THE VOICE OF VICTORY

 Today’s readings:          

Rev 18:1-23, 19:1-9; Ps 100:1-5; Luke 21:20-28

With Jesus Christ, there are voices of victory, with the devil there are voices of defeat. When Jesus will come again to judge the dead and the living, there will be voices of victory. The book of Revelation tells it all:  “After this I heard what sounded like the roar of a great multitude in heaven shouting: “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for true and just are his judgments. He has condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adulteries. He has avenged on her the blood of his servants” (Rev 19:1-2). Don’t wait for Jesus’ second coming to hear the voice of victory. Tune in to voices of victory. What you need is selective hearing. Heaven starts from the earth, it is a continuation.

Whoever tells you that Monday is a blue Monday, that is not the voice of victory. Don’t listen to “can’t be done” voice. That is not the voice of victory. When someone is convinced that things can’t be done, he will cling to that conviction in the face of the most obvious contradiction. The story is told of the time when Robert Fulton gave the first public demonstration of his steam boat. One of those “can’t be done” fellows stood in the crowd along the shore repeating, “He can’t start it.” Suddenly, there was a belch of steam and the boat began to move. Startled, the man stared for a moment and then began to chant, “He can’t stop it.” Robert Fulton stopped it. He didn’t listen to the voice of defeat. To defeat the voice of failure, have the will to succeed. You were born to win. David Ambrose said, “If you have the will to win, you have achieved half your success; if you don’t, you have achieved half your failure.”

GIVE UNTIL IT HURTS

Rev 14:1-5; Ps 24:1-6; Matt 24:42-44; Luke 21:1-4

“Love means to be willing to give until it hurts,” said Mother Teresa of Calcutta. You can give without love but you cannot love without giving. In today’s Gospel we have a role model of giving. “As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on” (Luke 21: 1-4). The widow had no status at all. In this text she is given the status of a giver. Though she had no names we can name her: Donor, Contributor, Generous and Philanthropist. She gave till generosity was hurting her. Nevertheless, she didn’t become bankrupt. Remember the spiritual law of abundance: we multiply by dividing. The art of writing books is not diminished by writing two books rather it is enhanced. Likewise the carpenter’s skills do not vanish by making two doors rather they are improved. We multiply by dividing.

There is a man who said to his companion, "I dreamt receiving from your generous hands 100 dollars.  I was very happy.  Please don’t spoil my dream and my day, give me the $ 100 note.” His friend replied, “The $ 100 note I gave you in the dream keep it. That is my contribution.” The man was not generous.  Make the word “generous” be your middle name. Give till it hurts.

YOU ARE VALUABLE

    

Thursday 22, November 2012

Rev 5:1-10; Ps 149:1-9; Ps 95:8; Luke 19:41-44

  

How do you determine how valuable you are? I am not in a position to guess your measure or gauge. Today’s first reading gives us the measure – the blood of Jesus Christ. You have been bought by the blood of Jesus Christ. You are high priced simply because you are valuable. You have the spiritual DNA of God. You look like God. Reflect on this transformative information about Jesus: “and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev 5:9). You belong to God. The blood of Jesus Christ has enlarged your sphere of human power. You deserve honour and dignity. Build your personality from that vantage point, from that advantageous position it will end up building you. Thomas Jefferson and some friends were out on horseback riding. A stranded traveller asked Jefferson for a lift across a swollen creek. “Why did you ask me, instead of my companions?” queried Jefferson. “There are some personalities which seem to say No and there are others which seem to say Yes,” answered the stranger. “Theirs said No, and yours said Yes.”

