May the Lord give you peace and health in the Holy Spirit. It is 21st July 2021.
We celebrate the memorial of St Lawrence of Brindisi, priest, and doctor of the Church.
We reflect on Exodus 16:1-5, 9-15 and the Gospel of Matthew 13:1-9.
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, 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 slavery and inexhaustible nostalgia of 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 have the possibility to 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, tensions in our life. God bless you.