23rd Day of Lent: March 27, 2014: “They turned their back not their faces to me” (Jer.7.24)

23^rd Day of Lent: 

   March 27, 2014:

   “They turned

          their back not

              their faces to me”
                            (Jer.7.24)

“In God

             we 

              trust”

thus reads the dollar bill of our country.  Are we a nation who listens to God’s voice and pattern our lives after God’s whisperings and counsels?

Are we faithfully and religiously trusting in God’s lead?

Jeremiah finds the infidelity and rejection of God by his people so hard to take and condemns them in harsh words like “faithfulness has disappeared”, “they have stiffened their necks”.

Sin is rejection of God’s friendship with us and turning our back to God. Sin is missing the mark, our failure to live up to the purpose for which God has created us to be. It is distancing ourselves from the One who loves us. In the voice of the American Bishops, sin is “a spirit of selfishness rooted in our hearts and wills which wages war against God’s plan for our fulfillment.

It is rejection, either partial or total, of one’s role as a child of God and a member of His people, a rejection of the spirit of sonship, love and life. We sin first in our hearts, although often our sins are expressed in outward acts and their consequences” (To live in Christ Jesus).

Do we realize how selfish we are and how far we have traversed from our friendship with God looking deeply into the attitudes and choices we have made in life? Conversion is complete turnaround.

It is total acceptance of love and life that begins with God, sustained by God, and is fulfilled in God.

Lent is graced period of the Church calling us to have a deeper consciousness of sin that will lead us to an eternal longing of friendship with God for ‘without him we can do nothing’.

Fr. Robert Baron says, “One of the most important spiritual tasks then, especially in our time, is to awaken to the fact of sin--and to acknowledge our need for a savior.” 

Today let us turn to God in complete trust and confidence 

“For a humbled and contrite heart Oh God you will not spurn” (Psalm 51).

God Bless you always!
Sincerely Yours,
Rev. Fr. Cyriac Chandy Mattathilanickal, MS

Wishing you and yours A Holy Lent!

Rev. Fr. Tom Puthusseril, M.S. 

Shrine Director