The law of love.

The Law of Love.
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Before creating man God created the material universe.

The universe consists of millions of stars, each with a number of planets rotating round it. 

Though millions in number they keep to their places in the vast space, without clashing with each other.

They function as per the laws of nature given to them by God.

The main law that maintains their regular functioning is the  law of gravity.

Each heavenly body,  be it a star or a planet, has a centre of gravity.

The star and its  planets attract one  another​.  

Because of this mutual attraction they are able to keep to their orbit permanently.

The millions of  stars too are able to keep to their position due to their mutual attraction.

This mutual attraction is called 'gravitational force'.

God has created the human race too with the same law of attraction.

All the human hearts have  mutual attraction, which we call 'LOVE'.

It is​ love which keeps the human beings united.

The  same love unites us with God, who is love.

Our Lord Jesus himself  taught us to love God,  which must express itself in loving our neighbours.

“You shall love the Lord

your God

with all your heart,

and

with all your soul,

and

with all your mind.

This is the great and first commandment.

And a second is like it,

You shall love your neighbour

as yourself.

On these two commandments

depend

all the law

and the prophets.”

(Mt 22:37-40)

Jesus asks us to love with our 'heart, soul and mind'.

Heart and mind belongs to our soul.

It would have sufficed to say,  'love with your heart',  because it is the seat of love.

Or, it would have sufficed to say 'love with your soul' as it is the owner  of our  'heart and mind'.

But He  mentions all the three to stress the fullness of our love.

Our whole being must be full of  love  and there must be no place in it for anything  that cannot keep with love.

Love for self is taken for granted.

While we are to  love God with our full soul,  we must love our neighbours as we love ourselves.

Unless we love our neighbours as we love ourselves, we cannot love God with our whole soul.

So fullness of love includes

love for God,

love for our neighbours,

and  love for self.

Love for God, love for our neighbours and love for self  are not three loves,  but one love.

We  cannot make three compartments of love and allot one for  God, one for our neighbours and one for self.

If we truly love God,  we love ourselves and our neighbours too.

If one person  loves his self without loving God and  neighbours, his self love is not genuine, because it will do  him no  good.  

If one  loves his  self alone,  without loving God,  it  won't bring him eternal reward for which he has been created.

What is the use of such useless love?

Real love unites us with God and our neighbours.

Love is the unifying force of  the spiritual universe as is gravitation  that of the material universe.

Lourdu Selvam.

Festival Christians

Festival Christians.
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Our Churches overflow with Christians during Christmas, Easter and local Church feasts.

But during regular Sunday Masses they are vacant.

Even when there is plenty of space inside the Church, some 'out standing' Christians enter the Church only to receive Holy Communion and leave the Church with our Lord before the end of the Mass.

What do the 'festival Christians'  do on Sundays?

Once upon a time there used to be long queues for confession before every Sunday Mass.

Now it seems that sins have completely disappeared from the world!

Weekly confessions have reached the zero level.

Do monthly or annual ones exist?

Confession and Eucharist are very important Sacraments essential for our salvation.

We should be real Christians, not merely for name alone.

Lourdu Selvam.

Forgive, be forgiven and be saved.

Forgive, be forgiven and be saved.
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We are proving ourselves to be children of Adam and Eve many a times by our conduct.

Things forbidden are more attractive to us than things permitted.

If something goes wrong in our doing our duty we very nicely put the blame on the
drawbacks in the nature of the work or on any one of our co-workers.

If a patient is to be cured he must first accept that he is a patient.

Then only the doctor can start treatment for him.

If he says,"I am alright. Why should I see a doctor?" he cannot be cured.

Non-acceptance of  one's real  state may result in his death.

In our spiritual life too the first step to be saved is to accept that we are sinners.

Only if we accept our sin we can repent for it.

Only if we repent we can be forgiven.

Only if we forgive our neighbours we can be forgiven.

When we forgive others we become Christ-like.

Christ came into the world in search of sinners to forgive them.

So, forgiveness

restores our relationship with God,

makes us Christ-like,

brings about Christian unity,

and brings about our salvation.

Forgive, be forgiven and be saved.

Lourdu Selvam.

The Last Judgment.

The last judgement.
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An analogy :

Teachers teach.

Students learn.

School conducts exams towards the end of the year.

Students write the exams.

Teachers value their answer papers.

Students score pass marks or fail marks depending on their performance in the answer paper.

Pass marks scorers are promoted and fail marks scorers are detained.

Now one question.

What is the place of the teachers in the process of promotion?

Do they promote or detain the students?

The teachers neither promote or detain.

The promotion list they prepare depends cent per cent on the performance of the students.

It is  the students who either pass or fail depending upon their performance in their answer papers.

In the same way our going to heaven or hell is our choice.

It depends cent per cent on our spiritual performance in this world.

The last judgment scene is explained by Matthew in chapter 25: 31-46.

While  interpreting the passage
we must keep in mind three important things.

1.Interpretation must be done in the context of God's unlimited love for us.

2. No Biblical passage  contradicts another passage in any part of the Bible.

3. Words don't matter, it is the message that matters.

We know that Jesus has come in search of sinners, (Luke. 5:32), to save them,  not to pass judgment on them. (John. 12:47)

Jesus will never contradict Himself.

God never changes.

Jesus is God,   so  He will never change.

God's love for us is eternal.

Let  us take a particular person and name him 'A'.

God loves A from all eternity.

He loves him at his birth.

