Our identity card for our entry into heaven.

Our  identity card for our entry into heaven.
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The very fact that we were   created  in the image of God

tells us that  we must reflect Him in such a way

that those who look at us must be reminded of Him.

If they are not reminded

it only means that we are not keeping the image gifted to us intact

and that we have damaged the image by our sins.

Our future depends on how we behave at present.

A time will come when our worldly time  will pass away leaving us at the mercy of eternity.

Who will welcome us into eternity depends on how we keep the image of God.

If we want St. Peter to welcome us

we must keep our baptismal state intact.

Our dignity as a human beings   flows from God’s loving kindness and abundant mercy.

Sin will wipe away this dignity.

To get it back we must renew ourselves by getting forgiveness from God by contrition and confession.

Baptism gives us entry into the Trinitarian Family,

with which we are bound by love,

that flows from the Holy Spirit,  the God of love.

We must see that our  entry is permanent, which means we sin no more.

Even if we happen to sin,

God, our loving Father

is ready to receive us back

the moment we return to Him with a contrite heart

through the Sacrament of penance.

To live within the Trinitarian Family means

to live in the love of the Holy Trinity,

with sanctifying grace,

which is the God given life of our soul.

In the Mystery of the Trinity and our own personal life of grace,

God is our Loving Father;

Jesus is our Older Brother,

and the Holy Spirit is our Close and Best of Friends!

How good God is

and how our heart should be overflowing with gratitude!

When we are in touch  Trinitarian Family, the whole creation is with us with its beauty, which is the resemblance of God.

Whatever  is noble, pure, beautiful, and worthy of praise emanates from God.

To be clear, creation is not God! 

The beauty of all of creation points to God who is the author of all created beauty!

The same God who created us created the whole universe.

When we wonder at the beauty of the universe, we really wonder at the beauty of God Himself.

Our love for God will increase together with our wonder at the beauty of nature,  which He created for us.

Whatever He has created, He has created for us,

us, for Him and for Him alone!

Let us consider some of His creations, which will be of help in our meditation on God.

1. The Sun

We know how important the sun is for us.  Our world belongs to the sun family.

Scientifically, no sun no world!

The intention of the article is not to highlight the scientific importance of the sun,

but its spiritual significance.

Whatever is in nature reminds us of its Creator to spend some time meditating on His importance for us.

The sun symbolizes Jesus.

As is the sun to the material world, so is Jesus to the spiritual world.

Sun is the cause of all life in the material world.

Animals live by plants and plants live by the sun.

Without the sun they can neither prepare food  for them nor grow.

We can live spiritually only by God with us.

Jesus is the Light of the world.

He is our spiritual food.

Our spiritual life is possible only with His grace.

Jesus is the “Son of God”. 

The sun  on the high sky reminds us of   the consecrated Host, which  is elevated in the hands of the Catholic priest.

The sun is circular, just as the Consecrated Host.

By means of properties, the sun transmits both light and heat.

So does the Holy Spirit, as we see on Pentecost when He descended in Fire over the heads of the Apostles.

God is  burning with love for us!

Jesus said: “I have come to cast fire on the earth, and I am not at peace until that fire be enkindled.” (Lk 12:49)

Every morning the rising sun reminds us of Jesus,

who rose from the dead to give us life in  abundance!

2. The Stars

The heavenly bodies remind us  of heaven, where live our saints  shining with God's love.
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When  we lift our gaze to the sky,

symbolic of heaven and its inhabitants , the saints.

we will  feel like submitting our prayers to the real saints in the real heaven.

Our real friends,  are the saints.

They long to listen to our prayers.

They long to talk to us.

They long to intercede for us before the throne of the Almighty God!

 

Saint Ignatius of Loyola loved to step out on the terrace of his residence

and contemplate the stars and their majestic beauty.

He could spend long periods of time going  to God through the beauty of creation —the starry night sky!

3. The Powerful and Majestic Ocean Waves

Another masterpiece of God’s creative hand is the ocean, its waves and its immensity.

