Lent Special - Seven Deadly sins - No.3

Gluttony

Evagrius of Pontus, a Christian monk and ascetic whose ideas may have inspired St John Cassian's list of eight sins, gives us a very poetic, but comprehensive definition of the sin of gluttony: "Gluttony is the mother of lust, the nourishment of evil thoughts, laziness in fasting, obstacle to asceticism, terror to moral purpose, the imagining of food, sketcher of seasonings, unrestrained colt, unbridled frenzy, receptacle of disease, envy of health, obstruction of the (bodily) passages, groaning of the bowels, the extreme of outrages, pollution of the intellect, weakness of the body, difficult sleep, and gloomy death."

Proverbs 23:20-21 warns us not to "join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags." Proverbs 28:7 declares that "he who keeps the law is a discerning son, but a companion of gluttons disgraces his father." Proverbs 23:2 advises us to "put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony" and though that might seem a little too extreme, it is definitely indicative of how severely God views the sin of gluttony.

Why is gluttony a sin, though? Because gluttony is more than simply overeating. It is abusing God's gifts. Food, which is one gift, is necessary for good health, but when we overeat we abuse it and harm our bodies, which is another gift. Secondarily, gluttony leads to other sins like sloth. Daniel (of the den of lions fame) understood that.

King Nebuchadnezzar had once sent his army into Jerusalem. After securing a tremendous victory, they returned to Babylon with a bunch of prisoners in tow, among whom was Daniel. Soon after, Nebuchadnezzar instructed his ministers to select handsome, healthy and intelligent young men from among the captives and bring them to the palace in order to teach them Babylonian culture and traditions, so that they could be of use in his service. Daniel was one of those who were chosen.

Right off, Daniel faced a problem. Nebuchadnezzar had dictated that the new trainees were to be served the same food and wine that was served on the royal table. While this would have flattered most young men, Daniel was aghast. He was a vegetarian who drank only water and he resolved to consume nothing the king was offering. Why? Not merely because the food would probably have been offered to idols (a good enough reason for him to refuse), but because the richness of the food would have led to laziness, which in turn would have ended his powerful prayer life. Ever try praying on a full stomach? (Or anything else for that matter?)

A God Sized Hole

All of us are born with a big gaping hope within us. It's a hole that God himself placed so that we would search for Him and find Him. Some of us don't realize this, however, and try to fill the emptiness with food, alcohol, sex, tobacco, anti-depressants, and other things of the world. This hole, however, is a God-sized hole, and the only thing that can fill a God-sized hole is God Himself, which means that anything else that we do simply won't compensate. The belly may be stuffed, but the heart is hollow.

What's Eating You?

How empty are your hearts? Your eating habits may reveal a lot. What do you do when you are seated at the dining table? Do you pile your plate with food, then without a glance to see if everybody else has served themselves, begin attacking your food and don't say a word until you have finished eating? Do you take second and third servings?

Do you eat at the wrong time or when you aren't hungry? Are you fussy about the food that is laid on the table? Does everything have to be made just the way you like it? Does rice, for instance, have to be the best of Basmati with each grain unbroken and separate from the next? Do you insist on having the best of everything?

Do you snack constantly? When you are at a friend's house and the snack tray goes around, do you pick something from it each and every time it passes you by? Do you try to ensure it ends up close to you?

Do you tell yourself that it is okay to overindulge sometimes? For instance at a wedding party where a huge buffet is laid out with an array of mouth watering delicacies, each one more tempting than the next, do you let yourself go? Or when you are at restaurant that has a special "All you can eat" offer: do you believe it is okay—nay, necessary—to eat three times what you normally would simply because you want to make the most of a good deal? Do you ever give thought that there may be consequences to your health because of what you do?

We probably don't read too much into some of these things, but they are all indicative of gluttony, which in turn may reveal the emptiness within you. There is a saying that the way through a man's heart is through his stomach, which may very well be true, but not only for a woman to exploit; Satan takes advantage of this too. He used food to tempt Adam and Eve! "So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate" (Genesis 3:6).

