May the Lord give you peace and health in the Holy Spirit. It is on 26th July 2023.
We reflect on Exodus 16:1-5, 9-15 and the Gospel of Matthew 13:1-9.
We celebrate the memorial of Saints Joachim and Anne, Parents of Our Lady. Anna means grace; Joachim denotes ‘Yahweh saves.’ This feast reminds the parents and the grandparents of their responsibility in leading children and grandchildren to God through faith and Christian values.
Growing up and moving on is painful yet necessary for integral happiness and development.
When we get used to someone or something even if it is costing our peace and progress, we find it challenging to move out of the situation and root ourselves where God wants us.
To become new, take up a new journey, focus on a new direction, and learn something new all expose our vulnerability and strengthen our stability. Without being subjected to some inconveniences in our life, we cannot acquire something new in our life.
The people of Israel witnessed two mighty wonders of the Lord such as protecting the first-born Hebrew children and crossing the Red Sea and today’s reading, we read that God filled them with food, meat, and water for their thirsty and complaining minds and body. The people longed to go back to the past of slavery and had inexhaustible nostalgia for the past. People did not believe that the Lord could provide food in the desert even after witnessing all that God had done to them.
Whenever we complain, we forget to remember the good of the person and the goodness we have cherished. By overemphasizing 0ur personal struggles, we oversimplify the sufferings of others and segregate them as insignificant.
We all can be the best seed we can be, but we all tend to live near the thorny, rocky, and edgy situations of life that do not allow the seed to go through painful, progressive, and proactive formation needed to bring out the best.
Responding to the Word of God opens the hard surface of the seed to germinate and our good works moistures and manures the seed to reach its potentiality to the full. “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.: (James 1:22). The inside matters for growth and transformation. Jesus preaches and teaches through the Word of God, the Sacraments, and the Community of Faith. Unless we open to expose and expedite the Word, we cannot encounter the Lord. God’s Word will be sown in every human heart. God expects us to prepare the soil for significant success. However, for the insignificant outcome, we need to present the soil that provides the best environment for growth.
May we not lose focus on God when we face trials, temptation, and tensions in our life. God bless