It is 10th October 2018. The readings are from Galatians 2:1-2, 7-14; and the Gospel from Luke 11:1-14. Creating communities and promoting the spirit of accommodating into the community of believers where everyone leans on Christ not on their convictions and customs they belong is not that easy unless one is committed to personal quality time with Christ Jesus in prayer. In the first reading, we have a situation in which St. Paul brought to the attention of St. Peter by asking him not to exclude anyone in order to please someone. Having a meal with someone is the expression of love and a moment to have a challenging conversation over a meal. Some people did not like St. Peter to eat with the non-Jews. St. Paul had a broad vision of including everyone in the community of love preached by Christ. St. Paul wanted the approval from St. Peter to continue preaching the Gospel to the non-Jews and desired that anyone could be received into the community of faith and love as long as they confess Jesus as the Lord. God’s love and forgiveness is not limited a particular people from particular tradition and culture. St. Paul presented his view and belief to the leaders of the Church namely Saints James, Peter and John. It was more of seeking approval to expand and reach out beyond the Jewish people. Harmony cannot be achieved without unity. The enemy of unity is fear of caring confrontation for the sake of common good. That is exactly St. Paul did with St. Peter. Brought to St. Peter’s mind that God has a bigger and better plan than what he was pursuing it. Dialogue is always good to arrive at a conclusion that suits most of all. We must not engage ourselves to win the argument rather to win the person for Christ. Most of us are losing people by winning our debates. The responsorial Psalm intercedes, “God out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News.” (Mk.16:15). The Gospel teaches us the importance of prayer and presents us with a model prayer of Jesus. Unless we communicate with God, we cannot converse with people in unity and peace. Everyone us must make effort to pray and learn the way of prayer that suits us to communicate with God. It is during the prayerful moments, we begin to experience our unworthiness and sinfulness. More we know ourselves, more we begin to value the others with their choices and beliefs. Only through prayer that regular and personal makes us to handle ourselves as well as the others in the challenging situations of life. God wants to reveal many things to us in prayer. We have time for everything in our schedules. Do we have a time to be with God in our hectic and depressing schedules? May we find time to be with God before we end this day. May God bless you. Have a good day.

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