અંતરાગ્નિ Antaragni: Ignatian Spirituality ,Gujarat: Sharing about spirituality in the context of India, especially in Gujarat. Indian spiritual traditions can contribute a lot to the search for meaning and deep experience of the Supreme being.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Sunday, February 2, 2014
Take my hand
A parable – Take My Hand 
January 18, 2014
One day Mulla Nasrudin saw a crowd gathered around a pond. The village miser had fallen in the water and was calling for help.
People were leaning over and saying, “Give me your hand! Give me your hand!” But he didn’t pay attention to their offer to rescue him; he kept wrestling with the water and shouting for help.
Finally Mulla Nasrudin stepped forward: “Let me handle this.” He stretched out his hand toward the miser and shouted at him, “Take my hand!”
The man grabbed Mulla’s hand and was hoisted out of the pond. People, very surprised, asked Mulla for the secret of his strategy.
“It is very simple,” he replied. “I know this miser wouldn’t give anything to anyone. So instead of saying ‘Give me your hand,’ I said, ‘take my hand,’ and sure enough he took it.”
- fwd: reuben tellis
Best poem
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Friday, January 24, 2014
World Communications Day 2014
MESSAGE OF POPE FRANCIS
FOR THE 48TH WORLD COMMUNICATIONS DAY
FOR THE 48TH WORLD COMMUNICATIONS DAY
Communication at the Service of an Authentic Culture of Encounter
[Sunday, 1 June 2014]
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Today we are living in a world which is growing ever “smaller” and where, as a result, it would seem to be easier for all of us to be neighbours. Developments in travel and communications technology are bringing us closer together and making us more connected, even as globalization makes us increasingly interdependent. Nonetheless, divisions, which are sometimes quite deep, continue to exist within our human family. On the global level we see a scandalous gap between the opulence of the wealthy and the utter destitution of the poor. Often we need only walk the streets of a city to see the contrast between people living on the street and the brilliant lights of the store windows. We have become so accustomed to these things that they no longer unsettle us. Our world suffers from many forms of exclusion, marginalization and poverty, to say nothing of conflicts born of a combination of economic, political, ideological, and, sadly, even religious motives.
In a world like this, media can help us to feel closer to one another, creating a sense of the unity of the human family which can in turn inspire solidarity and serious efforts to ensure a more dignified life for all. Good communication helps us to grow closer, to know one another better, and ultimately, to grow in unity. The walls which divide us can be broken down only if we are prepared to listen and learn from one another. We need to resolve our differences through forms of dialogue which help us grow in understanding and mutual respect. A culture of encounter demands that we be ready not only to give, but also to receive. Media can help us greatly in this, especially nowadays, when the networks of human communication have made unprecedented advances. The internet, in particular, offers immense possibilities for encounter and solidarity. This is something truly good, a gift from God.
This is not to say that certain problems do not exist. The speed with which information is communicated exceeds our capacity for reflection and judgement, and this does not make for more balanced and proper forms of self-expression. The variety of opinions being aired can be seen as helpful, but it also enables people to barricade themselves behind sources of information which only confirm their own wishes and ideas, or political and economic interests. The world of communications can help us either to expand our knowledge or to lose our bearings. The desire for digital connectivity can have the effect of isolating us from our neighbours, from those closest to us. We should not overlook the fact that those who for whatever reason lack access to social media run the risk of being left behind.
While these drawbacks are real, they do not justify rejecting social media; rather, they remind us that communication is ultimately a human rather than technological achievement. What is it, then, that helps us, in the digital environment, to grow in humanity and mutual understanding? We need, for example, to recover a certain sense of deliberateness and calm. This calls for time and the ability to be silent and to listen. We need also to be patient if we want to understand those who are different from us. People only express themselves fully when they are not merely tolerated, but know that they are truly accepted. If we are genuinely attentive in listening to others, we will learn to look at the world with different eyes and come to appreciate the richness of human experience as manifested in different cultures and traditions. We will also learn to appreciate more fully the important values inspired by Christianity, such as the vision of the human person, the nature of marriage and the family, the proper distinction between the religious and political spheres, the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity, and many others.
