From last few sundays, we were reminded about catholics mission statement- Love. Then we were reminded about the value of inter dependency, when we live- we cannot live along, we need another persons support. We love them and we experience their love towards us. This is what we experience in a happy life and it is earth bound. Similarly Catholicism has developed a beautiful process to identify spiritual friends,so we studied about how Holy Mary and saints can help us to relive our fear and sorrow.
(This is in accordance with god wish)Immediately after that we were reminded about purgatory, how practically we are going to remember our loved departed parents and friends, thru' our prayers and sacrifice to relive them to heaven. Till we die, we are not sure whether our loved ones are in heaven. So purgatory allows us to discipline ourself to carry out good activities such as prayers and charity on behalf of our loved departed friends,like our parents. This is a beautiful,ethical and practical training one can lead to identify the love of God. Catholic church officially canonized very few persons, whom Pope identified that they are in heaven with God for sure. For last 700 years only 4 popes have canonized in this way. Few canonized person to sainthood, does not mean that very few people go to heaven. It is setting an example for us to read the character of most heroic person, to be spiritual friends to our life, while we will not forget our beloved loved departed friends. ONLY CATHOLIC CHURCH IS HAVING A VERY GOOD PROCESS FOR CANONISATION, AND CONCEPT ABOUT PERGATORY, WHILE OUR DEPARTED OTHER CHRISTIAN DENOMINATION DOES NOT HAVE. Recently we heard canonization of John paul II and John XXIII, april 27 2014. We will further we will hear the canonization of Bl joseph vaz!.
A.2. Today, it will further allow us to contemplate more on how to develop our life with good values, avoiding 7 vices, to lead a happy life. Jesus remind us how much value a human being, and showed us that we should be careful of developing earth bound assets,without spiritual, the famous story of chasing all merchants near the temple.
Here Jesus is not showing us He is in anger. When you go thru' all the paragraph, you will notice
(1) Your body is not simple, it is created according to the God's image- wonderful temple- more than the physical major catholic Basilica of Latern
(2)You can enjoy your life by developing passionate commitments: ex Elija/nelson mandela. Catholic method of achieving that in 3 steps
(3)Unless you start wiping by your own effort to curb vices, your temple is going to be impure and lead you for a sorrow and fearful life. Importance of sacrifices
(4) Temple will be destroyed with death and in 3 steps(analogy days)it will be recovered ie death, purgatory and heaven, for those who follows the God's will.
LATERN BASILICA
It ranks above St Peter's.This palace has served as residence of popes around 1000 years. Between 4th& 16th centuries 5 ecumenical councils & 20 synods were held in this basilica. Since 12 th century this has been known as St John Latern, in honour of St John the Baptist. Outstanding relics (1)of St peter & St Paul,enclosed in silver busts(2) portable wooden altar which St Peter used (3)the sacred table of last suffer on which the Blessed EUCHARIST instituted by our Lord are placed here.
Physical temple has been symbolized by the Latern Basilica of Rome. The 1st of 4 Basilica in Rome!, which indicate the human is much more valuable and complex in nature than the basilica!.
B. Preamble for today's reading:
B.1 Your body
A. MAIN PARTS OF YOUR BODY
In short, human body main components can be Heart, Brain and Mind. You need basic element food(6 elements for humans/food,water,earth,air,
FUNCTION OF HEART
When you eat, the food will become blood and circulated through heart to you whole body for you to live.
FUNCTION OF BRAIN
Brain carry out orders from mind. Hence brain is the interface between mind and human body
FUNCTION OF MIND
Mind is the thought factory. You select a thought out of many thoughts file up in your mind, carry out action through your brain. Selection process is called your free will.
MIND and FREEWILL form THE SOUL.
GOD WILL NEVER INTERFERE WITH YOUR FREE WILL.
YOUR MIND WILL DECIDE WHAT IS TRUTH FOR YOU,WHILE YOUR FREE WILL DECIDE WHAT IS GOOD FOR YOU!
B.1.1 FURTHER ANALYSIS OF YOUR BODY TO STAY ALIVE
The function of the human body is to stay alive. What does the human machine need to stay alive? The important parts when we expand further are:
(1)Body
Brains,heart,hormones,genes,
(2)Mind
Consciousness,sensation and perceptions, including vision,hearing,taste,smell,
Thinking: which mange attending, remembering,forming concepts,problem solving,deciding and intelligence
Communicating including verbal and non verbal expressions such as body language,gestures,speech and language
Motivations
Emotions
(3)Personality
(4) Gender and sexuality
(5)Social skills and relationship skills
B.1.2 To treat human body, there are many doctors, reminding us about the complexity of the subject. One doctor cannot identify all the functionality of human body.
