Daily Reflections Feb 21, 2018

Jonah 3: 1 - 10; Luke 11: 29 - 32.

“Thy mercy is unfathomable and boundless and I am unworthy of Thy touch. Why should Thou have pity when I transgress in my sin? I am but dust, to dust I will return and yet, Thou reaches out to me to awaken my Spirit to seek repentance. Thou are the sign that lights up in my darkness. Here I am, lost in oblivion and Thou offers me a chance at Redemption”.

From the moment that God created mankind, He has always been mindful of us. God cautioned Adam and Eve not to eat the forbidden fruit and even though their sin put them out of paradise; sending them repenting into the wilderness, the Lord continued to be mindful of them and He protected them from destruction. The Lord of Hosts continued to be mindful of Adam’s descendants even though the devil corrupted Cain entirely and through Seth, God raised hope for the future of mankind. After the Lord had populated the world through Noah and his descendants, God sanctified the seed of one faithful man – Abraham and through him, raised a Priestly Nation to establish His ‘Temple of Worship’ forever. All through the development and civilization of humanity, God has been busy nourishing, nurturing, educating and building humanity as He wisely carved a strand through which a ‘Temple of Salvation’ could be gifted for all those who were struggling with sin due to the shrewd, constant and continuous attacks of the devil. God knew how His Almighty Holiness would be challenged by the devil and He had Salvation planned right from the beginning. When the time was ripe for evil to corrupt the world with sin, God offered His mercy through His Son Jesus Christ and opened a gate for repentance and absolution of sins. For Jesus Christ became the Temple through which God would call all mankind to Salvation and through this same Temple, God invited all mankind to worship Him in Spirit and Truth.

The Lord walks in our midst offering us redemption. He never sleeps and He never slumbers. He is ever awake watching as we thread each step of this earthly journey. The Lord has Divine Love in His Unfathomable Heart and He is compassionate to offer us His unfathomable mercy. As we stagger and stumble He watches us; He sees our transgression and He calls out in whispers. Our soul nudges our consciousness, shaking our memory with the mistakes we have made. How much longer do we have? We do not know. For the spirit of death is lurking to take a soul whose sinfulness has matured, to save that soul from damnation by purifying it in purgatory before the devil corrupts it further and damns it in hell. Our souls are precious and the devil fights to grab as many. He has entwined our lifestyle with vanity and greed, showing us materialistic happiness as we take violent steps to flirt with sin. Our sinfulness is violence and in itself it violently corrupts the sanctity of our spiritual relationship with God. We have the Lord’s Word enshrined in our scriptures and as we read, the divine wisdom lights up our soul with a glimmer of Divine Hope. It is time we wake up from this spiritual slumber and listen to the Holy Spirit,who knocks at the doors of our spiritual hearts. God sent His prophet Jonah in the Book of Jonah 3: 1-10, to prophesy to the sinful people of Nineveh so that they would repent and change their hearts. Now, as we read the scriptures, the Lord tells us that He is calling us too and that we should sincerely repent. God gives us hope, that as He forgave the people of Nineveh, He is ready to forgive us. But we must turn to Him, sprinkling our hearts with repentance and wearing humility and sorrow as our sack cloth. God calls us to break away from sinfulness and be worthy to follow Him in Spirit and truth.

Let us not waste any more of our precious time. Hearken to the Lord’s Word as we hear it and delay no more to seek repentance. Seek not a physical sign, for the devil is blinding our eyes with vanity, clogging our ears with lies and insulating our senses with luxury and pride. A life with wealth, luxury and vanity is no more a blessing than it is a curse. Such pleasures prevent us from feeling repentant. Such pleasures blind us from seeing the suffering of those in our midst. Such pleasures shut our ears from listening to the call of justice and the whispers from Heaven. The swim in vanity insulates our senses from the reality of sin and hardens our hearts to the cries of the suffering around us.The Gospel of Luke 11: 29-32 is a flower of wisdom from the Lord as it blossoms in this generation. Jesus prophesies that no other sign other than Himself Crucified can be given. For as Jonah went to Nineveh to warn its citizens, so has the Cross come in our midst as a sign of Hope and Salvation for all mankind. Remember and be mindful, Jonah only carried a prophetic warning. Jesus Christ is the Saviour and He brings us God’s mercy along with hope, forgiveness of sins and redemption.

God has been patient and He has allowed humanity to choose their fate. Some will live their lives becoming sheep that will blindly follow the ‘Good Shepherd’ and many will remain stubborn as goats to follow their own worldly desires. Jesus has told us that many yearned and waited to see the Messiah but did not, for the Lord sent His Salvation at the end of age. Those who thought that they saw God’s greatness before Christ was born will witness Him sit in Glory at God’s Right Hand to Judge all creation. They will sneer the wicked of this age for their blindness and will testify for the sins of this generation. We who are born after the establishment of the Catholic Church of Jesus Christ are solemnly blessed because we live in a generation in which the absolution of all sins is possible through the Sacrament of Reconciliation and absolute spiritual cleansing is possible through the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. It is in this generation that God will carve out a remnant that is totally devout and Holy to Him through Jesus Christ and we who are chosen in Christ will live for Eternity.

- By Bro Maryo