Just look at the waves.

How  huge, powerful, and majestic  they are,

forcefully battering against the shore and
returning to the depths!

Powerful waves, but kept under control!

We are living in a world where there are things more powerful than us, but God is continueously protecting us from them!

There is one more lesson we are to learn from the ocean and waves.

The depth of the ocean decides size of the waves.

Deep part of the ocean don't have waves.

Pacific ocean is deep.

So it is peaceful and calm as its name suggests.

Waves are in plenty in shallow parts of the ocean.

People with deep Faith are always pacific and accept whatever happens to them, suffering or enjoyment, calmly.

People with shallow faith will exaggerate whatever happens to them.

They  lack the peace which the deep faithed ones enjoy.

Our Faith must be deep like the Pacific ocean.

4.Rock and sand.

As per science, rock is part of mountain and sand that of sea shore.

Rain,

which falls on a mountain,

breaks the rock from the mountain and rolls it along the river to the sea.

During the process of rolling the rock loses its particles one after another and the lost particles become sand.

Rock, when it is unbroken  part of the mountain, is strong.

But sand, which is a collection of  particles of rock, is weak.

Jesus compares His Catholic Church to a building built on to a rock.

"thou art Peter, and it is upon this rock that I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it;"

He compares one who carrys out His commandments to

'a wise man who built his house upon rock;'.

"Whoever, then, hears these commandments of mine and carries them out, is like a wise man who built his house upon rock;25 and the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it did not fall; it was founded upon rock. 26 But whoever hears these commandments of mine and does not carry them out is like a fool, who built his house upon sand;27 and the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell; and great was the fall of it."(Matthew. 7:24-27)

Our Faith in God must be as strong as rock.

No evil can overcome a person whose Faith is strong.

One whose Faith is weak is liable to fall a prey even  to the smallest temptation.

We must daily pray to God to strengthen our Faith in Him.

From the aforesaid,

we can conclude that

God created the universe before creating us in His image

only to be of helpful to us to keep His image in us intact.

All the things of nature tell us in silent words

how deeply God loves us,

how beautiful He is

and how powerful He is.

Nature seems to ask us,

"Don't you give your children so many things to show that you love them?

Why don't you see God's love for you in us?

He has created so many lifeless things to give you life.

The food you eat, the water you drink and the snacks you devour have no life in them, but they give you life.

How?

By God's power."

Even what we think useless, harmful or dangerous have been created by God with a purpose.

We must use our brain to find out the purpose and deal with such creachers properly.

Suppose you permit a mosquito to speak, it would say,

"We  mostly feed on plant nectar and are important pollinators.

We are also a food source for birds and bats.

Our  young - as larvae - are consumed by fish and frogs.

We serve as a link in the food chain.

By pollination

(Pollination is the transfer of pollen from a male part of a plant to a female part of a plant, enabling later fertilisation and the production of seeds.)

we make tropical rainforests, for humans.

Rainforests serve as home to a large share of our total plant and animal species.

They are under serious threat from man-made destruction.

We have been delaying this catastrophe for many years.

Most of us don't bother humans at all, as we live by plant and fruit nectar.

Only the females from just 6% of our species  draw blood from humans - to help them develop their eggs.

Of these just half carry parasites that cause human diseases.

If it is wrong on our part to cause human diseases,

what about the humans

who do the same thing, in the spiritual world,

by spreading spiritual diseases,

damaging the divine image gifted to them by our Creator."

I think there is some truth in the words of the mosquito.

God created us in His image by sharing with us some of His attributes, such as love, freedom and power.

But instead of using the gifts in His service,

we have misused them causing damage to His image.

We being social beings, our behaviour affects the society also. 

That means

we are spreading the
disease of damaging  God's image.

Let us learn a lesson from the created things, animate or nonanimate.

Let us see God's love, beauty and power in nature,

free ourselves from sins,

keep the  image of God in us intact.

It is our  identity card for our entry into heaven.

Lourdu Selvam.