He tried to use food to tempt Jesus too. After His baptism in the River Jordan, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert where He fasted. After fasting for forty days He was obviously hungry and Satan, who is ever ready to exploit a situation to his advantage, was right there next to Him: "If you are the Son of God," he tempted Jesus, "tell these stones to become bread." Jesus knew better than to fall for his tricks. He answered, "Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God" (cf Matthew 4:34). He was saying that it isn't only food that fills us, but God's word too. Do we fill ourselves with it?

It is not only reading it and memorizing what God says that fills us, however, but doing what God tells us to do as well. After speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well, His apostles returned with food and offered Him some, but He said He had already eaten. Confused, they wondered who might have brought him food. Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work" (John 4:34).

The Virtue: Temperance

The virtue of temperance disposes us to avoid every kind of excess, helping us to control and moderate our appetites, be it for food, drink or anything else. Intemperance brings about an arrest of emotional development. Have you ever taken a little child into a toy shop? S/he will drive you crazy by his/her demands believing s/he needs everything s/he sees! Jesus tells us to be like children, but not like spoiled little children. There is nothing appealing about a spoiled child. That's what we become like when we are intemperate, demanding our desires be fulfilled. When we are slaves of our desires, we cannot exercise our free will, which leads to an inability to cultivate other virtues. Temperance, however, allows us to become the people God created us to be, spiritually and morally beautiful.

How do we control gluttony? Fasting and mortification usually helps, and both these can be done without damaging one's health. On the contrary, going on a diet that comprises only fruit juice for a week (or longer) can actually be beneficial to health, as also giving up meats, sweets and other things that we might be very fond of and think we can't live without.

What really helps, however, is addressing the basic root of the problem which is the emptiness of the heart that only God can fill. He has something beautiful to fill it with - the Holy Spirit. We have already met the Samaritan woman in the well (see Lust). She was emotionally empty, and tried to fill herself with the love of men, but she went through five husbands without getting what she craved for. She was hoping number six would do the trick, but as Jesus told her: "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John 4:13-14).

In other words, we can do whatever we want to fill the emptiness in our lives, but the only thing that truly can is God.

The Gift: Fortitude

There is a very powerful passage in Paul's letter to the Corinthians where he speaks about "beating" his body, a euphemism for getting his body under his control. "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize" (1 Corinthians 9:24 NIV).

Many of us are slaves to our body. The instant we feel hungry, we look for something to put into our bellies. The moment we feel a little warm under the collar, we turn the air conditioner on. The minute we feel thirsty, we're reaching for the soda can. We need to make our body our slaves, bringing it into subjugation to us. The gift of fortitude helps us in this task.

To quote Pope John Paul II again, he writes that "when, like Jesus in Gethsemane, we experience "the weakness of the flesh", or rather, of human nature subject to physical and psychological infirmities, we should ask the Holy Spirit for the gift of Fortitude to remain firm and decisive on the path of goodness. Then we will be able to repeat with St Paul: "For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong" (1 Corinthians 12:10).

May the Spirit be with you.

Courtesy:
http://www.holyspiritinteractive.net/columns/aneelaranha/sevendeadlysins/03.asp

Lent Special - Seven Deadly sins - No.2

Pride

He was the most beautiful of all angels. He was referred to as the Day Star, and the son of Dawn. His name itself spoke of his brightness—Lucifer, angel of light. He dreamt of ascending the heavens and raising his throne above that of God's. But he was sent crashing down to the dark recesses of the pit for committing the greatest sin of all: Pride.

That is what pride, described by theologians as the father of all sins, does to us. We end up going down even as we try to go up. It is also the most common of all sins, though strangely enough, most of us don't even realize that we are proud. So how do we recognize it in us? Honest answers to these questions may provide some clues.

Do you think you are smarter than others?

Some of us take a lot of pride in our own opinions, judgments and thoughts. I used to have a friend like that. He used to think he knew it all, and would expound his theories about every single topic under the sun. Most bemusing were his "expert" commentaries during cricket matches, especially given the fact that he had never held a cricket bat in his hand in his entire life! My friend was generally considered a harmless buffoon, but such pride can have serious—even tragic—consequences.