He loves him all his life  even when  he  persists in sin rejecting all the graces God showers on him for his conversion.

God will surely love him at his death and after his death.

The sinner may reject God's love,  but God will continue to love him even if he is in hell.

If He stops to love the sinner,  how can we call His love eternal?

Then why does Jesus say that He will say, " And these shall pass on to eternal punishment,"?

Jesus is a very good teacher with unlimited practical wisdom.

Just read the verses dealing with the last judgment scene.

You will notice what lesson  Jesus wants to teach and how He  stresses the importance of that lesson.

Jesus wants to  tell us about  the importance of our love for our neighbours and our acts of love and kindness.

Whatever we do for our neighbour we do for God.

Only love and acts of love can give us salvation.

He stresses the point that without love and acts of love one cannot enter heaven.

To stress the  importance of  this teaching He says that He will say, " And these shall pass on to eternal punishment".

All the students know what a teacher would say to stress the importance of learning what is taught.

I know because I am a teacher.

I need not say what harsh terms  the teachers would use to make the students study well; all the readers should have been once  students.

Jesus said these words only to bring home to our minds the importance of His teaching on the love for our neighbours and on acts of  kindness and love.

Jesus gave full expression to His love for us by sacrificing His life for us on the  Cross.

He expects us to  give expression to our love for our neighbours by our acts of love  kindness.

The last judgment scene teaches us this lesson.

It is our duty to fulfill our Lord's desire.

Those who fail to fulfill Our Lord's desire choose hell themselves.

Those who fulfill His desire will be rewarded with everlasting life with Him.

Lourdu Selvam

In but not of.

In,  but,   not  of.
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The other day when I was travelling in a bus bound for Nellai, the friend sitting by me asked me, “When will our bus reach Nellai?”

“Our bus? When was it transferred to our ownership?
May be yours, but, not mine.”

“Hallo! I am not talking about ownership. When will this bus reach Nellai?”

“Sorry. I don’t mean what you think I mean. I was just thinking about some people who don’t know the difference between ‘in’ and ‘of ’. Your enquiry came at that time; so I reacted that way. Sorry once more. We will be in Nellai in half an hour.”

“No need of any sorry. I think you have some sense of humour.”

“Not some, plenty. It is like cool drink in summer. We can never be happy in this world unless we have sense of humour.”

We often use ‘our’ to refer to things which are not at all ours, strictly speaking.

‘Our’ and ‘my’ are possessive pronouns; they must be used before things which belong to us fully.

My shirt is fully mine and I can use it as I please.

But when I say ‘India’ is my country, is it fully mine?

Can I use it as I use my shirt?

Not at all.

I call India ‘my country’ just because I was born in it and live in it.

One man who was considering of giving his daughter in marriage to a particular man wanted to know his economic condition and his status in society.

He said to his father, “I want my son-in-law to be a wealthy man. Can you tell me how rich is your family?”.

The man replied, “The house we live in is ours. All the fields around our village are ours. The total income that comes from these fields is enough to sustain a whole village.”

The man was very impressed and gave his daughter in marriage as desired.

But after the marriage his daughter told him that they were living in a rented house and not even an inch of land belonged to them.

Angered, he asked his daughter’s father-in-law to give explanation to his wrong wealth statement.

“There is nothing wrong in my statement. If the village we live in is ‘our village’, whatever belongs to our village is ours too. ‘Ours’ refers to all the villagers. Your misunderstanding of my statement is your mistake.”

We are committing the same mistake as regards ‘our’ world too.

We call this ‘our world’ only because we were born in it.

But this world does not belong to us and vice versa.

We may be in this world, but we are not of this world.

We are just travellers and our destination is the next world, Heaven.

Our starting point and finishing point is God.

We came from God and must return to Him.

Why did God create us in this world?

To know Him, to love Him, to serve Him and to return to Him in the end.

We can know God in two ways.
Through the universe God has created.

God has blessed us with reasoning power.

Everything in this world has a reason and cause behind it.

Every effect has a cause.

Nothing can produce itself.

If we use our reason we can find out that this universe of ours is the effect of a Superior Cause, God.

God cannot have a cause; He exists by Himself.

Anything that has a cause cannot be God.

It is only to know God through our reason that God created the universe before creating us.

Once we know Him we will start to love and serve Him.

God revealed Himself to us through Jesus Christ, His only eternal Son.

Through Faith, a free gift of God, we believe in the words of Jesus.

Being limited human beings we may not understand His words about unlimited God, but we believe in them as they are the words of God, who cannot by His nature tell lies.

We are in this world only to know God, to love Him and to serve Him.

Once we have done our duty we will have to leave this world for the next world to be united with God.

This world is not our permanent property.

To be short we are in this world, but not of this world.

We should love God, and serve Him.

Having been created only to love Him, we should love Him with our whole heart.

The love in our heart should express itself in action.

God being a spirit we cannot see him with our material eyes.

How can we express our love for Him?

By our actions.

It is for this God has given us our neighbours.

Our love for God must express itself in our love and service for our neighbours.

One who loves God will automatically love one’s neighbours.

We must serve God by serving our neighbour.

If we don’t serve our neighbour, we don’t serve God.

Whatever we do for our neighbour we do for God.

On the day of judgement God will judge us on the basis of our help done or not done for our neighbour.

Let us remember how Annai Theresa loved and served God by loving and serving her neighbours.

We are in this world only to love and serve God.

We are ‘in’ this world, but ‘of ’ the next world to go where we have been created.

Lourdu Selvam.