Solidarity Rosary Service: A Cry for PEACE

      On fifth August, 2014 we, the community of DBK prayed the Solidarity Rosary Service. The sole intention of this rosary service was to pray for peace. Well the procedure was the same as a normal Rosary. But what captivated me was the depiction of the powerpoint slides of war incidents of the of late wars that occurred in and around the world, inclusive of PAK and IND. War affected countries like, IND, PAK,
Palestine, Iraq, Sudan, Russia and Ukrain and etc.,

    During Solidarity Rosary Service everyone was called to pray devoutly for the establishment of peace and to seek peace in the world. All the community members participated in this service and I'm sure that everyone felt the need and necessity of peace.

How to Die Gracefully...!

Dear friendz it is always fascinating to hear something about death and life after death. Very often we hear people getting frightened to talk about their own death. Why do I say suddenly about death. Yes friendz there is an interesting thing that took place a couple of days ago. I was with an elderly priest (Swami Vikrnat sdb) who was 84 years old and came down to Warangal to take Latin classes for our brothers. During our tea time he was telling us that he was up to his last book to be completed and in the process of publishing. Out of curiosity I asked what would be the title of the book. He said that "How to Die Gracefully." I was really fascinated by his wonderful way of living and going about. Beautiful. I do not need any words of inspiration and motivation. For his life and works speak volumes of love, laughter, fun and frolic. He is a passionate teacher, well qualified in Indian Philosophy.

Essence of Christianity...

Of late I was reading a book titled "Spiritual Stamina" in which the author focused on the
essence of Christianity. I was stuck by the beautiful saying of the author. Suppose if we ask
what is the core of Christianity we may answer saying LOVE. But the author puts it better
in his words as it is said dat, the Theology of Christianity is MERCY (Compassion) and the
Ethics of Christianity is Gratitude. Yes it is beautifully put by the author as compassion and
Gratitude.

   

What is TRUTH?

          Once, during my Hermeneutics class for the third year philosophy students, I posed a question to the students, What is TRUTH? and in fact I asked them to write and come for tomorrow's class. Well on the next morning it was interesting to see what is truth for them.

         However, I was glad to hear from a particular student's perspective on what truth is. He said, the truth is relative and it is all matter of one's disposition and attitude to the reality and of course with one's self. There cannot be any objective truth.

       The truth is always relative because he has his own truth, she has her own truth and there is also the truth itself. So, it is highly personal to accept or hold on to what exactly a truth or the truth is....

FAITH: A COVENENTAL GIFT...

All of us who believe Jesus as the savior and redeemer can raise with one voice echoing that Jesus is truly Son of God. Well, it is very nice and easy for us to utter that Jesus is our Lord. But, let me ask you what exactly is FAITH? Off late I have experienced how difficult it is/was to define what Faith is. However, the probable answers could be Faith is what I believe, Faith is what the Church teaches, Faith as what my fore-fathers believed  and handed down to us etc.,  

I would like to give an explanation about what faith is. Faith is first and foremost a gift of God, as we learn from our catechism. When it is a gift, it is free and benevolent. Now you might ask me a question saying, do we deserve this gift? My answer would be No. We do not deserve the gift of Faith. Because we have no reasons to take on our credit for the gift of faith. In fact we have lost the loving relationship with God as existed between God our first parents before the original sin. Yet, the wonderful thing about our God is that he never abandoned us. He never let us go to the dust. Because he created us in his own image and likeness. Which means God is deeply in love with you and me. Hence, he cannot but save us from our peril. To this eternal endeavour he had to send his only son to be one among us and be put to death. Thus he paid his own blood as a ransome for our salvation. The Bible gives us many accounts of the individuals who kept faith in God despite the danger posing under their nose.

This reminds me of the faith of Abraham, Moses and Mary who were called forth by God and responded to Him faithfully. We know the result of their faith in God. One has become the father of the faith for the generations and the other led the Israelite to the promised land and Mary was privileged to be the Mother of the saviour. 

One who believes faith as the gift of God then will surely bound to know that he/she is called to go forth where people are crying for need and for God; just like Abraham for the generations, Moses to the captive Isralites and Mary to the Elizabeth who was in need. Like wise, you are being formed to serve the people waiting for you. Now the question could be who are those people waiting for you...?  This could be the mission and the charism that we are entrusted with. Therefore, our faith never demands the service rather commands our disposition, availability and accountability. 