Dave McPherson tells the story of a U.S. Air Force transport plane flying over Alaska in the mid-50s with its captain and five crew members when they entered an unusually fierce snowstorm. The navigator contacted an air base only to be told that he had veered several hundred miles off course. Correct coordinates were given to the navigator, who continued to insist that his own calculations could not be that far off. Soon the plane ran low on fuel. The six men decided to abandon the plane and parachute to safety, but because of the sub zero temperature and winds that gusted to 50 mph, they were all frozen within minutes of hitting the ground. As a result of the navigator's pride, five other people went to their deaths.

Proverbs 12:15 tells us that "fools think their own way is right, but the wise listen to advice." This advice is best taken when it comes from God, as Proverbs 3:5 says: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight."

The key word here is "heart". Faith is a gift of the heart and not of the mind. Many of us know a lot about God, but unless that knowledge—a mind thing—goes down to the heart, we will never really know God. We see this exemplified in the arrogance of Saul before he turned Paul. He was a brilliant man, very highly educated, who knew the Scriptures. And because he knew the Scriptures, he thought he knew God. Only when he was thrown off his high horse and met Jesus on the way to Damascus did he realize that he didn't really know anything.

Do you think you are superior to others?

This is a pride which basically makes us think we are better than everybody else, and is often expressed by bragging. One of the greatest braggarts of all times was the boxer Mohammed Ali who immortalized the phrase, "I am the greatest."

There's a story reported about a conversation that took place between a flight attendant and Mohammed Ali, then at the start of his career. Ali was on a plane and as he didn't have his seat belt fastened, the stewardess came up to him and asked him buckle up. "Superman don't need no seat belt," he told her. She gave him a withering look and said, "Superman don't need no plane."

We might laugh at that but many of us are guilty of this type of pride. Have you ever said—or felt like saying—these words to somebody: "Don't you know who I am?" Or how about this: "Who do you think you are telling me what to do?"

I remember a highly educated professional came to me one day for counsel. His marriage was on the rocks and he seemed to want to save it, but as he spoke I realized that he didn't want any suggestions on how he could repair it, but wanted me to affirm the things that he was doing, which mainly consisted of a list of conditions he had laid down for his wife, if she wanted to get back to him. I told him that if he wanted to reconcile with her he needed to forgive her for all the wounds that she had caused him—real or imagined—but even as I spoke to him, I knew it was useless. I could almost hear him thinking, "Who do you think you are, preacher man?" He felt superior to me; possibly superior to everybody.

This kind of pride can make us think we are superior to God too. We saw this happen with Satan. We also know it happened with Adam and Eve. Why did they eat of the fruit? Because they wanted to be like God.

Pride builds very slowly and often so subtly that we don't even realize that somewhere along the line we have become proud. I remember when I started Holy Spirit Interactive, people started referring to me as "Brother Aneel" and it irritated me because I thought it was pompous. As the weeks went by, however, I discovered I started liking the title and getting annoyed when people didn't call me "Brother". God, fortunately, doesn't let me get away with any such nonsense, and told me to level the playing field by calling everybody else brother (and sister) as well.

Do you have a spotty prayer life?

Not having a regular, disciplined prayer life usually suggests a high degree of pride because you believe that you can do things on your own steam. I saw this in my own life recently. For most of 2008 I shuttled across the world, traveling to ten countries across five continents and preaching to people by the thousands. Although I was encouraging them to build a good, solid relationship with God, my own relationship was at its worst ever since I got to know Him. I was spending more time talking about Him than with Him.

There were two direct consequences as a result of this negligence: One, I felt extremely tired most of the time, which was the result of working on my own steam rather than empowered by His Spirit. Two, I felt angry that God wasn't chipping in more in what was His work, which was the result of operating according to my own will rather than His. As I said earlier, God doesn't let me get away with any nonsense for too long, and He sat me down for a week in Omaha and showed me the error of my ways. I ceased all travel for three months after that, just restoring my relationship with Him again.

Maybe He is using my mistake to show you yours.

Are you vain?
Vanity is inflated pride in oneself or one's appearance. In his book A Love Worth Giving: Living in the Overflow of God's Love Max Lucado illustrates this aspect of pride with a delightful set of questions almost guaranteed to make us squirm. "Suppose you are in a group photo. The first time you see the picture where do you look? And if you look good, do you like the picture? If you are the ONLY one who looks good, do you still like the picture? If some are cross-eyed and others have spinach in their teeth-but you still look good-do you like the picture? If that's what makes you like it even more, you've got a bad case of pride."