B.1.3 OBSERVING THE ROLE OF OUTSIDE WORLD
Brain's do not work and mind do not think in a vacuum. Behavior and mental processes are embodied within a context that includes other people and things in the environment in which people live. (Interdependent society)The social aspect of the human will depend upon Parent-child relationship, families, communities and culture. Technological advances make our world a smaller place and different cultures come into contact with each other more often than ever before, making a person's social life increasingly complex. Ex face book!
B.1.4 NATURE verses NURTURE debate
Consider a professional athletes, those elite performers who are lucky enough to get paid to play games for a living. How much luck do you think is really involved?. A common misconception about professional, elite athletes is that their natural raw talent accounts for their success. Yet anyone who has worked with or known one of these individuals will tell you that hard work has a lot to do with his subject.
SO WHICH IT IS? TALENT OR HARD WORK! NATURE Vs NURTURE. INBORN ABILITY Vs LEARNING and EFFORT.
Nature refers to the concept that behavior and mental processes are innate,inborn, and hard wired and will unload over time as a person develops and her genetic blue print is revealed. Nurture refers to the idea that behavior and mental processes are not inborn and instead are learned from the environment in which people live.
Both these perspectives have their proponents.
John locket, 17th century British Philosopher believed that given the right learning experiences, a person can become anything in life. On the other hand Charles Darwin, nature advocate, believed that a persons destiny is found in his biology and genes.
The simple answer is that both nature and nurture impact a person's Behavior and level of success.
PEOPLES CHARACTER ULTIMATELY DEPENDS UPON(1)RELATIVE CONTRIBUTION OF INNATE BIOLOGICAL INFLUENCES and (2)LEARNED ENVIROMENTAL INFLUENCES.
Only God knows the proportions!
There is another concept followed by most of church going catholics. They think, Holy spirit will provide all facilities, without striving hard to achieve the purpose by themselves. They exercise their Laziness,(major vice) for their own convenience to witness an unhappy life!.
B.1.6 MAIN ELEMENTS FOR THE BRAIN TO WORK !
86 billion neurons live in the human brain and form trillions of connections among themselves. BRAIN IS MASSIVE COLLECTION OF NODES IN A WELL CONNECTED NETWORK. How information is kept an process in the brain, remains the focus of incredible amount of Neuro science researches!. Still researching! Here the forming brain network is different from one person to another person. Their mind set what is truth depending upon this networking. Then they act what is good for them thru' their free will.
B.1.7 BRAIN CHANGES
Neuro plasticity: brain can change it's size and connections through out a persons life time. Hence brain neural networks and connections are continually reorganize and it is not fixed!. After 7 years the whole system becomes new. Depending upon your life pattern. God can influence this system to control our body!except the free will. This is how you can influence your friend through prayer via saints to God. God will change the wrong networking connection of your friend through various method allowing him to experience. All are resting on your friends his free will. If he is fully conditioned it will difficult even God to change but definitely God will safeguard His genuine followers!
B.2. BELIEVING IN A CREATOR!
Believing a Creator does not violate science. When we analyze human body, it is clear, that it is an intelligent design. This cannot come from nothing on it's own!.Only from a Supreme Being who is not confined to TIME and SPACE can create something out of nothing.
B.3 GOD'S PATH
God gave us an intellect to seek the truth- be it scientific, philosophic, or theological truth. FAITH and RESONS are not competing forces but two sides of the same coin. When modern man realizes that he needs both natural(earth bound) and a spiritual wisdom, and earthly knowledge is not contradicted by spiritual knowledge, then he is on the road of the fulfillment!.
B.1 Vices:
You can easily follow Christian principles. Catholic means universal. That means it can be applied any where in this globe without any difficulty, whether it is a cold country or hot!. The major laws to follow is given below. (You will see these laws does not interact with food, what you should eat. There are no restrictions on food, clearly shows the application is universal!).
(1)Follow 10 commandments with pardoning
(2)Have a peaceful mind without anger
(3)Hand over your fear and sorrow to Mary and saints- if anybody ask you to carry 1 mile carry 2 miles happily, with the intention(a)if it is coming from Bully(satan),request to correct your friend(b)if the instruction coming from God,allow you to correct yourself(c)don't argue with your friend and always don't keep any resentment out of that action).
