May the Lord grant you grace, peace and health in the Holy Spirit.
It is 08th February 2022. We celebrate the memorials St Jerome Emiliani; and St Josephine Bakita, Virgin. We reflect on 1 Kings 8: 22-23, 27-30 and Mark 7:1-13
Repetitions rediscover nothing. Religion is not a door to Heaven but a belief in God. Rendition does not add colour to belief.
Going after new ideas and trajectories unpack the layer of closeness to reality by the mere presence of the truth.
When charity, human fraternity and dignity are ignored by religion with its institutionalized and secular mentality, it creates a new type of belief excluding God. By spiritualizing the crucial issues of human fraternity, we tend to trivialize religion and its roles in the life of people.
When leaders fail to build communities, they fabricate facts and distract people with religion by erecting monuments. No religion can confide God in its dark and deep chambers. Being fraternal to all human beings we open the windows of hope, love, and faith in humanity.
The dedicatory prayer of Solomon was meticulously worded in such a way that however grandeur the temple was built yet it cannot contain and zip God. The attempts to include God in humanity cannot end within the walls of a worship place. God’s forgiveness is spread for all those who recognize God’s presence and grace in others. Just like the prayer of Solomon, our prayers and worship need to include forgiveness and mercy towards other fellow human beings.
Otherwise, as Isaiah puts it in the Gospel, “This people honours me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.” Jesus invites us to have a religion of heart not of words. Let us not hide under the light of religion to excuse ourselves from being charitable. May God bless you.