Continued - http://www.holyspiritinteractive.net/columns/aneelaranha/sevendeadlysins/01.asp

Lent Special - Seven Deadly sins - No.1

1.Lust

Before we begin talking about lust, we need to talk a little about sex. Hugh Hefner didn't invent it. Neither did Hollywood. Nor the authors of the Kama Sutra. God created sex, and like everything He made it was beautiful.

He didn't waste any time getting to it either. Merely two chapters into the Bible and we find Adam and Eve walking around naked, feeling no shame, at total ease with their own bodies and each other's. There was no reason for shame. They were the handiwork of God, created in His image and likeness.

Then the devil got into the act and messed it all up. That's his special talent: messing things up. Our special talent is that we let him mess them up so easily. He got Eve to lust after the fruit without too much effort, and then he got the rest of us who followed to lust after everything—and everyone—else, again with hardly any effort at all. All we need to do is take a look at our lives and see how easily we open the door of our hearts to temptation, especially sexual temptation.

And it is insatiable. Dangerously so.

How an Eskimo kills a wolf

I am reminded of a story I read about how an Eskimo kills a wolf. The account is grisly, but it offers an insight into the all consuming, self-destructive nature of lust. "First, the Eskimo coats his knife blade with animal blood and allows it to freeze. Then he adds another layer of blood, and another, until the blade is completely concealed by frozen blood.

Next, the hunter fixes his knife in the ground with the blade up. When a wolf follows his sensitive nose to the source of the scent and discovers the bait, he licks it, tasting the fresh frozen blood. He begins to lick faster, more and more vigorously, lapping the blade until the keen edge is bare. Feverishly now, harder and harder the wolf licks the blade in the arctic night.

So great becomes his craving for blood that the wolf does not notice the razor-sharp sting of the naked blade on his own tongue, nor does he recognize the instant at which his insatiable thirst is being satisfied by his OWN warm blood. His carnivorous appetite just craves more—until the dawn finds him dead in the snow!"

This is what happens to us when we give in to lust. A man I met during one of my travels told me the story of his rapid progression into degeneracy. "It began with stuff I read in books," he confessed. "The descriptions of sexual encounters would arouse me and I would masturbate. Then I began spinning my own fantasies, each one wilder than the one before. Soon, this wasn't enough and I wanted the real thing. I got into one relationship, then another, and another. None meant anything beyond the sexual acts, which grew increasingly perverted and warped. I began despising myself and my partner and the sex began to reflect that, getting cruel and degrading. It makes me feel sick, but I can't stop. I feel like I am dying inside ...." He was dying, like the wolf, a victim of his own lustful appetite.

The story is common to many of us. Strangely, though, the devil has managed to convince us that these depravities are as natural as eating or drinking or sleeping. It isn't. Author and preacher Richard Exley writes: "Lust is not the result of an overactive sex drive; it is not a biological phenomenon or the by-product of our glands. If it were, then it could be satisfied with a sexual experience, like a glass of water quenches thirst or a good meal satisfies appetite. But the more we attempt to appease our lust, the more demanding it becomes. There is simply not enough erotica in the world to satisfy lust's insatiable appetite."

What Scripture Says

Scripture is very clear about what God thinks of sexual immorality and the consequences thereof. Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, warns them to flee from sexual immorality. "All other sins a man commits," he writes, "are outside his own body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple to the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God. You are not your own" (1 Corinthians 6:18-19).

In his letter to the Galatians, he warns of the consequences of such immorality: "Those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God" (cf Galatians 5:19-21). Most of us pay little heed, accelerating on our path towards self-destruction. How do we stop?

Lessons from King David

We can learn a few lessons from people in the Bible who gave in to their lust. One was King David. The second book of Samuel tells us the sordid story of how David gave in to his lust when he saw a beautiful woman named Bathsheba bathing. It was an act that eventually led to the murder of Bathsheba's husband and other even more horrific consequences, but what is educational are the circumstances that led to the act.

The story begins in classic style: "In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem" (2 Samuel 11:1).

