It is 23rd July 2020.
We celebrate the memorial for St. Bridget of Sweden, Religious. The readings are from Jeremiah 2:1-3, 7-8, 12-13 and the Gospel from Matthew 13:10-17.
Life is a matter of choice not an act of obligation.
Life is not about bombastic and beautiful words of promises but it is the endorsement of faithful love in presence.
Our initial love for the Lord run dries by time due to our attachments to deviations than devotions.
We all loved playing near running waters when we were young. Some of us love rain and some others love being near the amazing streams that brought out something we cannot pen down. None of us preferred to be near a dry pond looking at lifeless riverbeds right from our early childhood until today.
Then, how come our spiritual lives are complacent and dry, we do not notice yet?
Faithfulness is the suitable response to covenantal love between man and woman, God, and people of Israel. Every married couple have a time of glory and reminiscence to cherish in their lives.
When faithfulness begins to dry down, love rushes to find the springs of initial fervour in every human relationship. Failure to return to the sources of love relapses in unfaithfulness.
In the first reading through the prophet Jeremiah, God recalls the initial fervour and faithfulness of Israel. The Lord complains the attitude of the people of Israel for their preferential option to be near the dry cisterns than water reservoirs. Sources of God’s love never run dry. Yet, infertile love, fermented faithfulness, deviated dependence, and faking fidelity are some of those dried the streams of sacredness in the loving relationship with God and God’s people. A constant consultation with God keeps us connected with the sources of sustenance.
We find many passages that resonate God as the living water. “From your delightful stream you give them to drink” (Ps 36:9). “All you who are thirsty come to the water” (Isaiah 55:1). “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water’” (Jn.7:38) Again we are comforted, “To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life” (Rev 21:6).
We who are baptised and immersed in the living waters of salvation need to examine what are the things making us to move away from such living and life-giving water and searching for empty cisterns?
The responsorial Psalm praises, “I am the Lord your God: hear my voice.” (Ps, 81:11).
In the Gospel, Jesus reminds us that our priority must be always God. we are all so blessed because our faithfulness to God. “To the one who has, more will be given until one grows rich; the one who has not, will lose what little one has.” (Mt.13:12). Our openness to listen to the voice of the Lord allows us to enjoy the blessings in abundance.
Helen Keller remarks, “The only thing worse than being blind, is having sight but no vision”.
Without God, our lives are dry, and our motives are motionless. May we offer the place that belongs to God in our life. May God bless you to have a lovely day. God bless you.