Bible
Study: Acts 22, 3 to 16 and Mark 16, 15 to 18.
Today we
celebrate the fact that God looked around all the men living in the world and
decided to give a second chance to the very man who was all out to destroy
Christianity. The same man who went about from house to house dragging
Christians to jail, the same man who supervised the stoning of the first
Christian martyr, Stephen, the same man whose zeal for the destruction of
Christians would put him on a missionary journey with letter of permission,
became the greatest missionary to promote the Christian Faith. That is God for
you.
The beauty
of St. Paul’s conversion was that the moment he rose from his feet, he never
went back to his former ways. From that day, he saw himself as a completely
different person. According to St. Peter, if we repent, there should be no
going back otherwise, we become worse for it. 2nd Peter 2, 20 to 22 states:
“For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the
knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in
them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first.
For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of
righteousness than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment
that was passed on to them. It has happened to them according to the true
proverb, "The dog turns back to its own vomit," and, "The sow is
washed only to wallow in the mud.”
May we
never return to our vomits in Jesus Name! As some people would say, no matter
how you wash a pig, it will look for mud again. My thinking is that the kind of
washing a pig requires is not the washing of the outer skin but the washing of
the heart, the washing of that which makes the pig love mud. This is what true
repentance means. It means changing your heart, changing the things that give
you joy, changing the things you love and desire even in secret. Repentance is
changing the things that make you love to dance in the mud, changing your
belief in yourself, it is telling yourself that you can do without sin, that
you will not die if you let go of those past behaviours.
When Saul
fell to the ground, he heard the voice of Christ saying: “Saul, Saul, why do
you persecute me?” Let us always remember that when we face persecution for the
sake of our faith, Jesus Christ himself shares in our pain. We do not even need
to cry because Jesus himself feels our sorrow. When we are dragged off, lied
upon, insulted or given names, it is Jesus himself who is dragged, it is Jesus
who is insulted. And he has said to us, “If they have called the master of the
house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household! So have
no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and
nothing secret that will not become known.” Matthew 10, 25 to 26.
On the
other hand, just as Jesus feels our pain when we are persecuted, he also feels
it when we who carry his name on our lips disappoint him by sin. He is always
with us! We can never hide anything from him. Conscious of his presence in us,
we would not only stay away from sin, we would make use of His Power working
through us. As Jesus told us in today’s Gospel passage, “And these signs will
accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they
will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they
drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the
sick, and they will recover.” Mark 16, 17 to 18.
As far as
you repent today, your past does not matter anymore. Once you drop the old
ways, do not go back again. Invite Jesus into your heart and believe in his
presence with you always, believe you have the power to overcome sin, the power
even to raise back to life those aspects that were dead as a result of bad
habits.
Let us
Pray: Lord Jesus, give me the grace of total repentance today. Amen.
Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith.
It is well with you. God bless you.
Fr. Abu.
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