Leave aside the suggestion that there were apparently seasons when kings were supposed to wage war, the question that comes to mind here is what King David was doing at home when his army was out fighting? In the old days David would have led his men into battle, but the king had obviously become a little indolent, preferring to take leisurely strolls on the roof of his palace and spy on women bathing rather than dorn armor and do noble deeds that were really kingly. His had become an idle mind.

An idle mind is the devil's workshop, and whenever we are unoccupied, our minds become a veritable playground for the enemy. I don't need to validate this statement; I am sure we can all attest to this truth from personal experience.

What's the solution? To keep ourselves busy. And if we can't, to fill our minds with good thoughts. "Whatever is true," Paul wrote to the Philippians: "Whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things" (Philippians 4:8).

Sin always begins in the mind, and while we can't always control the initial wave of thoughts that sweep over it, we can control how we deal with them. When it comes to lust we have to be ruthless in cutting off the thoughts the moment we recognize them as bad because, as we saw earlier, if we allow ourselves the slightest leeway, we're on a slippery slide straight into the arms of the devil.

Most of us have trigger points and we need to be aware of them. Does the sight of the skimpily clad men and women in Baywatch make you drool? Don't watch it. Or the Page 3 girls in the tabloid section of the newspaper? Skip past that section. Or chatting on the Internet? Kill your MSN. It can be anything. I know a man who used to get aroused reading comic books: Betty and Veronica used to stir him up!

Jesus told us in no uncertain terms what needs to be done. "If your hand or foot causes you to sin," He said, "cut it off and throw it away." He recommended we do the same thing with our eyes (cf Matthew 8:18-19). Translated, this means: Do not watch/listen/read/browse anything on television/radio/books/magazines/internet that could nourish impure thoughts, feelings or fantasies. And that includes Archie comics if they mess up your mind.

Lessons from the Woman at the Well

We can learn an even more important lesson from the Samaritan woman Jesus met by a well.

One day Jesus was on his way to Galilee from Judea when he stopped by a well for a rest. While he was there a Samaritan woman came to draw water from the well, and after a brief exchange of words involving "living water", Jesus told her to call her husband and come back. The woman said she had no husband. Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband" (John 4:18).

The woman was suitably impressed—as, I am sure, are we—but the point I am trying to make is not Jesus's word of knowledge, but the lust on display here. And the cause for it. The woman's heart was empty and she was trying to fill the emptiness with men—six at most recent count—and not quite succeeding.

Most of us have empty hearts similar to this woman's and we too try filling it with whatever we can. Sex seems the number one choice and we can blame it on the world. Everything around us, from television and the internet to billboards and drugstore magazines, all blare one constant message: lust, not love, will fill your heart!

It doesn't. It can't. Sex outside the God-given context of marriage just leaves us emptier than ever. So does any other thing that comes from the world. The only thing that can truly fill us is the living water that Jesus promises will become in us "a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (cf John 4:14). This living water is the Holy Spirit (cf John 7:37-39) given willingly to anybody who asks (cf Luke 11:.9-13). Drink of it.

No Greater Commandment

A teacher of the law once asked Jesus: "Which is the greatest commandment?" Jesus answered: "‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind' and ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.' There are no greater commandments than these" (Luke 10:27).

For a period during her years in the cloister, Mother Nadine took the place of the superior of the cloister when she had fallen ill. During this time she had the opportunity to see the sisters one-on-one and while she noticed that they all struggled with trials and temptations, the sin of lust never came up. The reason, she eventually realized, was because they spent all their time following Jesus's commandment. Loving Him and loving each other.

For someone who tries to live a holy life, there is the temptation to close themselves up as a defence against lust. I knew a young man who used to do this. He used to struggle desperately to lead a chaste life, and when he failed, he would closet himself in his prayer room for days on end. The solution worked extremely well—as long as he was in his prayer room. When he came out, he would succumb again.

Many of us make the same mistake. The trick is not to cut oneself away from loving, but to love more, ensuring that it is a pure love, a godly love! You can gauge if your love is godly or not by simply examining the selfishness/selflessness quality of what you feel. True love always puts other people above oneself, while false love looks primarily at the fulfilment of one's own needs. Taken in the context of this subject, if you really love someone of the opposite sex, you will do your best to make sure that s/he remains the pure temple of God that s/he was created to be. However, if your love isn't real, you will only think of her as an object of desire created to satiate your own appetite.

