Daily Reflections Feb 23, 2018

Ezekiel 18: 21 - 28; Matthew 5: 20 - 26.

“Thou are merciful indeed O Lord. I am forever grateful for Thy teachings and I have decided to renew my faith through the Sacraments of the Holy Catholic Church. This I do, so that I may continue to live in Holiness until the time for me to be lifted to Heaven in Spirit. I pray my Lord that I may always remember Thy commands and I will be attentive to all my thoughts and actions without making any delays to remain at peace with my neighbour and also my Loving God”.

God has been patient in our transgressions from the time of creation. Mankind has kept going wrong and even going astray every now and then. And God being compassionate in understanding our weaknesses and our lack of wisdom has been merciful to us. As subjects of God’s righteousness, we must attest to the righteousness that the Lord displays in the Book of Ezekiel 18: 21 - 28. When the Lord created the world with an environment for human life, it was perfect and mankind thrived in that environment, many living over hundreds of years. With the gift of free will, the people of that ancient generation made many good choices and pleased God. A person may endure in righteousness for many years and at a certain turn of events change his/ her mind entirely to live carelessly and give no importance to God’s Commands. But we must realise how caring the Lord is about our life. Did we bring our parents together in love? Can we make our own birth possible? We owe all gratitude to God for gifting us with the opportunity at life and giving us free will. So many babies die prematurely and so many children die in infancy due to the harsh conditions that the devil keeps introducing into the world through the hands of sinful and evil people. Now in this present generation most people don’t care and even larger number of people don’t even know the difference between what is righteous and what is hideous. Many people have taken the Lord’s patience and His compassionate will to understand humanity for granted and we make many choices to provide us with a short-term comfort. We are happy as long as we feel good for the moment. It is our duty as children of God and to our advantage, to endure to make choices in tune with God’s eternal plan because we will live only for a moment as compared to the eternal span of the Lord’s plan. God’s plan will remain pure and Holy for eternity filtering the evil and the sin through purgatory and the Judgement of God. As God’s plan continues, the sinful and the evil will simply we sieved away into the harshness of hell while the Holy will continue to add value to God’s plan. Hence, God warns Ezekiel that sinfulness will always lead a person to death unless the person has a change of heart and henceforth lives in Holiness. Nothing comes without pain, but the pain will be worth every blessing because after the physical death the spirit experiences eternity and being part of God’s holy plan for eternity can only mean an abundance of peace and Joy. But, turning away from goodness, righteousness and holiness to embrace a life in sin would be foolish because after the physical death, the soul will suffer for eternity until the last day of Judgement when all sinfulness and evil will be destroyed in the spiritual death.

God is justified in warning us so openly because He has the holiest of intentions. God wants us to change our hearts to choose goodness, holiness, righteousness and walk the narrow path leading to eternal bliss in His eternal and holy plan. Hence in the Gospel of Matthew 5: 20 - 26, Jesus exhorts us to embrace holiness and goodness choosing to Obey God’s Commands. Jesus advises us to look unto Him and worship God in Spirit and truth. The Word of God in the Bible tells us everything that we need to know to lead a life pleasing to God. We must be fine tuned in our understanding of God’s Wisdom. We must pray for discernment and for the Lord’s wisdom as we build our devout relationship with God. We must be alert to Heresy, maliciousness and wickedness and understand if hypocrites are trying to misguide us into their own heretic and sinful beliefs. We must not allow hypocrites to manipulate God’s Commands. Follow the Lord’s will through His Commands, Ordinances, decrees and testaments carefully and understand the depth of the teaching. Because slander, destruction of reputation, gossip and cursing are as evil as committing murder. So also, theft of information and manipulative theft of ideas is as good as stealing wealth from another person. Every person is entitled to respect and freedom.Only God can be a Righteous Judge to each and everyone of us. The Lord commands us to make peace and maintain a peaceful loving relationship with one and all and we must have good motives, good intentions, sincerity and purity of heart in every relationship we keep. We cannot be hypocrites to love God and despise our neighbour. When Jesus instructs us to make peace with our neighbour before making an offering to God, Jesus also instructs us to make our peace with God through repentance and confessions of sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation before we partake in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist and before we worship God. Do not hold on to sin and sinfulness delaying repentance and sincere partaking in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. We never know when our sinfulness will lead us to sudden death, because after death there is no opportunity for repentance and it is impossible to partake in any of the Sacraments after the physical death of our body. After the physical death there is only suffering for a sinner until the final judgement.

- By Bro Maryo