TO FEAR GOD OR TO LOVE GOD

TO FEAR GOD OR TO LOVE GOD

            Today a vast number of Christians are full of fear of God. We are still trapped within a religion of rules (law) which Jesus abolished twenty centuries ago. He preached a God who was love itself and a liberation from the burden of the law. Sometimes our dealings with God are characterized by one big round of duties. This is the fear that brought and still brings many Catholics to mass on Sundays. I sometimes get an irrational feeling that if there were no commandments. I would be a saint. I’d feel so free and liberated – and I know I would keep every commandment spontaneously. One day a seminarian found himself saying to this God whom he was serving with all his heart and soul, “God, I really hate you. You are a kill-joy. I just cannot enjoy life while you are around, You won’t allow me to be as I am, You won’t leave me free.” Here, with whom lies the problem. The problem is certainly not with God but with us.

            We are not advocating the abolition of law (rules), but another understanding of it. Jesus proclaimed a God with whom we are to respond in love and freedom. A better understanding of God’s love for us is very important. A love that is unconditional. Have you observed the type of love a good mother has for her child? She doesn’t love him because he is good, she loves him because he is her son. She obviously wants him to be good, she wants him to improve. The mother of a criminal will want him to give up his evil ways. But, being a mother, she doesn’t stop to love him. She’ll not say, “First stop being a criminal and then I will love you.” She says, “I hate your criminal ways, but I still love you very intensely because you are my son.” If there is any hope of that boy changing, it is because of this unconditional love of his mother for him.

         Do we dare to think that this is the way God loves us? To preach this kind of God is a very dangerous business. People will tend to take advantage of His goodness. But that is the way with love. It takes the risk. It leaves itself vulnerable to being taken advantage of. And this is the risk that Jesus took when he showed us the true nature of his Father in heaven. So let us not love God out of fear, but fear God out of love.

 Sathish Paul

A GOD WHOSE NAME IS MERCY

A GOD WHOSE NAME IS MERCY

            Nothing is easier than attaining forgiveness from God. This is the biggest truth that we’ve got to believe. God is more eager to give forgiveness than we to receive it. Many refuse to believe this. They constantly brood over how miserable and wretched they have been, wishing they had never sinned, wishing they had always kept a clean sheet.

           

            For Jesus, even though to sin is the greatest evil, to be a sinner is a value. Hate sin with all your heart and avoid it. But if you have sinned and repented, then you have reasons to rejoice, because there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance (Lk 15:7). Who can understand this kind of madness? That’s the crazy God we have.

            Then we may ask: Why not sin deliberately so that we shall receive even more grace? No, remember we are dealing here with a mystery that is beyond the comprehension of the human mind. It is important to maintain the truth of both these opposites. Hate sin and if you have sinned and repented, consider yourself very lucky indeed because grace is going to be poured into you in superabundant measure. “Where sin abounded; grace abounded all the more” (Rom 5:20). The repentant sinner draws God to himself with greater force than a magnet.

            This is the good news Jesus proclaimed. The other stuff about being sorry and making a hundred penances for our sins is not good news at all. It is stale news (an Old Testament idea). We knew it all along without the preaching of Jesus. May we understand our merciful God we have, so that we may live our lives freely and joyfully.

- Sathish Paul

AUTHENTICITY

AUTHENTICITY

Does an authentic human person exist? Can a human person be authentic? We all believe that all of us are unique, each one created differently. And we are often proud of this fact; if not, then we should be.

If we are unique, why do we try to be like the other, or imitate the other? Each person will surely have her way of doing things and each person has to discover this within herself. A person can thus live and authentic life when he discovers himself fully and does things in a different way, in her own unique way.

Doing things the way they were done by the others is easy but what is really appreciated is doing things differently. That is being the creative “you.”

All are created for a purpose, and all are good as well as a little bad and so to improve ourselves, we try to follow those who are good. This is a completely different idea altogether. Another idea that can be considered is about the rightness and wrongness of the act or the way it is done. Ultimately authenticity is nothing but discovering the good and the not so good things within me, and truly moving towards a better life.

Cl. Sheldon sdb