Don't Turn Tempter

Even as we try to arm ourselves against temptation, we need to make sure that we don't become tempters ourselves. Jesus warns: "Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come!" (Matthew 18:7). Here are a few things we can do to protect others. Dress modestly. Avoid foul language and coarse humor. Don't be too touchy-feely in your contacts with members of the opposite sex. Avoid the subject of sex in conversation and in correspondence. Be cautious about the type of eye contact you make. Pray.

The Virtue: Chastity

Newspapers recently reported a thirteen year old East Sussex schoolboy as Britain's youngest father. Alfie Patten made his girlfriend Chantelle Steadman pregnant when she was 14 and he was just 12. It shocked everybody in England (and hopefully everybody everywhere else) but should it really have come as a surprise?

We live in a culture where virtues are universally resented, and chastity is perhaps the one resented the most. It is not seen as something that is good, noble or life-giving, but is portrayed, rather, as something that is harmful! The reasoning is that since sexual desire is natural, it is bad to restrict it in any way. Another argument is that chastity is the enemy of love. If two people love each other they should be able to express that love. It all sounds reasonable enough on the surface, until we examine what love itself is, and how it relates to sexual desire.

Karol Wojtyla, in the book Love and Responsibility that he wrote before he became Pope John Paul II, says that one of the main reasons we view chastity with such suspicion is because we associate love primarily with the emotions or the sexual pleasure that we receive from a member of the opposite sex. "Such emotions," he writes, "give love a ‘relish', but do not always contain its objective essence, which is inseparable from reciprocal affirmation of the value of the person. It is impossible to judge the value of a relationship between persons merely from the intensity of their emotions. The very exuberance of the emotions born of sensuality may conceal and absence of true love, or indeed outright egoism. Love is one thing, and erotic sensations are another.

"Love develops on the basis of the totally committed and fully responsible attitude of a person to a person; erotic experiences are born spontaneously from sensual and emotional reactions."

While sensual desires and love are not mutually exclusive, these responses do not represent love itself. What does represent love is a desire to do what is best for another person and the desire to help the other person pursue what is best for them. When we give in to sensual desire, we are often so thrilled by the pleasure that we obtain, that we are tempted not to follow through and grow in real love. Many people get stuck here and never experience the deeper meaning of real love. As the intensity of such emotions can't be sustained over a period of time, the feelings of "love" that one professes to feel begin to diminish, with the result that one begins to seek someone else to provide the thrill of the sensual and emotional experience.

Through chastity, however, our love can grow properly and meaningfully, because we can look at a person as something more than an object for our self gratification, be it of heart or body. We can see them in their full value. Wojtyla writes: "The essence of chastity consists in quickness to affirm the value of the person in every situation and in raising to the personal level all reactions to the value of ‘the body and sex'."

Chastity will also help us to deepen our relationship with God as it makes our hearts pure. And blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matthew 5:8).

The Gift: Fear of the Lord

I recently watched a wonderful program on the cosmos and couldn't help but be awed at the realization that if the universe was so great, how much greater our God. And, despite our own insignificance—if we look at ourselves in relation to the canvas of the universe, we're just a minute speck—we seem to think ourselves as masters of this universe. We're not. God is. And it helps to have a healthy fear of Him, because as Scripture says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Psalm 111:10).

There are many Christian leaders these days who tell us that we don't have to be afraid of God because his mercy is great. This is true, but it isn't the complete truth. Yes, God's mercy is great indeed. It is vast. It is ongoing. It is limitless. Yet, it isn't "infinite" as we commonly understand the word to be. God's mercy, when not applied for reasons of sovereign grace, is dependent on the nature and sincerity of our repentance. True repentance involves turning our backs totally and completely on sin, which isn't possible unless we understand the holiness of God who finds sin repugnant in all its ways and the horrific consequences that await those who continue to dwell in it shamelessly and mindlessly. What are the consequences?

Hell.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that "the chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs" (CCC 1035). Without God we lose out on life and happiness, and not to have this for all eternity is something to really be afraid of. Is it worth sacrificing this for the momentary pleasures of the flesh that we obtain by sinning sexually? It's something to really think about.

