All are called to Holiness

Life is a gift of God, God has gifted us with his own life for he created us in his own image with potential to be like him. Growth is a life long process for all. The real sense of life and growth is this God given potential to put it into action. God has given to us human beings, one more important gift. It is more important than life itself in one sense:
“FREE WILL” – FREEDOM.

This God given gift, not even God will touch it, human being is free to use this gift in order to become what we are created to be:

CHIDREN OF GOD.

In this process of growth, in the early stages of life we need help from others especially parents, for example when we plant a seed of any tree normally it grow upward, when we see the tree is leaning to one side we try to give a support, in order to help it grow straight. If we leave it unattended it will become difficult, at times it will become impossible to make it straight.

When we have a blue print for our growth : GOD HIMSELF, because we are created in his own image. In order to grow as a true human being created in God’s image, we need to know God himself. The more we come to know God, the more we come to know ourself. For this reason we need to take care of life and growth from early childhood to the day of our death. We need to keep learning, who is God and who I am. Since God has given us everything we need for our growth in potency, our life time is meant to transform what is in potency to action.

Human life is beautiful, but it is also trying and tiring. It is a battle between flesh and spirit. We are not slaves to sin. We live in the spirit, spirit lives in me, in us, this is the spiritual life we live in the spirit. God has given us the power to win the battle. We only need to follow the inner voice God has put in us, to follow the truth and love. When we follow the truth and love, the evil one speaks in our heart too, we need silence to recognise the voice of God and voice of the evil one. We need to have the courage to choose the truth and love and not the voice of the evil one which is destruction. It is a challenge; it is difficult to follow but Lord has given us the power to follow it, that is why we need silence to listen within. Today’s world is much noisy. Television, internet, mobile phones keeps us very busy, but we need to find time for silence, because our life is very precious, it is a preparation to live forever in glory. In order to reach this glorious life after our life on earth, suffering is necessary reality, it is the nature of our fallen condition.

Believe in God and love for God and one another. Hold our both hands and takes it up to reach that hope - eternal life. Our life is constantly awaiting to reach the other world after our death. But while here on earth we need to live a good life, so don’t stop walking. Walk with small step, running we may get tired and stop. Of course on earth we walk fast, but in our spiritual life, in silence with time we take small steps so that we may not miss the way, we may not fall. In hope, in prayer we make this journey. In hope we are saint. Prayer is an exercise of hope. In personal prayer, leave space to God to speak to us, He is our loving father who always wish to speak to us. He waits for us that we listen to him. He also enjoys our talking. He listens to every word we speak to him with great Joy and great Love.

This beautiful universe God created for us to be our home. At times we have the feeling that there is too much darkness. But God’s love and light enters even in this dark world. It is we who speak and act without God, but even God gives us the grace in order to speak when we speak against him. The moment he takes breath from us we are not existing. But he, in his love allows us to act in our freedom, hoping that we will act in love. But very often through our acts, we act against that love which brings darkness into the world. Each one of us need to try hard to light a little light in that darkness, so that the darkness may not at once transform all powers into the darkness, this is our mission, this is the purpose of our life, each one of us has this purpose to light the world around us. Also, our difficulties and sufferings have a part to play. Offering every difficulty with love, for love of God and souls, brings great miracles in the world. It is important that we offer everything to God because God has a purpose for each one of us. But every single word, even our breath we can offer for love of God, and for love of souls, the humanity, present, past, future. All the generations we are connected to each other, our action can reach the past generation, the present entire humanity on earth and the future generations to come. So, everything in God has a meaning, for this offering is very important.

Life is a gift from God. We receive the gift with joy and take care of it.

Reflection from memories: I grew up in a family where I enjoyed my childhood. Today after seeing the children in different part of the world, I do not stop thanking God for having such a beautiful childhood years. Growing up with siblings, school going years where children of the neighbourhood together going to the closest school where we first mostly begin to open our heart from our little world of father and mother to a wider world, oh how educative was that experience. Today when we look back which today’s children miss a lot. Now a days parents carry their children to school, so there is no chance of meeting other children walking together in order to go to school to widen their little world. Years later going to higher studies but not choosing to stay in a hostel, but as a day scholar why did I do this. Since I was planning to become a religious and for that matter a radical one, wanted to spend maximum time with parents and also to know the world I was planning to give up. I can not give up something which I do not know, so as not to regret later on and long for it when came to know, I am so grateful to the God for leading me to this clear vision. And I know next generation did not have life like this we had and things get from bad to worse. How I wish to work to help them to bring back to that life once again where children enjoyed their childhood years.

A lifelong commitment unto eternity and death is a doorway to eternity. When we choose a committed life, we may shed few tears in the beginning when we think about our parents and family and what we left behind. Later on in the new surroundings, we see the real-life situations - family life, true concerns, love and care for each other. It did not look so sugary, but real. We live a normal life, we do not see much difference from what we were living before, but we come to know more and more as the years pass by and then when we look back to those years we see how God was leading us slowly and gently into the life he had planned for us from all eternity for our happiness a life long commitment. At times when we leave our native land, we may feel a bit lost but as we begin to get involved in life activities we do not forget our family and native land but we keep them always in our prayers, our dear and near ones. As the new place becomes part of our life, together we make one family, the near and the far. Life continues with its ups and downs, we live as we see, as we should do we should think. While we live, we may not see all the mistakes but later on when we look back we can see at times we were wrong. But through it all we were growing , we are living fully , later on we do not regret but we thank God because if we wait to learn everything and to begin to live we will miss much the good part of our life with out living, then how do we make up for what we do where we mistakes, it remains as a life experience for the future and we thank God for the missed chances in which we took our wrong doings to grow for the future. As the years pass by we begin to see and understand deeper and higher reality as God created every single human being uniquely loved by God and live in friendship with God: to become holy.

Lifelong commitment – once make a choice hold on to it to the end. Difficulties are sure to come, but those are not eternal but passing, as the clouds cover the sun, clouds will disappear and the sun will be visible so hold on to the end, only God is eternal. Once come to existence even for a second that a human being lives for all eternity.

A.A.C.T.H