How, then, can communication be at the service of an authentic culture of encounter? What does it mean for us, as disciples of the Lord, to encounter others in the light of the Gospel? In spite of our own limitations and sinfulness, how do we draw truly close to one another? These questions are summed up in what a scribe – a communicator – once asked Jesus: “And who is my neighbour?” (Lk 10:29). This question can help us to see communication in terms of “neighbourliness”. We might paraphrase the question in this way: How can we be “neighbourly” in our use of the communications media and in the new environment created by digital technology? I find an answer in the parable of the Good Samaritan, which is also a parable about communication. Those who communicate, in effect, become neighbours. The Good Samaritan not only draws nearer to the man he finds half dead on the side of the road; he takes responsibility for him. Jesus shifts our understanding: it is not just about seeing the other as someone like myself, but of the ability to make myself like the other. Communication is really about realizing that we are all human beings, children of God. I like seeing this power of communication as “neighbourliness”.
Whenever communication is primarily aimed at promoting consumption or manipulating others, we are dealing with a form of violent aggression like that suffered by the man in the parable, who was beaten by robbers and left abandoned on the road. The Levite and the priest do not regard him as a neighbour, but as a stranger to be kept at a distance. In those days, it was rules of ritual purity which conditioned their response. Nowadays there is a danger that certain media so condition our responses that we fail to see our real neighbour.
It is not enough to be passersby on the digital highways, simply “connected”; connections need to grow into true encounters. We cannot live apart, closed in on ourselves. We need to love and to be loved. We need tenderness. Media strategies do not ensure beauty, goodness and truth in communication. The world of media also has to be concerned with humanity, it too is called to show tenderness. The digital world can be an environment rich in humanity; a network not of wires but of people. The impartiality of media is merely an appearance; only those who go out of themselves in their communication can become a true point of reference for others. Personal engagement is the basis of the trustworthiness of a communicator. Christian witness, thanks to the internet, can thereby reach the peripheries of human existence.
As I have frequently observed, if a choice has to be made between a bruised Church which goes out to the streets and a Church suffering from self-absorption, I certainly prefer the first. Those “streets” are the world where people live and where they can be reached, both effectively and affectively. The digital highway is one of them, a street teeming with people who are often hurting, men and women looking for salvation or hope. By means of the internet, the Christian message can reach “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Keeping the doors of our churches open also means keeping them open in the digital environment so that people, whatever their situation in life, can enter, and so that the Gospel can go out to reach everyone. We are called to show that the Church is the home of all. Are we capable of communicating the image of such a Church? Communication is a means of expressing the missionary vocation of the entire Church; today the social networks are one way to experience this call to discover the beauty of faith, the beauty of encountering Christ. In the area of communications too, we need a Church capable of bringing warmth and of stirring hearts.
Effective Christian witness is not about bombarding people with religious messages, but about our willingness to be available to others “by patiently and respectfully engaging their questions and their doubts as they advance in their search for the truth and the meaning of human existence” (BENEDICT XVI, Message for the 47th World Communications Day, 2013). We need but recall the story of the disciples on the way to Emmaus. We have to be able to dialogue with the men and women of today, to understand their expectations, doubts and hopes, and to bring them the Gospel, Jesus Christ himself, God incarnate, who died and rose to free us from sin and death. We are challenged to be people of depth, attentive to what is happening around us and spiritually alert. To dialogue means to believe that the “other” has something worthwhile to say, and to entertain his or her point of view and perspective. Engaging in dialogue does not mean renouncing our own ideas and traditions, but the claim that they alone are valid or absolute.
