High lights
(1) The two major celebration of Christian are Christmas and Easter sunday. Why Christmas date is fixed as 25th dec and date of Ester is always varies?
(2)Why John the Baptist in jn. Says, He must decrease and Jesus must increase?
(3) What are the major slogans of Christianity? How it is connected to your life.
(4)What is the basic difference between old and new testaments?
(5)What is the relevance of baptism to your life
Pl spare 8 minutes to listen to this:
http://www.sinhalagospel.lk/su
Reflection for 4th december 2016, celebrating 2nd Sunday mass of advent season,of cycle 1. inviting us to analyze
(1) What are the very basic characteristic that you can observe from a catholic? Or what is the bottom line of catholic?
1.Are you a catholic?: in order to understand who are you, let us analyze what is catholic perspective!
Perspective is the way you see something.
As a catholic you will see-4 major points:
(1)a daily commitment to embrace the Will of God-what ever it is & where ever it leads
(2)it means corporation with God,with yourself. God offers His divine grace(thru'7sacraments)& the catholic must accept it & then corporate with it
(3)Free Will is sacred. God never forces you against your free will. Yet doing evil is not hurts you only,but it hurts others too, because you are never alone. Your part of Spiritual family-Church.
(4)More than a place to go on sunday mass to worship,church is the mother who feeds,spiritually shares doctrine,heals & comforts & discipline when needed.
For that
You,as Catholic
(a)believe that BIBLE is inspired,error free & revealed word of God
(B)BAPTISM-rite of becoming Catholic
(c)10 comms-Morality-ethical standard to live
(d)Trinity-1God in 3 persons.(Father/Son/Holy Spirit),different to other monotheistic religions.
2. Now let us analyze, How God revealed Himself to you, to reestablished the full freedom to you.
In doing so, HE
(1) trained Israelis thru prophets, how to follow HIS will directly instructing them: since HE was direct, 10 commandments were practiced with eye to eye Principle, this era ends with John the Baptist.
(2)HE practically showed how to manage human free Will, in isolation of God, by the life of Jesus, this too, God has shown
Only to Jews. Jesus shown that HE is son of God, by HIS resurrection and showed that we have only 1 life (no rebirth since Jesus did not risen from death as a baby)
(3) Holy Spirit form the Church for the whole world(not only for Jews),with no restriction of eating pork, no circumcision, formulate 7 sacraments, to receive God grace, if you wish.
3. Let's analyze today's readings:
Isaiah 11:1-10 says " God judges the wretched, not but appearance but with same integrity".
Paul says to Romans(Rm 15:4-9) says: Christ is the savior of All but not only circumcised jews.
Mt3:1-12 says"Repent for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand".
Let us reflect How you can give birth in your life to Jesus?
Church has beautifully organized. 2 major themes, following the major seasons: for us, as humans to lead our life meaningfully.
(1) Christ is light
(2) Christ is life.
Let us analyze, why Christmas is always 25 th december while Ester sunday date varies.
And how it is connected to major themes:
For that we have to think about what is Catholic Seasons
Seasons of a year are directly connected to both
(A) solstice{Occur either of 2 times in year,summer &winter,when sun reaches its highest or lowest point in sky at noon,marked by longest jun21& shortest days dec 21}&
(B)equinoxes {time when sun crosses plane of earth's equator, making night &day equal all over earth on March 21&sept22(vernal &autumnal equinox)}.
Back ground of selecting Christmas and Ester dates!
Dec 21st has been shifted to dec 25th with Gregorian calendar for CHRISTMAS,while Easter sunday is 1st sunday after full moon day after mar 21st(vernal equinox):Easter float every calendar year,similar to Jewish pass over.
Why dec 25th for Christmas?
There are 2 major reasons:
From Christmas,light began to increase, reminding you that Jesus is THE LIGHT OF WORLD(Jn8:12)theme of 1st 1/2 of year -up to baptism.
jn3:30 says John decrease & Jesus increase.B'day of Jn is on 24/6,shortly after 21/6,when day light begin decreasing.
Lent,Easter, Ascention,pentacost,form theme of next half of year CHRIST OUR LIFE.
Some times you might get confused,about the relevance of old testament to new testament.
What is the difference between old testament to new testament?
This sunday, it highlights, the difference between old and new testaments. It is similar to a child who is brought up by parents then once he become adult, he will stand alone!. During old testament time God brought up human from direct commands and once introduce Jesus, human race was given full freedom to use their free will to reach happiness,similar to an adult,who tries to lead a happy life.
Single to Triune God concept was the basic to be introduced.
Finally we analyse what is the relavance of Baptism to 2nd coming of Christ to you!
2nd COMING OF CHRIST AND JESUS METHOD OF SPIRITUAL BAPTISM.
Jesus message born in your life will be the 2nd coming of christ to you. We know at christmas Jesus came to this world. But how this occasion is affected to you. Jesus has to be reborn in your life.
Thru' physical baptism you become name sake catholic. Once you practice the Jesus theories you realize your happiness to be spiritually achieved thu' value of baptism. How do we know these things are being practiced in my life?. If we are having any one of 7 vices (Anger, sloth, pride, avarice, gluttony,lust,envy),Jesus has not born in your life. Sometimes we stay prior to Jesus era, without our knowledge,resulting without having a happy mind!.
Every moment of Baptized catholic will be monitored by God, and HE knows whether the baptized catholic actions and thinking are honest or not. When you follow God's will, by achieving happy mind, you will face less fear and sorrows even in this life.
In Conclusions:
All readings clearly shows that there is a change in to the human life from Christ,. Before to Christ, God trained us how to lead a happy life with using our own free will and getting the direction of God'S will spiritually. Now there are no prophets to tell about future, no angels physically says what to do. You should be aware as to how to achieve Happiness (this world and eternal).
Only exceptions are miracles and apparitions that we receive from time to time,from Mary and other saints.
Hence development of awareness is of paramount important. That is why John the baptist says" I baptized you with water but jesus baptize you with spirit". By mere baptism, you are not going to lead a happy life. For that you need to be aware of basic factors of catholicism and how to practice it.
Thank you!
GBU
For more pl visit:
http://weeklycatholicreflectio
http://www.sundayreading.net/
Or
http://holymaryreflection.blog
