Dear Friends,
We celebrate today the 8 Sunday in Ordinary Time and then we will pause for several weeks for the Holy Seasons of Lent and Easter before we resume with Ordinary Time on Monday, the 10 of June 2019. After that very challenging message of last week (Love your enemies, do good to those who hateyou; Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful; Stop judging (6:27-38) Luke continues to bring out thebest jewels of Christianity as spoken by Jesus: “Every Tree is known by its own fruit; Can a blind person guide a blind person?; Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own?; A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil.” Luke 6: 39-45). Wow, Jesus does not cease to challenge us every time we read the Gospel.
What’s in the store of your heart? Where do you get/buy items to be stored in your heart? Who decides what is to be stored and what not to be stored? These are very complex questions and we know that apart from the person himself, the ones who help with the formation of your heart is your family, your society and the church. We live in a very toxic atmosphere where sin has infiltrated every fiber of our being and has corrupted every aspect of our lives. We have become deeply flawed. Satan has been so powerfully at work that he has not spared any person on earth including the highest echelon of our church. We have now come to witness one of the darkest moments in the church where even the highest ranking person has been subject to the most heinous crimes and for the first time in the American history we have witnessed someone fall from grace, a fall that is despicable putting to shame even the first fall of Adam and Eve. (I am obviously referring to the defrocking of Mr. McCarrick).
What’s in the store of your heart? Who corrupts our souls, the very core of our being? Right from the time of Adam and Eve the devil has been very active and according to the times Satan gets even fancier, appalling, dreadful, nastier, and despicable than before. “An evil person out of a store of evil produces evil.” And evil knows no mercy, no kindness, and no compassion.
While lamenting on the toxicity of the times, society, the church and humanity itself we cannot let this over power us. We can only combat these horrendous times with the unchanging message of the Good News of Jesus. He calls out our hypocrisy unabashedly. “You hypocrite! Remove the wooden beam from your eye first, then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye” (Luke 6: 42).
The church is called to be responsible, accountable, and transparent in order to restore its moral authority and credibility. While these are time tested values, we can never lose sight of the fact that it is still possible to hold our heads high by constantly and consistently examining what’s in the store of our hearts. Is it filled with the goodness of the gospel or the evil perpetuated by the devil? The devil’s primary focus is to steer us away from God and His commands. Remember the cunning words of the devil to Adam and Evil: Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden? ... You certainly will not die. (Genesis 3: 1). And we eagerly consume what the devil has to offer.
The latest and most pernicious lie that the devil has so powerfully and masterfully convinced us to believe is to get us addicted to PORNOGRAPHY. It is the most cancerous part of our toxic culture and times. It has smitten and infiltrated into every aspect of our lives so much so that the children by the time they reach 8 years of age are so consumed by it.
The Holy Season of Lent will begin on ASH WEDNESDAY, 6 March 2019. What a blessed time for us to begin detoxing our bodies and our souls from all the evil and begin filling it with goodness of Jesus himself so that we can proudly say at the end of Lent: “A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good” (Luke 6: 45).
What’s in the store of your heart? Goodness or Evil will depend upon what you decide to store in your heart. There was/is a beautiful Japanese tradition that speaks of the times when they lived simple lives. Whenever they bought new stuff, they would declutter and toss away some of their old stuff to make room for the new stuff. Marie Kondo says: “This does not equate to less is more, rather, it captures the feeling of choosing only the things that spark joy for you,” What are we planning to discard/declutter from our stores this season of Lent? And what are we going to put in? How do we plan to tidy up? “For from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45).
Have a Blessed Week! With love
Fr. John