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

La Salette Shrine, Missionaries, Associates, Staff, Volunteers and Friends mourns for Boston Fire House 15 and families...

La Salette Shrine, Missionaries, Associates, Staff, Volunteers and Friends mourns for Boston Fire House 15 and families...

Boston...we love you, our prayers are with you...Fire House 15,  Lt. Ed Walsh & Michael Kennedy as well as their families

  http://www.lasaletteservices.info/Boston--we-love-you-.html

These sad  images is so we may seriously pray for all who were injured and those who gave their precious lives to save many.

To all of them and their families our love and prayers goes out to them....we weep for you today... Attleboro La Salette Family

22nd Day of Lent: March 26,2014 “Not one letter… will pass from the law until all is accomplished”

                       22nd Day of Lent:

                              March 26,2014

      “Not one letter…

             will pass from 

                  the law until all is                                                                                                 accomplished”

 A woman asked her children not to pluck the apples from the tree because they were not ripe. So they ate them on the tree leaving the cores still hanging there. When does a law or decree or statute is accomplished? Is it when we observe it to the letter? Dominicans would say it is perfectly fulfilled when the purpose for which it was made is being fulfilled.

 A law is a means to an end; but if the end is being subverted by the law, then it is no longer a law.  For St Thomas Aquinas Law is an act of reason (ordering a means to an end), not an act of will.  The purpose of the law is for the guidance of your mind. It does not take away your freedom, but supports, enlightens and defends it.  

This is how there can be such a thing as the law of God. 

There is no real opposition between law and love.

 Jesus is the embodiment of law and the prophets and so he says, ‘ I came not to abolish but to fulfill the law’. Jesus is the guide to our path to eternal life. The ultimate law is law of love which does not impose burdens on us but frees us to love and serve others, God and creation wholeheartedly. 

 God is love and Jesus is the embodiment of love and Love incarnate.
To me the purpose of every law is to help us love God and neighbor unconditionally. 

Any law that stands 
                       as a barrier
                                        to this 
                                              is not 
                                               achieving
                                                      its
                                              purpose.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wu4Ux6WpFg&list=PL257A152718BAD9CA

21st Day of Lent: The Feast of Annunciation of the Lord: “How can this be?”

21^st Day of Lent:

           The Feast of

                   Annunciation

                                 of the Lord:

                                   “How can this be?”

James Martin, SJ in his recent book entitled, “Jesus, a pilgrimage”, narrates so beautifully the passage of annunciation. He says this story ‘encapsulates the progress of a person’s relationship with God. What happens to Mary happens to us’.

The relationship begins with God’s initiative entirely. God breaks into our lives in unexpected ways and begins a conversation that might happen even by a friend’s comforting words or even by a scripture reading. 

When we realize that this might be God speaking to us

 we become either grateful or fearful. 

 ‘God is paying attention to us. How could that not frighten?’ hence Mary’s reaction is ‘greatly disturbed’ according to Luke. For us it is like “Who? Me?” reaction.

   

Then comes the reassurance from God, 365 times mentioned in the Bible, like one every day of the year, “Don’t be afraid”.

In our confusion, fear and anxiety God promises us to trust in the Divine. When the angel explains all the details of her mission, Mary’s reaction is “how can this be”?  

This may be the facet of Mary’s life that intersects most with our own.

We feel inadequate to what God seems to be asking- even if we are sure that it is God who asking. This happens not only with an invitation to something wonderfully new and exciting, but also with a sudden of events that darkens life. An illness, the loss of a job, a ruptured friendship. Who hasn’t said, how can this be?’

In response to Mary, the angel says, “here is the secret- Elizabeth is pregnant. You have doubts about what God will do? Then just look at what God has already done. “

Memories of God’s activity in the past especially the awareness that God had intervened in difficult moments of your life enables us to embrace the future.

Now the confident Mary says yes let it be done to me according to your word”. “Mary says yes to a future that she does not know.

She is an example of letting God do God’s work, without trying to figure it out”. What a surprise was unfolding before her as Mary said yes and continued to say yes to God everyday of her life.

We too will be surprised at God’s surprising ways in our life when we completely make that total surrender to God’s will. ...Don’t you desire that joy for your life?

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

           Our Lady of La Salette,                              Reconciler of Sinners,                             Pray without ceasing                                         for us                                              who have recourse                                            to thee.                                                      Amen.