It is 15th October 2019. We celebrate the memorial of St Teresa of Avila, Virgin and Doctor of the Church. The readings are from Romans 1:16-25; and the Gospel from Luke 11:37-41. To bear witness to our faith means to live a moral, ethical and spiritual life. St. Paul teaches us in the first reading that there is no meaningful life without faith in God. Most of us are lost and made blind by our impurities of mind and heart with justified reasoning by subjecting our body to all types of pleasures to the extend we tend to make our body as object of worship and end up serving the creation instead of the Creator. Our arrogant and prideful choices we have made only exposed to the anger of God. Yet, God demonstrates an unparallel love to bring the sinners closer to God. Our testimony of faith needs to be seen in the way we go after truth and embracing the same. With all our sophistication and the pinnacle of skills, there is an ample room for sterility in the knowledge of God and the moral law because of our foolish choices we repeatedly make. When our consciences refuse to be sharpened by the Word of God, there is a danger that we could be succumbed to worship human as God and replacing God with human and animals just like the Roman did. What are things we do and who are the persons in our lives replacing God and making out witnessing futile and void. The responsorial Psalm praises, “The heavens proclaim the glory of God.” (Ps.18:2). The Gospel strongly proposes to examine the way we witness our faith. Witnessing of our faith needs to be profound that is of interior and of spiritual so as to bring ourselves closer to God than to give importance to exterior practices that only attract the other people and their appreciations. We are all purified by the waters of Baptism, and therefore we need to purify the world by our charitable works that penetrates the hearts of all people. The Gospel teaches us to examine the obstacles in experiencing the salvation and healing actions of Jesus. Our formalistic, ritualistic and hypocritical gestures must not strangle the wind pipes of intimacy, dialogue, relationship and communion with Christ. In witnessing our faith, we must not impose traditions, practices and customs more than a human presence and charity and be willing to overcome barriers, sterile precepts, and empty traditions. May we live a life of faith above the currents of lustful and pleasurable moments of our daily living. May you have a good day. May God bless you.