Today Salvation has come to this house

 33rd Tuesday in Ordinary Time.

Today Salvation has come to this house

( Luke 19: 1- 10)

A certain man was very notorious for stealing fashionable shoes from his home town and reselling in other communities where they were quite expensive to make a living. When caught sometimes he was given several punishments but it didn’t stop him from going back to his source of livelihood (stealing shoes). One day, the villagers decided to give him an indelible mark of shame as his punishment,  they bound his hands and foot and with a hot metal imprinted the letters “S T" ( Shoe Thief) on his forehead.

SAY YES TO HUMILITY AND SAVE HUMANITY (2 Chronicles 7:14 & Luke 1:38) (Phase 1)

 

It is well established in our hearts how important the virtue of humility is, how it is highly needed in the society and how it is valued by God. We know that we need it, but we do not expect it to be acquired so easily. We need God’s grace and sincere disposition for us to have it.

Humility and humanity are two different words but similar in nature.  The words “humility” and “human” have one root word  ‘Humus’ which is the Latin word for earth (a rich and nutrient filled soil). Humility is derived from ‘Humilitas’ a Latin word which means ‘one who is grounded or near to the earth’

Disposition to God's Will

St Elizabeth Ann Seton said, "the first end I propose in our daily work is to do the will of God; secondly, to do it in the manner he wills it; thirdly, to do it because he wills it." The catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that ultimately, we are created to do this Will, because it is for Him and Him alone that we are made and thus, all our actions should find its end in Him or better put in his Will.

WHY WILL JESUS CALL THE POOR BLESSED. (MARY, MODEL OF POVERTY)

   

  "Blessed are the poor for theirs is the kingdom of God" (Luke 6:20) or as Matthew puts it "Blessed are the poor in Spirit for they shall inherit the kingdom of heaven" (Mathew 5:3). These where the first words of Jesus in his sermon on the mount. He started his public ministry by emphasizing the place and role of poverty in the whole story of the Christian person. But poverty is something abhorred, rejected and never wanted. Can we say that Jesus is happy with the deprivation and wretched situations we see in some under-developed countries, the wretchedness that makes many to die of hunger or the crisis many experiences based on the fact that they cannot afford some basic necessities of life. Surely, this is not the will of God because we cannot see the glory of God in a man who is not fully alive. What, then, is Jesus referring to when he talks about this?

DO YOU KNOW THERE WAS A TIME WHEN THESE SINS WEREN'T FORGIVEN IN THE CHURCH? - ST. CALLISTUS I

   

  One of the most beautiful powers of the Church is the power to forgive sin, entrusted to her by her Divine Spouse, Our Lord Jesus, "If you forgive any sin, they are forgiven; if you retain any sin, they are retained" (John 20:23). This assurance that our sins are forgiven when we approach the sacrament of reconciliation, continues to urge us on to the hope prepared for us which the eyes, the ears or the imagination of man cannot experience. This grace of God's benevolence, also, supports St. Theresa's claims that, "God is just, He understands that we are but humans". However, there was a time in the Church when certain sins were considered unforgivable especially by the physical Church. These sins are MURDER, IDOLATRY, FRAUD, APOSTASY, BLASPHEMY, ADULTERY, FORNICATION. This, at a particular time in history caused great issues in the early Church. However, we owe the full access to God's mercy through the ministry of the Church, as we have it today, to the disposition and intervention of Pope Callistus I.