Pilgrim progress- a disciple on a journey!

A popular quote we hear but may find hard to understand is the phrase “Beauty will save the world.” It was Fydor Dostoyevsky, the Russian novelist, who composed this enigmatic phrase. However, when has it ever happened in the course of history that beauty had saved anyone from anything? Indeed, beauty had provided embellishment or has uplifted but how will it save the world? In today’s world, t here is huge pressure on people to look perfect and beautiful. From plastic surgery to smoothing skin and erasing wrinkles to enlarging muscles and slimming waists, airbrushing, or "photoshopping,”, the bombardment does not do much for self-esteem. These images don’t reflect reality, yet from a younger and younger age, people are aspiring to these biologically impossible ideals, dangerously so. These are distortions of truth. If only people would realise that for 2000 years, God has been telling each one of us that we are beautiful in His eyes because we are created in the im...

This is my word for the moment – lavish! God’s love towards us is so lavish! He lavishes his love and grace upon us. The theme which runs through this Sunday’s liturgy is one of lavish abundance. The opposite of lavish is scarcity, insignificance, and stingy.  God does not scrimp with his love and his mercy. Just read this: “The Lord of Hosts will prepare for all peoples a banquet of rich food, a banquet of fine wines, of food rich and juicy, of fine strained wines” (First Reading) and then in the Psalm, “The Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want...you have prepared a banquet for me in the sight of my foes. My head you have anointed with oil; my cup is overflowing.” Then in the Second Reading, St. Paul reminds the Philippians that “My God will fulfil all your needs, in Christ Jesus, as lavishly as only God can.” God doesn’t just love; He lavishes us with love. God dispenses His goodness not with an eyedropper but a fire hydrant. Over the past three weeks ...

Here are the words which I shared with the people who joined with me on the 2nd of October 2014 to celebrate my 10 years of religious profession and to pray for vocations to the priesthood and the religious life. "Usually in religious life, we begin counting our ‘milestones’, so to speak, when we reach 25 years. However, as the years go on, we realise that life is precious and fragile and commitment to religious life, priesthood and marriage is to be celebrated as we support each other in our various vocations. This 10th anniversary is very meaningful for me as I remember also my Profession companion Sr.Gabriela from Poland, who would have been celebrating her 10th this week but the Lord had other plans and called her home to Himself in heaven last March at the young age of 33. As St. Theophane once said: "We are all flowers planted on this earth, which God plucks in his own good time, some a little sooner, some a little later." With some of my Dominicans friends...