(4)Convert your talents to energy
Once you follow the above rules, you are going to convert PEACEFUL MIND TO WORRY FREE MIND. Without your knowledge you will develop vices, vices are the analogy of market of your life, jesus showed the importance of wiping out these vices.
7 vices
Out of 7, 2 vices namely anger and laziness are major, where you cannot practice catholism for a peaceful life! NOW YOU ARE ELLIGIBLE FOR HEAVEN.
Even with peaceful mind you can develop the following 5 vices! They are sloth,lust. envy, gluttony. This is equivalent to market place around the temple which leads you to purgatory!. For this kind of person(most of us)God said he will re establish total happiness in heaven thru' 3 steps.
DEATH,PURGETORY, HEAVEN!
Pride; it is too great an admiration of oneself. Pride has 7 evil consequences: boasting, love for publicity, hypocrisy, hard head ness,discord,quarreling and dis obedience. When all these 7 evil inclination grow in our dealing with God and neighbor,THE DEVIL BALLOONS OUR PRIDE TO MAKE US LOSE EVANTUALLY TO OUR OWN EGOISM.
Avarice: is lead us to be greedy,and ends up with fraud,perjury,dishonesty,
Envy; envy start demanding,"WHY SHOULD NOT I HAVE EVERY THING THAT OTHERS HAVE?". We are envious of another's goods and jealous of our own. DEEPLY ROUTED JEALOUSY CAN LEAD TO LOSE HEALTH BOTH PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL. Paul says Love is not jealous or envious.
Lust; It is a dis orientated love that seeks not the other but personal individualistic pleasure and satisfaction in everything we do. Lust excludes all personal consideration for the sake of sen sate experience. Lust leads to exploitation of oneself and others or things for our own glory, satisfaction and pleasure.
The pleasure seeking attitude in life cannot help us to partners with God. The desire for pleasure is good thing in life. Life would be sap less without it. What is dangerous is inordinate craving for it. Jesus advocate a life that is simple. He is conscious of the dangers of riches and money.
Gluttony:
This flows from the dis orderly animal appetite, the obsession with food and drink to the point of living to eat, rather than eating to live.
C. Today's readings
Paul & Prop: Ezekiel reminds that your happy life to be built according to Catholism.
Jn2: 13-22says".. before Jews passover..He found people selling cattle..Making a wip..drove them ..Destroy..3days..raise it up"reminds:
#Your wonderful body(86 Billion Neurons with Trillion of connections-Brain) is created to image of God(Temple)
#Vices will make your temple impure/Unless you wipe Vices by sacrifices you face sorrow and fear
Once Temple is destroyed,in3 steps,it is recovered. ie *Death,*Purgatory& *Heaven.
Last sunday we reflected about Purgatory. It will help living to remember their loved departed friends by carrying out charity and sacrifices, other than the main purpose of purgatory!
In addition to the main 3 steps to Jesus was showing about rebuiding our body with death,purgatory and heaven, there are another sub 3 steps that we should follow to seek full joy of the living, the purpose of our life: they are
(1) Follow the basic principles that has being given by Jesus with carefully avoiding Anger and laziness. You are having a peaceful mind
(2) Hand over your worries to saints, have a worry free mind
(3)Avoid other 5 vices: to lead a passionate life
D. Conclusions:
Elija
Elija told the non-believers, he would prove that there is only one God by asking God to rain down fire from heaven to consume his sacrifice. He said"IF GOD DOES NOT HONOR MY PRAYER, THEN YOUR GODs ARE REAL and YOU CAN KILL ME.". He cut up his sacrifice into many pieces and laid it out on the altar. He then poured water over it to eliminate any doubt as to the source of the fire. Then surrounded by hordes of his potential executioners he called to the heavens" OKAY GOD, PROVE WHAT YOU SAID". Fire immediately came and consumed the sacrifice right before their startled eyes. This is COMMITTED LEADERSHIP.
NELSON MANDELA
Nelson Mandela did not become a leader for BLACK FREEDOM,because he was handsome and charismatic. He forged his influence across world by making time in JAIL and walking down lonely roads. More than 20yrs he sat in prison,refusing to compromise his commitment to FREEDOM-because he believed it was not just an issue for himself,but for all people.
Catholism lead you to enjoy your present life with passionate commitment. It clearly gives 3 stage path
(1) attain a peaceful mind
(2)lead a worry free life
(3) enjoy your life according to your passion!
Today we are reminded with dedication of Latern Basilica, inturn you are reminded actions and words of Jesus to a passion able(enjoyable) life more than the Basilica!
GBU
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