My soul glorifies the Lord! (Luke 1:46)

Then the Lord God gave the man this command, ‘You are free to eat of all the trees in the garden. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you are not to eat; for, the day you eat of that, you are doomed to die.’ (Genesis 2:17-18) The first three chapters of the Book of Genesis are almost dismissed by any intelligent person as just a story meant for children. But let us look a little further.  The greatest saints of the Church, including Saint Paul, ALL the Church Fathers and great evangelists in our own time, up to the present Pope have firmly believed in and always quoted from these first chapters of Genesis. It is from these chapters that they have drawn the very purpose of the coming of Jesus Christ. If Adam and Eve did not exist, the person of Jesus Christ also is only a myth. There is no original sin, then, and we can repeat the words of Saint Paul applied to us: "and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is pointless and you have not, after all, been

"One night Paul had a vision: a Macedonian appeared and kept urging him in these words, ‘Come across to Macedonia and help us.’ Once he had seen this vision we lost no time in arranging a passage to Macedonia, convinced that God had called us to bring them the good news." (Acts 16:9-10) The first sound a baby makes is a cry! He or she cries and cries. When the baby cries, the mother flies to its assistance, knowing that it needs milk. In the same way, souls all over the world cry out for receving the milk of the Gospel, which alone can help them to "grow up to salvation". (1 Peter 2:2)  A true missionary cannot ignore these cries. When a missionary is born (or born again), he is sure to hear voices of souls crying out to him for the saving words of the Gospel, "Come and help us!" One such great missionary who generously responded to God's call was St. Patrick. Here is an excerpt from the story of how St. Patrick answered God's ca

"So there is to be no boasting about human beings: everything belongs to you, whether it is Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, the world, life or death, the present or the future—all belong to you; but you belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God." (1 Corinthians 3:21-23) One of the greatest tragedies in the world today is that we all like to separate and have our own "identity", and we all like to do things "our" way. This is why, even as Christians, as Catholics, we become divided. How easily we separate into factions and groups, and start chanting our own slogans within us:  "I belong to Paul", "I belong to Cephas", "I belong to Christ". (1 Corinthians 1:12) But in doing so, we forget the very important fact that in each of us, and in each of our leaders, it is not "we" or "they" who work, but "Christ" alone.  "But what I am now, I am through the grace of God, and the grace which

+ JMJ "Then Judas Iscariot—one of his disciples, the man who was to betray him—said, ‘Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?’ He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he was in charge of the common fund and used to help himself to the contents." (John 12.4-6) These days a question was constantly running through my mind: “When the Lord of Heaven and earth came into this world, why did He choose a person like Judas (whom He knew was dishonest) to entrust money?” I was pondering over this question for the last one week or so. Just two days back, while I was reciting a Rosary, some thoughts flashed through my mind: It seems that the Lord would have wanted to entrust Judas with money “that tainted thing” (Luke 16:9) to give him an opportunity to be faithful with it so that He could be trusted with true riches. “Anyone who is trustworthy in little things is trustworthy in

+ JMJ When someone speaks on his own account, he is seeking honour for himself; but when he is seeking the honour of the person who sent him, then he is true and altogether without dishonesty. (John 7:18) O Lord, today I have been asked to write something to glorify You. St. Therese said, "Doubtless, You do not need such a feeble instrument as myself to record Your praise, but still You are pleased to work through me." My Jesus, may all those who read this post turn to You, the Author of all that is good. As Mother Teresa used to say, "I am only a pencil in the hand of God ." O God, I beseech You to be pleased to write through this little pencil words that may bring You glory, may those who read plainly see that all the words come not from me, but from You alone, the Source of all that is good. Reflection: Let us make a firm resolve today to work only for the greater glory of God. Following the example of the Prophet Daniel, let is firmly renoun