AVOID THE SIN OF DOING NOTHING

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Today’s readings

Rev 4:1-11; Ps 150:1-6; Luke 19:11-28

Imagine this scene. A man dies and arrives before the Judgment Seat of God. The divine Judge goes through the Book of Life and does not find the man’s name. So He announces to the man that his place is in hell. The man protests, “But what did I do? I did nothing!” “Precisely,” replies God, “that is why you are going to hell.” That man could as well be the servant in today’s parable of the pounds who was given one pound but buried it in a tin can in the backyard.  Read the report of the servant: “And another came, saying, Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin” (Luke 19:20). This servant didn’t maximize the pound given to him. He did nothing. Period! In short, he was lazy. Offer the lazy man an egg, and he’ll want you to peel it for him.

We often think that we sin only by thought, word and deed. We forget a fourth and very important way through which we sin, namely, by omission. In the “I Confess” we say these words: “I have sinned through my own fault, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do.” Yet how readily we forget the sin of omission.

DO SOMETHING

Today’s readings:

Rev 3:1-22; Ps 15:1-5; Luke 19:1-10

The Bahaya of Tanzania have a saying: “The emotionally unmoved is only a stone.” We were made for action and for the right action. Massilon, a French bishop and gifted orator, used to say, ‘I don’t want people leaving my church saying, “What a wonderful sermon – what a wonderful preacher!” I want them to go out saying, “I will do something.” In today’s gospel we read about a man who was physically and spiritually short (Luke 19: 1-10).  This man was called Zaccheus. In Hebrew the name means “clean.” Ironically Zaccheus was clean. No wonder he was spiritually short. He climbed a tree in order to catch a glimpse of Jesus’ face in the crowd. He wanted to see Jesus, that was all. He wanted to observe him. He wanted to spot him.

On his tree branch, he was building the castle in the air. On his tree branch he was speculating. On his tree branch he was forming a conjecture on Jesus’ mission. He did not want to be influenced by Jesus. He did not want to be touched. He did not want to be converted. Jesus ordered him to come down. Zaccheus almost fell out of the tree and he warmly received Jesus. Jesus gave him a name: son of Abraham. That name moved the emotionally unmoved. He was involved. The words of Jesus that “salvation has come into your house,” moved the emotionless. He did something. Jesus wined and dined with him. Zaccheus promised to give the monetary donation to the poor. He did something. After reading this story, the conclusion everyone has to make is: “I will do something.”

THAT I MAY SEE

Monday of week 33 of Ordinary Time

Today’s readings
Rev 1:1-4, 2:1-5; Ps 1:1-6; Luke 18:35-43
 Then Jesus said to a certain blind man, “Receive your sight; your faith has made you well” (Luke 18:42).

A blind man will not thank you for a looking glass. He does not need it. There are people who have the insight without sight.  We call them blind men, but spiritually they have eyes that can see.  There are people who have eyes to see but have no insight. This inner blindness is pitiable.  “The ability to see shows a person the way, says the Kenyan proverb. The Latin proverb says, “The eyes are blind when the mind is elsewhere.” The blind man in today’s Gospel had the eyes of the mind working perfectly. He greeted Jesus with the Messianic title: Son of God. He was aware of Jesus’ title. Moreover, the blind man had the eyes of faith. He was able to see because “his faith deserved it”. He had the eyes of faith. He had the physical blindness but not spiritual blindness. Jesus told him your “faith has made you well.”  There is a certain Blind Ploughman who acknowledged the providence of God saying, “God, who took away my eyes that my soul might see!”

Dear reader! Own this prayer, “Lord that I may see.”  To pick sense out of nonsense, you need the eyes of the mind. Pray, “Lord that I may see.” With the eyes of the mind you can see the solutions and ways of solving the problem. With this in mind pray, “Lord that I may see.” In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. With this in mind pray, “Lord that I may see.” “Your eye is the lamp of your body, when your eye is sound, your whole body is full of light” (Luke 11: 25). With this in mind pray, “Lord that I may see.” “The heart’s eyes see many things,” says the Swahili proverb. With this in mind pray, “Lord that I may see.”  The Kenyan sages said, “The eyes which you cure will one day look at you with envy.” With this in mind pray, “Lord that I may see.”