St James reminds us in his letter that faith without works makes no meaning. Therefore, Faith is also thanking God for the gifts received. If we thank God for the simple things that we have, I am sure God will give us more and more to be grateful to Him more. Because God likes to be blessed by his creatures. This we can witness where in the Gospels ten lepers get healed on the way but only one leper returns to Jesus in gratitude. Therefore, if we practice our faith then, we will not be in the list of those ungrateful lepers. Jesus asks, where are the nine lepers?

Great things happen when God mixes with us, great and beautiful and wonderful things. Faith is like a rudder that directs the captain of the ship to sail over the ocean of life that encounters waves of difficulties, struggles, and deep ice burgs of temptations and unwanted desires in the course of life’s journey. It is through faith we will be able to sail the ocean of our life safely in spite of umpteen number of troubles that come on our way. For when Jesus is our Friend who can stand against us. Therefore, dear friends Faith is like ice cube, either you use it if not you lose it. Faith as a gift of God reminds us time again that we cannot reach God through our intellect. Only through the rudder of our faith we will be able to sail our life of faith. Faith reminds us that God calls us despite knowing our weaknesses. Because he first loved and formed us as his beloved. Only through Holy Spirit we learn to live in faith. Because it is the spirit that teaches us everything. Thus dear friends we are justified by our faith in Jesus Christ. Because faith reveals to us what is Truth, what is Righteousness and Gospel Peace. Thus we are justified by our faith. 

Dear friends I am sure you will now agree with my statement that faith is the gift of our Covenental God. So, faith is generous, gratuitous and benevolent gift of our covenental God. So, since faith is a gift we need to nurture it and treasure it while accepting and believing all the sacraments as the external means of internal grace. We can never forget the fact that Faith is God’s initiative to save his lost sheep in the wilderness and in sin. Our task is to respond to the precious and generous gift of faith and express our gratitude while part taking in the sacraments. That’s how we in turn give our positive appreciation for the unconditional initiative of God. For this, there are individual and collective moments of prayer and adoration in the catholic services where we thank God and engage in dail 

Faith beyond boarders...

ouge with him and thus we enter into a covenental relationship with him. Therefore, faith metaphorically speaking is like a rudder that directs first the captain of the ship and then all the passengers in the ship.

Dear friend, I would like to conclude by quoting the scripture that we no longer go by our sight rather go by our faith. (2 Corinthians 5: 7) Because, We look at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal. (2: Corinthians 4:16-18)

Br Naresh Neelam, SDB

LIFE; RELATIONSHIPS

Today life is on the rat race. What I mean by saying this is very simple. Life is noting but of relationship. This presupposes that life is all about relationships. That's might be the reasons why Philosophers have that we are social animals.What ever be the reason in our relationships there are three levels. Relationship with oneself (intra), relationship with the other (inter) and relationship with God (spiritual). So, now we know that life is not a single commodity but a series of relationships. Primarily of all these three, Intra relationship is primordial. Because this is where one is in touch with oneself. In this process one comes to know the depth of person hood. In this process of knowing one's relationship with oneself, one also comes to about the quality and quantity of his/her contribution to the other.

One can give something to the other only if one has something inside. For example, I can only what I have, either ignorance or wisdom. If I have ignorance I share ignorance, if I have wisdom I share wisdom. 
So, it is always an ideal thought that one require to build up not only external personality also internal depth and integrity of character and person hood.

Path Breaking Problems

            Dear Friendz, I am staying in Hyderabad during this summer 2012-2013 for my holidayz. Over here I got an opportunity to address young people of our Campus and around. Well they are about 35 of them, of which the boys were in minority. I just wish to pen down the sum and substance of my interaction with those youngsters.

            It is always interesting to have an interaction with the young people of current generation. One of the reasons could be their multiple dimension of mindset and varied interests of habits and what not. Therefore without much thinking I  agreed to interact with them.

            Today, young  people are in a way like moving machines and magics. Because they think that they can move all, on speed and instant. As a result they also wish and desire to have things immediately and move things instantly. This tells us that they (youngsters) have no time to waste in thinking and reflecting. We can see this mindset even in the market terminology 'Instant Coffee',  'Fast Foods', 'Fast Track' and etc. 

            I am reminded of the person who goes to the church for a favor from God. He asks God, "Dear please give me the gift of patience but immediately." This exactly the attitude to the current generation. May be may not be.  But what is my concern is to make the (youth) to  think about what they are thinking about their attitude. So, we must focus on our attitude and mind set in all our decisions and the circumstances. If not we may also end up our life just like the person  who asked God for the gift of patience but on condition of immediacy.