May the Spirit be with you.

Copyright -Holy Spirit Interactive http://www.holyspiritinteractive.net/columns/aneelaranha/sevendeadlysins/02.asp

He must have gazed deeply into my eyes

It was one of those tough days, when at the end of the day all you want to do and all you wish is to hit the bed and slip into that beauty sleep. As soon as I was back from office, all the four of my little ones were waiting with their little tasks that they wanted Appa to do. So the day went on, finally we had finished the prayers, put the three elder angels to sleep finished dinner and was ready to go to sleep. But there was only a slight hitch, the youngest member of our family Kunju Babychan had decided that it was play time and there was no way he was going to sleep till he had enough of his fun. After a little while of his romping on the bed, we switched off the light and put the feeding bottle in his mouth praying he would go to sleep with that. We lay quietly with bated breath to see if he had gone to sleep. But as soon as his bottle of milk was over, there he was up and running playing obstacle race over both me and Rani. After a little while Rani was fast asleep with all the commotion around her, but I was not able to catch even a wink with him trundling around. So i caught hold of him as he was doing his vault over me, pinned him down, took him in my arms and started rocking him and signing all the lullaby s and nice old Malayalam Jesus songs, and finally he was asleep. I laid back thank fully and was out in a moment. Then through the night there was the two customary bottle feeding sessions and I was thoroughly out in the morning. Rani got up early to get the two kids ready for school and I was hoping to just extend my beauty sleep a bit more. I could not even get my head up from the pillow. Then as on cue I felt the two little hands of kunju babychan on me and his happy laughing gurgling sound. He was ready to play again. I felt all the tiredness welling up into a wave of anger. I definitely could not take it any more, I needed that hour of rest desperately. But bebychan is not one of those people who can take no for an answer, he started crawling over me and headed for the edge of the bed. With all the anger I felt I dragged him back and picked him up. I looked at him with all the frustration I felt. As I looked into his eyes, he gave me his customary smile, happy gurgle and drooled all over my face. At that moment all my anger, tiredness, frustration, every thing melted away. I looked deep into his eyes and saw only unconditional love, joy, hope and trust in there.

For a moment I was stuck dumb. I may have found an answer I was searching for. At the moments of my pain and suffering I had asked Jesus several times, how could you bear those sufferings on that cross for us ? And how can you ask us to endure the sufferings in our lives in a similar way ? I think at those moments on the cross when it was unbearable, he would have looked deeply into my eyes and all the loved ones, with that infinite gaze of love of his own. He must have seen only his own love reflected in them and that would have strengthened him. "His love reflected in the eyes of all the generations down". I hope he looked deeply into my eyes too, and he saw a little bit of that wondrous love reflected in them. And that he still does look deeply into these eyes of mine when I still crucify him through my unloving ways and he continues to see a little ray of that love which he lovingly kept in my heart before I was born, peeping through ....

Will I love God when all is gone!!!

Mother, Father, Brothers, Sisters, Friends, Toys, Clothes, Shoes, Colour pencils. All these were mine before I was introduced to God. God to me was a force that protected me and my belongings from any visible and invisible harm. Also the one who gave me more. A generous source that supplied my need and greed.

Today as a grown up man, God looks after all my material possessions, my bike, my car, my house, office, wife, children and their toys and off course my well -being and self-esteem. When any of these things are shaky and are at risk or I need more, I would want to renew and refresh my relationship with this God, may be attend a retreat, go for a counseling or say extra prayers so that I continue enjoy this security and be given more!

Will I love God when all is gone!!!

I have tried to imagine me without my wife, children, parents, processions not even a place to lay my head for a night. Totally stripped off everything that gave me an identity here.

Now-God remains only as “knowledge”. I’m aware that there is God but that’s it, nothing more!

The man who found something precious buried in a land, sells literally everything he had and buys that small piece of land. He is willing and daring to lose everything to posses Jesus.

Blessed are the poor in spirit. (A heart that has all the room for Jesus and which is not preoccupied by things of the world)

For where your wealth is, there your heart will be also

I think I should have earned it in the reverse order starting with an inerasable realization that I’m a child of God the father who is madly in love with me. and a completely contented life with my heavenly father as my only procession. Later on receive everything from God to be a temporary manager, always conscious that all of it belongs to HIM.