May the image of the Good Samaritan who tended to the wounds of the injured man by pouring oil and wine over them be our inspiration. Let our communication be a balm which relieves pain and a fine wine which gladdens hearts. May the light we bring to others not be the result of cosmetics or special effects, but rather of our being loving and merciful “neighbours” to those wounded and left on the side of the road. Let us boldly become citizens of the digital world. The Church needs to be concerned for, and present in, the world of communication, in order to dialogue with people today and to help them encounter Christ. She needs to be a Church at the side of others, capable of accompanying everyone along the way. The revolution taking place in communications media and in information technologies represents a great and thrilling challenge; may we respond to that challenge with fresh energy and imagination as we seek to share with others the beauty of God.
From the Vatican, 24 January 2014, the Memorial of Saint Francis de Sales.
FRANCIS
Sunday, January 19, 2014
Saturday, January 18, 2014
"The priests of scandals authors give the people a poisoned meal"
"The priests of scandals authors give the people a poisoned meal"
FATHER FRANCIS
The homily of Pope Francis in Santa Marta: "We are ashamed of those scandals, of those defeats of priests, bishops, laity?"
ANDREA TORNIELLI VATICAN CITY
"But we are ashamed? So many scandals that I do not want to mention individually, but all we know ... ". Francis Pope celebrates Mass in the Casa Santa Marta and returns to talk about the corruption in the Church. The scandals, said Bergoglio, occur because there is a living relationship with God and His Word. Thus, the priests 'corrupt' instead of giving the "bread of life", give a "poisoned meal" of God's people
The Pope, as we read from the report published by Vatican Radio , he commented on the reading of the day and where the responsorial psalm describes the defeat of the Israelites by the Philistines. At that time, said Francis, God's people had forsaken the Lord and it was said that the Word of God was "rare." The Israelites to fight the Philistines used the ark of the covenant, but as something "magical", "something external." So are defeated and the ark fell into the hands of their enemies. What is missing is the true faith in God, in His real presence in life.
"This passage of Scripture - the Pope said - makes us think about how our relationship with God, with the Word of God: it is a formal relationship? It is a relationship far? The Word of God enters into our hearts, change our hearts, has this power or not, is a formal relationship, okay? But the heart is closed to the Word! It leads us to think of so many defeats of the Church, so many defeats of God's people simply because they do not feel the Lord does not seek the Lord, seek the Lord shall not leave! And then after the tragedy, prayer, this: "But, Lord, what happened?'ve Made us the scorn of our neighbors. Ridicule and derision of those around us.'ve Made us a byword among the nations! On us the peoples shake their heads. '"
Francis then made an explicit reference to the scandals of the Church: "But we are ashamed? So many scandals that I do not want to mention individually, but all we know ... We know where they are! Scandals, some of which they charged a lot of money: right! You must do so .... The shame of the Church! But we're all ashamed of those scandals, of those defeats of priests, bishops, laity? The Word of God was rare in those scandals, in men and in women the Word of God was rare! They did not have a relationship with God! They had a position in the Church, a position of power, even of comfort. But the Word of God, no! "But, I wear a medal," "I carry the cross" ... Yes, as these bore the ark! Without the living relationship with God and the Word of God! I am reminded of the words of Jesus to those for which they are scandals ... And here came the scandal: a forfeiture of the entire people of God, to the weakness and corruption of the priests. "
Francis concluded his homily with a thought to the people of God: "Poor people! Poor people! We do not eat the bread of life, do not we feed - in those cases - the truth! And even we feed poisoned meal, many times! "Wake up, sleeper because Lord." Let this be our prayer! "Awake! Do not reject us forever, why do you hide your face, why forget our affliction and oppression?". We ask the Lord to never forget the Word of God, which is alive, that it enters into our hearts and never forget the holy faithful people of God who asks us strong meal. "
They are different and yet the headlines scandals mentioned Francis. From those related to child sexual abuse to the more strictly financial structures that have swept the men and church-related, as well as religious orders
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