal to Mohammed IV of Constantinople. After Sobieski entrusted himself to the Blessed Virgin Mary, he and his soldiers thoroughly defeated the Muslims. Pope Innocent XI extended this feast to the entire Church.
Reflection
Mary always points us to God, reminding us of God’s infinite goodness. She helps us to open our hearts to God’s ways, wherever those may lead us. Honoured under the title “Queen of Peace,” Mary encourages us to cooperate with Jesus in building a peace based on justice, a peace that respects the fundamental human rights of all peoples.