Look at the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, they do not toil or till yet the heavenly father feeds them. How much more would He be not concerned about me.

Lord I need you and you alone! In you have my being, my identity, my purpose and a life eternal…

Tough like a Tractor

This reflection comes from an incident which happened sometime back when it was raining heavily. That nice evening while it was pouring we made a visit to a JY family and just near their house the road was being repaired, layered with mud. I soon discovered that the car was just sliding through the mud and by God's grace managed to just stop in front of their house. It wouldn't move an inch, the tires half sunk in mud. We went to visit  them but ended up staying there overnight!

I was quite taken aback by something I saw while struggling with my car. One man was driving a tractor through the knee deep mud like a hero. It was just a cakewalk for the tractor while the car  was stuck in the mud. I wished I had  a tractor! 

This taught me about the Gift of Fortitude - the need to be Tough like a Tractor in the muddy situations of life. As the saying goes 'when the going gets tough the tough gets going' and we know it is a Gift of the Holy spirit. This imagery has reminded me many times I need to be tough like a tractor.

Lets pray with St. Thomas Aquinas "Grant me the gift of fortitude so that I may overcome courageously all the assaults of the devil, and all the dangers of this world which threaten the salvation of my soul".

"Let not your heart be disturbed, Do not fear that sickness,nor any other sickness or anguish. Am I not here, who is my Mother?Are you not under my protection? Am I not your health? Are you not happily within my fold? What else do you wish? Do not grieve nor be disturbed by anything." (Words of Our Lady of Guadalupe to Juan Diego).Happy New Year!

Christmas - i dont need anymore gifts, i got one!

From the blog www.togglefree.blogspot.com --
Well i am glad that i am blogging after a long time.The last time i wrote , well i clearly remember was on my birthday.This time i am writing also on a birthday , a belated b'day of soughts a globally celebrated b'day called Christmas.Many kids may assume that Christmas is the B'day of one mister Santa Claus who loves giving gifts than taking , what a noble fellow;How rare to find people who like to give than take on such wonderful occasions. The world today is one which prefers the equation (amount received > amount paid).I clearly remember parties(bday,marriage..etc) where the host are busy looking at the gifts we bring and inwardly calculating the profit they acquired by inviting us to the party ,not a noble thought i must say.Well coming back to Santa - this question arised in my mind, who is He? .In my search for the truth I went through few books and the santa story was quite simple.'Myra' christians hid gifts under the pillows of their kids on the night before the feast of one holy person called St.Nicholas and this person through centuries became the saw called 'Santa Claus'.Look how time has changed our perception, now we know who Santa Claus is but not the real person behind him thats Bishop St.Nicholas .Whats up with few saints they are always given different shades , do u remember one mister St.Valentine, poor chap who is a victim of Hallmark & Archies marketing.The bottom line is this , u may believe Santa exists(like millions of children around the world) or you may not (few like me) but the hope he brings is amazing.Hope of giving to the needy,hope of feeding the hungry,hope of clothing the naked - very much what Christ Jesus himself proclamied during his walk on earth(Jesus Said : "The least you do to a brother of yours ,you do it to me").Every one receives during Christmas, even if Mr.Santa has not given you anything in person you have received so much during this Christmas, remember the song we sang "Joy to the world the Lord has born let earth recieve thy King" .We have recieved the king of peace during this Christmas and having received the greatest gift called Peace from God we must be more than ever willing to share this across with the needy, i mean people who need peace.Next question -who are the needy ? well almost everyone, the muslim brothers on the street who wish each other peace (asallam vallikum....vallikum asallam) , the hindu brother who prays 'asathoma sadh gamaya tamasoma jyothir gamaya ...om shanthi shanthi..shanthi...., the christian brethren who wish the peace of christ with each other, or the rest in the world who unfortunately spell peace wrongly and call it world 'Piece' .Look everyone needs it some spell it correctly others dont.
Christmas is more about giving than receiving.
Christmas is more about peace than piece.
Christmas is more about Christ than Santa.
Christmas is more about YOU than me.